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Random numbers, Persian code: A mysterious signal transfixes radio sleuths
https://www.wired.com/story/a-mysterious-numbers-station-is-broadcasting-through-the-iran-war/ https://www.wired.com/story/a-mysterious-numbers-station-is-...
- butler14 6mo ago"We don't need NATO." But we do need our bases in Germany plz.
- Cthulhu_ 6mo agoThese two don't have to be related per se, but it sure helps with maintaining a healthy mutually beneficial military relationship.
- aswegs8 6mo agohttps://archive.is/20260323190952/https://www.wired.com/story/a-mysterious-numbers-station-is-broadcasting-through-the-iran-war/ https://archive.is/20260323190952/https://www.wired.com/stor...
- j16sdiz 6mo agoBetter source: https://www.rferl.org/a/mystery-numbers-station-persian-signal-iran-war/33700659.html https://www.rferl.org/a/mystery-numbers-station-persian-sign...
- lazyguythugman 6mo agoI've been off put by WIRE recently. Thanks for this.
- aaron695 6mo ago[dead]
- dang 6mo agoOk, we've changed to that from https://www.wired.com/story/a-mysterious-numbers-station-is-broadcasting-through-the-iran-war/ https://www.wired.com/story/a-mysterious-numbers-station-is-... above, and I've put the latter link in the toptext. Thanks!
- stefantalpalaru 6mo ago[dead]
- srean 6mo agoDoes this move around geographically ? Triangulating broadcast location is a well understood craft.
- rustyhancock 6mo agoShortwave radio is more challenging than you might imagine. Near to the transmitter it's received by ground wave, further it's scattered off the ionosphere. In-between it's undetectable due to the skip zone. This might also explain why Amelia Earhart went missing [1] Coverage is obtained from multipath and reflections. Leading to variable strength and timing. Not as bad as DXing on HF with low power but much harder than you might imagine. Fine for someone to transcribe some numbers but useless for people trying to identify sources. So locally you get an apparent direction to the source which is clearly not the source. Add to that the complex local terrain and a well placed number stations can be very difficult to locate with precision. Edit: unrelated but interesting there are some mysteries in HF transmission including long delayed echoes where a signal takes far longer than reasonable to travel out and back over several seconds [0] which given its travelling light milliseconds is a conundrum. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_delayed_echo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_delayed_echo [1] https://youtu.be/zTDFhWWPZ4Q?si=Ib8jfbdNP-sLHM0B https://youtu.be/zTDFhWWPZ4Q?si=Ib8jfbdNP-sLHM0B
- Supermancho 6mo agoMy father regailed tales of his college years where it was a game to have a HAM radio operator start broadcasting and to have teams try to find where they were hiding, first. More challenging? Not really. It does require multiple boots on the ground to do it.
- srean 6mo agoThis seems to be a common treasure hunt game conducted by HAM clubs.
- Supermancho 6mo ago
- hypeatei 6mo agoThis reminds me of UVB-76[0], a shortwave military radio in Russia. It would be interesting know why they're using this method to communicate covertly rather than beaming down messages to a phone via satellite or something. I'm not an expert on radios, though, so maybe it's not as clunky as I'm imagining where an undercover asset is hauling around bulky equipment. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76
- jacknews 6mo agoperhaps they're not directed at deeply embedded lone spies with radios in their attics, but at 'military assets' which as a matter of course can receive these transmissions on a designated schedule.
- teeray 6mo agoIt’s simple, reliable, and effective. Shortwave receivers can be made fairly compact. They’re also very prevalent in most countries (every ham transciever), so there’s nothing suspicious to pack. People find numbers stations interesting, so they are often streamed online. One time pads have their logistical shortcomings, but are still the best encryption possible. The OTP can be compromised in known, visible ways, where a phone has myriad invisible ways to be compromised.
- smegger001 6mo agoYou could probably cheat with the one time pad and use a book as a key, pick a pre determined starting point go diagonally down accross the page convert the letters to numbers and xor that against the message. It would be near enough to random and less conspicuous than a pad of random numbers when searched.
- teeray 6mo agoThat feels like something that could suffer from frequency analysis.
- 6mo ago
- AlphaGeekZulu 6mo agoN 48.690438° E 9.086693°
- Cthulhu_ 6mo agoNeat, there's no Street View coverage but there is clear sattelite imagery: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RjGUAMExUrD6aqs59 https://maps.app.goo.gl/RjGUAMExUrD6aqs59 Apple's maps version has that section blurred out though. Bing's sattelite images seem to be older, the antenna isn't visible on there yet and there's just building foundations: https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=48.690103%7E9.086240&lvl=18.8&style=h https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=48.690103%7E9.086240&lvl=18.8&s.... Can't determine how old those images are though.
