In an age when computers and theInternetrule communicating , it could be that erstwhile - fashioned radio are the true tool of the New World Order . That ’s because if you desire to cooperate with other governments to oppress the Mass , it ’s best not to leave a digitized trail – you never know when anEdward Snowdenmight unravel your cabal . So instead , you ’d send indecipherable point of your fiendish plots vianumbers post .
Since World War II , so - called number station have been transmitting coded messages via shortwave radio feeler . These transmissions are eery and unearthly to everyday listeners , nonsensical and baffle to cryptographers … and to the good set of capitulum , may turn back selective information that transfer the course of history .
But lease ’s not get onwards of ourselves . At their most basic , numbers stations are simply shortwave radio transmitters , generally operating between 3,000 and 30,000 kilohertz . They ’re located in many , many countries , but no one knows just how numerous they are . They often transmit strings of numbers or number intoned by a computerized - sounding voice . Others send broadcasts viaMorse codeor they just emit various types of noise .
Some post have been beam their signals for decades , and hit their elevation during the Cold War . Many have hold out quiet since the Berlin Wall pass . Untold others continue fill the airwaves – yet for what purpose , few know . And those that do know ? They are n’t talking .
You could stress backtrack through a paper track to see who operates numbers station . But unlike most transmitters , they are n’t licensed to broadcast , so you wo n’t find any record of them in governing documents .
They are essentiallypirate stations(meaning they operate unlicensed and illegally ) but no government agency shuts them down . That ’s because the government activity most likely control them . Of course , no system or government formally accepts responsibility for number place . They are strictly off the record .
A lot of journalist have tried to untangle the mystery of numbers stations . They ’ve found enough information that we can safely guess the purpose of these sender : espionage .
Keep read and you ’ll see why old - school numbers station might be the great undercover agent putz ever , even in the eld of the Internet and orbiter telephone .
Skipping Across the Sky
Shortwave radio is sure-enough technology . In the former 1920s it became a popular way to transmit over long distances , thanks in large part due to itspropagationtraits .
Shortwave radiocommunication get-up-and-go is determined by the power of the transmitter . The bighearted and more powerful the transmitter , the far the signal travel . The physical science of shortwave energy helper , too , because it bounces off of the Earth’sionosphere .
Theionosphereis a region of infinite about 50 to 370 mi ( 80 to 595 km ) above the Earth ’s surface . It ’s an country of the upper standard atmosphere ( orthermosphere ) in which solar ionization take place , have an electric guardianship . This charge reflects shortwave radio signals and bounces them back down to the terra firma , and in doing so , greatly increase the distance that the sign change of location . This is calledskip , or more fancily , skywave .
With a caliber handheld radio , a individual can tune into a strong shortwave signaling from the other side of the planet . That ’s a utilitarian machine characteristic for all sort of communications purposes , and as it turns out , it ’s also groovy for spying .
If you ’re the top dog of an intelligence activity way in the United States and you postulate to broadcast a clandestine subject matter all the way to an embedded undercover agent in an area of conflict like Iraq , shortwave messages might be the best method . exponent up an extra - powerful transmitter , broadcast your befool subject matter at a predetermined time and frequency , and your factor abroad will straightaway screw whether to keep pretending to be a man of affairs or to assassinate a political foe .
And because shortwave radios are so common , the engineering does n’t take up suspicion . An factor who is apprehended with aradiohas plausible deniability on his side , whereas carrying specialised electronic computer equipment and cryptography software is a crimson flag that could result in imprisonment … or worse .
Shortwave is also resistant to oppression . In time of strife , authority can literally switch off a country ’s Internet access or kill the top executive to communications artificial satellite . They ca n’t stop every shortwave transmission .
What ’s more , computerized substance , even those created with purportedly break up - proof encryption , can finally be traced and broken . In bleak dividing line , no one can trace who is take in shortwave radio substance . Often , it ’s hard work even finding the powerful transmitter .
Because shortwave broadcasts are so easy to tune into , anyone with a trashy radio can listen in by finding the proper frequency . That includes you . Many frequencies are listed at various web sites likeSpyNumbers .
What you ’ll get a line varies by station . Some stations broadcast continually . Others rebound to life at schedule times . Most keep strict schedules so that agent know when to tune in to the right frequence . On the next pageboy you ’ll see more about what , exactly , numeral stations are post through the airwaves .
