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The hidden world in short-wave.
I was interviewed a few weeks back for my website priyom.org [Javascript recommended] which is a community that tracks and logs Numbers Station and military radio stations from all over the world.
The article on The Daily Beast can be found here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/06/the-stupidly-simple-spy-messages-no-computer-could-decode.html
When I was 10 years old, I found a shortwave radio in a crumbling old leather trunk where we kept family photos and other memorabilia. As I spun the dial, tinny, modulating noises, like the song of an electronic slide whistle, emanated from the radio's small speaker. Staticky cracks and pops competed for airtime. The sounds swished and swirled, unintelligible and unremarkable. But then, emerging through the clamor, was a voice.
I might have run right over it with the dial, but the voice's rhythmic, steady pacing caught me up short. It wasn't a deejay. Nor a commercial. And he wasn't singing. He was just speaking. The same line, over and over again.
"7...6...7...4...3." Pause. "7...6...7...4...3."
I don't remember if those were the exact numbers. But they were numbers. A repeated sequence which had no obvious meaning, and was entirely devoid of context. To find him here, amidst the screeches and howls of the shortwave frequencies, was like coming upon a man standing in the middle of a forest, talking out loud to no one.
How long had he been here? Who was he talking to? He had that officious tone of the recorded telephone operators who chastised you for dialing a wrong number. "Please hang up, check the number, and dial again." And the same distracting static I'd heard in those messages filled the background. I wasn't sure if he was speaking live, or if he'd been recorded and set loose to play into the air.
It's well-written and a good introduction into the world of number stations and short-wave. I think the Soylent community will enjoy the article, maybe prompt some of you to dig a radio out of your attic and have a listen. Alternatively, you can listen to some stations online. Different stations broadcast at different times; check out the listings on the station schedule page (Javascript required).
Some other resources to check out on the scene:
Enigma 2000 group http://www.brogers.dsl.pipex.com/enigma2000
Simon Mason's website http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/
[Ed. addition.] These stations apparently depend on previously-distributed one-time pads:
In cryptography, the one-time pad is an encryption technique that cannot be cracked if used correctly. In this technique, a plaintext is paired with a random secret key. Then, each bit or character of the plaintext is encrypted by combining it with the corresponding bit or character from the pad using modular addition.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @01:52AM
Since it's just a string of numbers, you can't tell what the meaning or intent is.
It's nice to believe that they are spy stations, but it could just as easily be a ham with a
sadistic streak.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29 2016, @03:22AM
We've triangulated the source of such number stations... Mostly they're not registered as any commercial frequency, making the fact that they're stationary and illegal, yet continue to broadcast for years imply that they're government stations. Sometimes the government denies the sites exist, implying such stations are spy stations.
Personally, I think Numbers Stations are a form of Modern Art. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Friday April 29 2016, @09:08AM
Oh we get plenty of that.
The community is big enough to have its own trolls.
First example of digital graffiti can be seen here: http://uvb-76.net/2010/09/probably-first-ever-in-history-graffiti.html [uvb-76.net]
I can't seem to access the image for that here at work, not sure if blocked or 404. If the image is not available, what it shows is an SDR image that..
Wait, SDR. Software defined radio. The software does the demodulation of the signal and you can see a range. E.g. 196 Khz on a cheap SDR (Sound card hearing range).
This can be output as an image, so you can see the wave forms of the radiostations. A Russian ham used his equipment to draw the letters XYN (Cyrillic) which means "Dick".
When the Ukraine invasion kicked off a few years back, we had an idea something was going on about 4 hours before the troops moved due to a new station that popped up.
Some HAM who was following us decided to broadcast over it, ending the transmission from the station with the theme tune to Policy Academy 4: Mission to Moscow.
Yes, we get trolled. Not much, but it happens.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956