The Numbers Stations Analyzed, Discussed

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.

Comments

Re:1258965

[wurp]

Unless my crappy college german is much mistaken, "There is" is "Es gibt" in german, not "Da ist".

Of course, often the very charm of "Tengo gato loco in mis pantalones" style sayings is the wrongness of them, but I still can't resist pointing it out...

Time Bomb.

[headkase]

In ten years someone who has been recording them for thirty years will have quantum breakers to decode them with. Once this first layer of protection is broken - and it will be - then I hope our information inside of that is also semantically encoded (Windtalkers) to give it a few more years after that before someone else knows our old secrets.