VoIP Numbers Stations were Social Experiment

IO ERROR writes "The mysterious phone number stations appearing on Craigslist for the last three months, which resembled their shortwave radio cousins, and which Slashdot reported on in June, were an experiment devised by security researcher Strom Carlson and a group of Los Angeles hackers to determine if encrypted messages could be passed using unwitting third parties to foil traffic analysis by hostile intelligence agencies. Carlson and the hackers presented their findings at DEFCON earlier today and gave away CDs with "Make your own Mein Fraulein station" kits and posted one final number station for people to try to decrypt."

Comments

Re:One Time Pads

[QuantumFTL]

A sound implementation of a OTP is a formidable foe.

OTP has two huge problems associated with it, despite the mathematics being sound (assuming you have good random numbers):

1. Key distribution - do you like sending long messages? You'll need a key that's at least as long as the compressed message, and that distribution system must be absolutely secure. Also you'll need to make sure no one ever has a chance to access your key before or after the message is sent, otherwise you're screwed.
2. Overconfidence - Congratulations, if you've done it correctly you have 100% secure communications channel. The endpoints, however, are not protected by this mathematics, and are succeptable to everything from hidden bugs to software hacking or even "rubber hose" cryptoanalysis.