- AlphaGeekZulu 6mo agoUntil around 2000-2004 there have even been 2 Antennas. The whole surrounding forest is a military training ground, obviously used by German Bundeswehr and US forces. There are German and US barracks on opposite ends of the area. Within the vicinity there are an UXO clearance service, K9 school, CQB training village, shooting ranges, lots of bunkers and who knows what.
- ttul 6mo agoStreet View nearby reveals this sign at the edge of the Street View area: "Forstarbeiter und Militär Frei," which means "Forestry Workers and Military [are free to enter]". The red circle around the sign implies that everyone else is forbidden to enter. So, it's some kind of military installation.
- Eduard 6mo agohttps://maps.app.goo.gl/94ct471W1RjwHSXz5 https://maps.app.goo.gl/94ct471W1RjwHSXz5
- philipwhiuk 6mo agoSounds like a CIA numbers station transmitting info to agents on the ground.
- NitpickLawyer 6mo agoI wonder why they keep using a dedicated numbers station instead of embedding the code in a regular radio broadcast on a traditional channel? I'm sure that even before LLMs one could find a way to create a story where certain numbers / code words would be embedded without altering the underlying story too much. And they could probably get BBC / whatever station to air it. It would be a bit less inconspicuous to listen to BBC than to a dedicated numbers station, even if the message would be undecryptable either way.
- coldpie 6mo agoSeems to me like coordinating with an entity outside of the spooks' control, such as the BBC, would give more opportunities for leaks. It would also reveal some information about who is controlling the signal--someone with some kind of relationship with the broadcaster.
- red_admiral 6mo agoDuring WWII, the BBC would daily have a section after the news dedicated to "personal messages" - which everyone knew were instructions to the resistance in France, or similar. "William waits for Mary" was one of the more famous ones related to D-Day, I think.
- mhh__ 6mo agoYou don't tell them why.
- gorfian_robot 6mo agoregular AM/FM stations are not broadcasting on shortwave bands
- lxgr 6mo agoThere are still quite a few shortwave radio stations broadcasting.
- NitpickLawyer 6mo ago
- chinathrow 6mo agohttps://priyom.org/number-stations/other/v32 https://priyom.org/number-stations/other/v32
- ndiddy 6mo agoIf anyone is interested in further reading, this group are the world's leading experts on number stations (outside of intelligence services of course). They've done a detailed article on the new station, including recordings, technical mishaps, and analysis of why they believe the station is CIA run. https://priyom.org/number-stations/other/v32 https://priyom.org/number-stations/other/v32 > Considering the topical interest in this station, the Priyom team shares its further expertise regarding V32's attribution, beyond being transmitted from a US military facility. While this remains unconfirmed speculation, and not facts, a prime candidate for the operator of this station would be the CIA. Contrary to popular belief, US intelligence has not entirely moved away from numbers stations. Sources in the intelligence community indicate that the CIA provides extra training about numbers stations and one-time pads to clandestine agents assigned to locations with a very hostile operating environment, such as Iran or North Korea: it is envisioned as a last-resort means of communication with high-value sources. So according to this, numbers stations are actually still an institutional part of the CIA playbook. The war in Iran, and the Internet blackout installed by the regime, fulfill the very circumstances for which the CIA would have planned this. > We already know that the CIA has a significant presence in Iran and involvement in the war, having provided crucial intelligence tracking Iranian leaders that enabled the assassination strikes that kickstarted the war. They most probably have had a network of infiltrated assets already in place and organized, ready to be reached through a numbers station if need be right when the war started - which makes the CIA a candidate for running V32 consistent with a legitimate intelligence operation. However, what we've observed from V32's operations - technical quirks and shifting formats - suggest that the technical deployment of the numbers station and shortwave transmissions themselves may have been a little rushed by the circumstances. > Another noteworthy feature of V32 is how all its transmissions take place on the same frequency. Most other numbers stations in general are comprehensive operations targeting many different recipients in different countries, and making use of many different transmission times and frequencies suited to the particular signal propagation needs corresponding to all those areas. In contrast, the fact that V32 always uses a single, same frequency, at always two given times of the day, would be consistent with an operation that only needs to target a single geographical area: Iran.
- kreetx 6mo ago
- srean 6mo agoFor intelligence agencies, it is important to communicate with their spies to gather intelligence,” says John Sipher, a former US intelligence officer Is Sipher really his name. Nominative determinism strikes again. Sifr is also a valid word both in Farsi, I think. An Ironic and cruel pun.