Secrets in Sequence
The program you ’ll hear on numbers stations vary . They generally begin with an alert signal of sorts at the top or bottom of the hour . This alert may be a uncomplicated tone , or it can be fragments of vocal , such as with the famous Lincolnshire Poacher post , which begin program by playing several bar from the well - know tune of the same name . This indicates to listeners that a substance is about to begin and also helps the user air his or her radio for the good reception .
What follow the opening chorus is usually a bent of spokennumbersor letters , often four or five at a fourth dimension , which are repeated again and again , before move on to a new readiness . Depending on the station ’s origin , the code may be spoken in English , Korean , Czech , Spanish or other language .
There are a lot of variations on the same structure . Many stations have received colourful nickname that reflect some defining characteristic of the station . For instance , one is call in Swedish Rhapsody because it begins with a sherd of that song . Other well - known station include The Buzzer , Cherry Ripe , The Spanish Lady , Atencion and Yosemite Sam .
Sometimes broadcasts number in loud and clear . Sometimesatmosphericconditions take down the sign . And sometimes , intentionaljammingon the part of opposition countries creates enough interference on the same frequency that it renders the transmittance difficult or impossible to sympathize .
The write in code social organization of the message almost sure enough indicates that these substance are secret and mean for spies quash espial . The question , then , is how do spies understand the latent message when no one else can ?
The way in which these bizarre broadcasts are encoded is the linchpin of an unbreakable encryption organisation . Keep reading to see how these codification influence .
Unbreakable One-time Pads
Enigmatic and inscrutable telephone number stations broadcast are uncanny to the stage of being spine - prickling . What makes them perhaps even more compelling is that they ’re still in utilization , 10 after the world wars that activate their rise . They ’ve survived the communications revolutions because unlike so much digitise code , these transmissions are unbreakable .
You may flout at the idea . If code generated bysupercomputerscan behacked , what ’s so gruelling about decipher a few numbers ? It is hard . in reality , it ’s nearly insufferable . Done properly , no one will understand the message but the intend recipient .
It bring because of theone - time padconcept . In this system of rules , both the transmitter and pass catcher have a individual transcript of paper ( or other media ) filled with random finger or numbers . Using a tonality that corresponds to the launchpad , the recipient can calculate out what letters the incoming fibre or digits put up for .
Crucially , each key is used only once , thus the name one - meter launching pad . Both the sender and receiving system right away destroy the samara at the terminal of the broadcast , meaning that even if someone else wiretap the serial publication of figure , they ’ll have no style to decrypt the hidden message .
This also means that there ’s no relationship between past or succeeding messages , so there ’s no pattern for cryptographers to use in breaking the computer code . Each newfangled key and message are randomly generated , and done in good order , the organisation is the only elbow room to absolutely encrypt a infection .
To fool the ingenuity of the better cryptographers , however , the key and content must be in truth random . And as it turns out , create really random sequence is challenging , even for computers . Sans pure randomization , there may be a pattern for expert to detect , and they can crack at least part of the message . Sadly for codebreakers , because of the one - clock time pad concept , their hard work wo n’t avail them decode future messages .
To make things more bedevil , stations may send off mostly dummy program that think nothing at all . This forces adversaries to expend far more resources attempting to enter out which messages are real and which are phony .
Once in a while the program are less than professional . The soul reading the code may make mistakes , or there could be laughing in the background . Cuban numbers stations in particular are roll in the hay for their hilarious missteps – sometimes they have such poor transmission system that they ’re inconceivable to try , or they accidentally pipe music from Radio Havana onto the air .
The Secret Key
In the one - sentence pad arrangement , the cay is of utmost importance . If the wrong multitude get their dingy hand on a key , they could potentially figure out which broadcast to supervise and then use the winder to decrypt a subject matter that was meant to be used against them .
This also have in mind that the key presents a great risk tospies . If they ’re caught with a sail of paper cover in random number that look like a secret codification , they are likely to have a very , very big clock time in the hands of the authorities . Thus , cay may be print on flyspeck sheets of paper that are easy hidden in obscure workaday point . In the event of discovery , they ’re also well eaten , fructify on fire or discarded .
Those variety of extremes are probably best forHollywood , though . These day , it ’s more likely that the key would be sent via some sort of digital service or machine without conjure much distrust .
Furthermore , it ’s probable that most spy would employ more mod means of communication , if only for their expedience . But evaluate from the fact that governance still pay to hold numbers Stations of the Cross , there are great deal of uses for their strange , monotonic messages .
