Slashdot Mirror

GMontag wrote to mention a Washington Post article about the always-intriguing 'number' radio broadcasts. The numbers stations, as they are known, are 'hiding in plain sight' spycraft. Random digits broadcast at little-used frequencies are known to be intelligence agencies broadcasting their secrets in encrypted form. The Post article gives a nice run-down on the truth behind the transmissions, and touches a bit on the odd community that has grown fascinated by them. From the article: "On 6840 kHz, you may hear a voice reading groups of letters. That's a station nicknamed 'E10,' thought to be Israel's Mossad intelligence. Chris Smolinski runs SpyNumbers.com and the 'Spooks' e-mail list, where 'number stations' hobbyists log hundreds of shortwave messages transmitted every month. 'It's like a puzzle. They're mystery stations,' explained Smolinski, who has tracked the spy broadcasts for 30 years." This article made me recall a great All Things Considered story from a few years back about Akin Fernandez's 'Numbers' CD, a CD compilation of some of the most interesting strings of randomly read numbers reaching out across the airwaves.

IO ERROR writes "For decades, intelligence agencies have been sending secret messages to their agents in the field using shortwave numbers stations broadcasting encrypted messages for all to hear and puzzle over. Now someone is putting numbers stations on VoIP telephone numbers for anyone to call, and posting messages to Craigslist to alert the recipients to the existence of their messages. One of them went up last month and now a second one has appeared. Will there be a third? Who's behind them? And can you crack the code?"