- buildbot 6mo agoRandom chance has a really good sense of humor!
- aaron695 6mo ago[dead]
- Obscurity4340 6mo ago1/10 dentists hates nominative determinism. That dentist? Dr. Procter
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- OJFord 6mo ago> Sifr is also a valid word both in Farsi, I think That is the root of 'cipher'; meaning zero/empty/nothingness.
- srean 6mo agoIndeed and used cleverly in Casino Royale by naming Le Chiffre that way. I knew 'sifr' was an Arabic word and only today I came to know that it works in Farsi too. The double pun/irony is that the John Sipher's surname is related to the topic of cryptography and that the etymological roots is Middle-Eastern.
- OJFord 6mo agoAlso Hindi, Urdu, and no doubt others if we're drawing lines :) – there's an awful lot of overlap/loanwords.
- cathyfin8 6mo agoInteresting. Some sort of sync signal?
- IAmGraydon 6mo agoThe location of this transmitter is a shortwave transmission facility within a US military base in Böblingen, 15 km southwest of Stuttgart, Germany. The coordinates: 48°41'26"N 9°05'12"E https://www.google.com/maps/place/48%C2%B041'26.0%22N+9%C2%B005'12.0%22E https://www.google.com/maps/place/48%C2%B041'26.0%22N+9%C2%B...
- andyjohnson0 6mo agoInteresting. I have no reason to disbelieve you. So... If its being broadcast by the US military or the CIA, why Persian? Because they're issueing activation orders to their network of ani-regime operatives inside Iran? Who, mysteriously for spies, only know that language? Or because they want the Iranian government to think that? And a numbers station broadcasting in - unusually - Persian, is an easy way to get the attention of the Iranians? I'm thinking the latter.
- red_admiral 6mo agoLocally and recently recruited spies inside Iran?
- ndiddy 6mo agoThe CIA recruits a lot of Iranians to spy for them. Since the Internet is a thing, they typically communicate with them that way. For example, in the 2010s the CIA ran hundreds of fake news, sports, travel, religious, etc. websites, where typing a password into a search box or other text field would open a hidden message area where operatives could read messages from the CIA and send back information. This network was eventually destroyed and hundreds of sources were arrested because the CIA made the error of using the same few messaging scripts and hosting the sites from a few contiguous IP blocks, but it's a good idea of how they generally operate. See here for more info: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spies-iran/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spie... https://cirosantilli.com/cia-2010-covert-communication-websites#overview-of-ciro-santilli-s-investigation https://cirosantilli.com/cia-2010-covert-communication-websi... However, since the US-Israeli bombing of Iran on Feb 28, the Iranian government has shut down the whole country's Internet access. This means that the CIA needs another way to send information out, hence the numbers station.
- ada1981 6mo agoover / under it's just some kid broadcasting an encrypted Phish Prague 7/6/98 GHOST on repeat? https://youtu.be/Q6cR7PEyzW4 https://youtu.be/Q6cR7PEyzW4
- andyjohnson0 6mo ago> Fernandez, who more than two decades ago published a four-CD audio compendium of hundreds of recordings from around the world called the Conet Project. It's considered the Bible for numbers-station enthusiasts. The Conet Project is an interesting listen -- very analogue, Cold War-ish, and a bit sinister. Seems to be available on the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/The-Conet-Project https://archive.org/details/The-Conet-Project
- wgrover 6mo agoFans of the band Wilco will recognize one of the Conet Project's recordings as the source of the woman repeating "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" in the song "Poor Places" from the eponymous album. Wilco failed to license the sample and the resulting lawsuit gave the Conet Project a portion of Wilco's royalties on that track.
- iammjm 6mo agoThanks for that, I love this album and never knew that info
- ndiddy 6mo agoWhy would they need to license the sample? You don't own the copyright for something just because you recorded it off the radio, that's silly. I looked it up and the station in question was operated by the Israeli government, so presumably they would be due the royalties. https://priyom.org/number-stations/english/e10 https://priyom.org/number-stations/english/e10 This reminds me of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel, which established that copying someone's photograph of a public domain painting is not a copyright violation, as the photograph is not copyrightable under US law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel....
- wildzzz 6mo agoThe recording of a public performance can be copyrighted.
- frrlpp 6mo agoCannot believe they didn't write the frequencies. Incompetents.
- mhh__ 6mo agoSo one slightly fascinating bit of number station / espionage radio lore is "RAFTER" an MI5 scheme cooked up by Peter Wright to detect the _receiver_ of the radio using emissions from the internals of the radio set (superhet mixing iirc) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_RAFTER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_RAFTER