A few stations may have illegitimate uses . One theory infer that drug smugglers and other criminals employ this system to surround international authorities . This is especially straight in the U.S. , where many intercepted sign are broadcast in Spanish . The consistent sloppiness of these particular transmissions is a hint that they are lacking regime oversight and execution .
But the right bet is the most obvious – numbers stations are still mostly used for the purposes of espionage . There are some very public and recent instance as evidence .
In 2001 , Ana Montes , who worked for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency , was contain and convicted of snoop for Cuba . Investigators searched her home plate and bump a shortwave wireless , along with a computer code sheet that was used to encrypt radio transmissions .
In 2011 , German self-confidence arrested Andreas and Heidrun Anschlag for being Russian spies . The matrimonial couple move to Germany in 1988 , just before the fall of the Berlin Wall , and remained undercover there until their catch . When sureness burst into their home , Heidrun was in the middle of receive a shortwave transmission system .
Some experts were throw by the fact that these spy were bank on such antediluvian equipment in the days of satellite and email . Their continued existence , though , is cogent evidence that they ’re in force .
The Conet Project
Numbers station have mostly verbalise their transcendental messages in obscurity . Save for a few intermittent tidings newspaper headline and the 2013 John Cusack film , " The Numbers Station , " pop cultivation has n’t really attached manyconspiracy theoriesto these unusual transmission .
In 1997 , Irdial Discs released " The Conet Project , " which was a four - cadmium compiling of numbers stations recordings , along with an all-encompassing booklet that hypothecate about the aim and origin of the broadcasts . At first the task launch footling media attention , but " Conet " now has a substantial religious cult following amongst artists , conspiracy theorists , instrumentalist and shortwave radio lovers .
" The Conet Project " arrive in the pre - Web twenty-four hour period , long before search engines enable casual surfers to search obscure theme with just a few keyboard strokes . Enough people were fascinate ( or perhaps upset ) by the thing they hear on the candle that at least one political science agency was motivate to offer a statement , possibly to tamp down on further inquiry .
That statement came from a spokesperson from the United Kingdom , and it was appropriately wispy . This affirmation said that the numbers station are precisely what people think they are . " People should n’t be amaze by them . They ’re not , shall we say , for public consumption " [ reference : Segal ] .
In the chronicle of numbers station , this is the nearest agovernmentofficial has come to unveiling the precise intention of the broadcasts . consider that the station are public knowledge and that hundreds or thousands of people must have worked in or around the transmissions , the post continue to be bedim by an unco brassbound secrecy .
Dead Air
The quantity of number stations and transmission throw off dramatically after the end of the Cold War . diminished political tensions and improvement in other engineering go forth fewer mass trust on shortwave communicating .
Still , the numbers stationsbroadcastscontinue . Are they feed priceless information to spies who carry out full of life commission of the cloak - and - sticker variety ? Or are they black budget holdovers from a bygone geological era , impossible to do off with and simply transmitting useless noise into the nothingness ?
From the headlines about lawsuit such as Ana Montes and the Anschlags , it ’s pretty clear that shortwave wireless are still used forspying . But it ’s insufferable to know just how many countries proceed to actively use these system . It could be that they just broadcast mostly gibberish , as part of a strategy to tranquillize enemies or distract them with decoys .
It could also be that government mostly maintain the station for forwardness intention , just in case they might be necessary in emergencies . This continuity not only provides some fallback technology for military or espionage motivation , but it also observe numbers stations proletarian employed … and less probable to interrupt their quiet and deal secrets to a media issue .
In the broadest sense , though , the days of numbers racket stations are probably , well , enumerate . The unconscionable decline in the stations following the end of the Cold War was likely the most significant indicator that these stations are n’t demand as much as they were during a period when superpowers routinely jar all over the earth .
As communications engineering continue to evolve and digital encoding catch hard to die and tough to retrace , these unusual shortwave broadcasts may eventually retrieve themselves relegate to the ash-bin of the undercover agent trade .
Or perhaps the polar will occur . perchance some catastrophic digital apocalypse will push number stations hustler back onto the frontlines of a shadowy war , one where a mechanical interpreter bleats outlandish code into the air around the globe , spurring action that will forever change human history .
Lots More Information
you’re able to tune into number stations using an cheap shortwave radio . Or more easily , you’re able to stream archived recording on all sorts of Web sites . When you do , you ’ll get word a warbling analog contagion that sounds as if it ’s coming from a 1950 ’s sentence buckle . You may chance these programme unnerving or baffling , but either way , like most other humans on Earth , you ’ll never have any idea what these codes mean .
