6 ms·
Number Stations and Enigma Stations
- dang 4y agoRelated: Number Stations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30496873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30496873 - Feb 2022 (23 comments) Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24342120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24342120 - Sept 2020 (66 comments) Using KiwiSDRs to locate HF radio transmitters and numbers stations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17414699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17414699 - June 2018 (9 comments) There must have been more threads about these...
- 082349872349872 4y ago6f 6e 65 20 69 66 20 62 79 20 6c 61 6e 64 2c 20 74 77 6f 20 69 66 2e 2e 2e
- bombcar 4y ago09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
- djaouen 4y agoIs this some kind of shibboleth? All I found was this article: http://sam.zoy.org/blog/2007-05-03-obligatory-r http://sam.zoy.org/blog/2007-05-03-obligatory-r
- roywiggins 4y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controve...
- djaouen 4y agoI guess the key was to realize it wasn't utf-16 and to Google the original hex. Cool rabbit hole.
- aliqot 4y agoby sea..
- djaouen 4y ago42 79 20 73 65 61
- gorgoiler 4y agoThe OP message is made of ascii ordinals encoded in hexadecimal. That led me to some interesting ideas based on fooling your adversary into thinking they had cracked your code, when they had in fact missed a hidden message: 1/ In the above example the message was “one if by land two if by…” and the encoding base was hexadecimal. Does a message exist that encodes in a different base but looks like it is hexadecimal? For example the OP’s message decodes to utk"ol"h if the base was actually 17. We assume it’s base16 not base17 because only the digits 0-F are used. Is there a string of pairs of digits in the range 0-F (without G) that would decode to something meaningful in base 17 (0-G)? 2/ And what about a message that means two different things — something innocuous in base16, with the secret message in base17, say? Other bases might work: 15 feels like a good candidate too, but it is probably harder to make a readable message the more you deviate from the masquerade base.
- djaouen 4y ago16 --> 15 would be a good candidate, as everyone would assume base 16 and you could use the full character set in your (secret) base 15 message. Too lazy to test it out, but theoretically plausible.
- anonymousiam 4y ago41 74 20 44 45 46 43 4F 4E 2C 20 49 20 68 61 76 65 20 6D 65 74 20 67 6F 76 65 72 6E 6D 65 6E 74 20 53 49 47 49 4E 54 2F 43 52 59 50 54 4F 20 70 65 6F 70 6C 65 20 77 68 6F 20 63 6F 75 6C 64 20 63 6F 75 6C 64 20 6C 6F 6F 6B 20 61 74 20 61 20 73 74 72 65 61 6D 20 6F 66 20 68 65 78 20 62 79 74 65 73 20 61 6E 64 20 72 65 61 64 20 74 68 65 6D 20 69 6E 20 74 68 65 69 72 20 68 65 61 64 20 73 65 61 6D 6C 65 73 73 6C 79 2E
- geoffeg 4y agoI assume most numbers stations have disappeared in part due to the proliferation of global internet access. But I've kinda wondered, how does that work? One of the benefits of numbers stations is that it was nearly impossible to determine who was listening to a shortwave radio station. Any internet resource someone visits would be traceable by the government. Even with SSL nearly everywhere it's not nearly as anonymous as numbers stations were. I'm assuming most clandestine users see the ease of access and greater diversity in how messages can be sent over the internet as far outweighing the limitations of shortwave?
- wkat4242 4y agoI guess that's where tor and similar techniques come in. Don't forget it was created by the DoD for just that purpose. And it's not impossible to locate a shortwave listener (especially in the days when numbers stations were commonplace). At really short range it's possible to detect the local oscillator though modern direct conversion techniques make this harder. In the 80s some countries were using this principle to identify people watching TV without a license.
- anonymousiam 4y agoWhat you say about locating SW receivers may have been true in the era of superhetrodyne receivers, but today, in the era of direct digital sampling, it's no longer true. Old superhet receivers would leak the LO through the mixer out to the antenna so nearby detectors could deduce where the receiver was and what it was tuned to (assuming a standard IF, which is a fair assumption given the plethora of high-Q 455KHz and 10.7MHz ceramic filters). Nowadays with a good digital receiver, nothing leaks from the receiving antenna.
- wkat4242 4y agoWell yes that's what I said - these days it's less true with the direct conversion (many superhet's around though still!) but SW numbers stations are not really a thing anymore anyway so the solution is a bit late :) And a direct conversion receiver and the computer attached to it can also leak RF. I'm pretty sure equipment these days leaks more RF than in the 80s. And not just RF. People have even been able to determine private keys from the coil whine in the audio sampled across the room from the PC running the crypto! Though I wonder if spies used SDRs (or other direct conversion receivers) earlier than the mainstream for this reason.. On the other hand I've heard spies usually shy away from special electronics because it's a lot harder to explain than a standard holiday shortwave receiver.
- stevebmark 4y ago4 8 15 16 23 42
- jhoechtl 4y agoDo the US an other (military) intelligence agencies no longer use number stations? There is only Russia and Poland in the list...
- trollied 4y agoRingway Manchester has a brilliant set of 13 videos on youtube, going in to lots of detail about numbers stations. Playlist link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWbzNtBM4sI&list=PLAxEITuSnIjG8_7foj3n2Ne7QEVTPgGgg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWbzNtBM4sI&list=PLAxEITuSnI...