For decades, numbers stations have been a favorite way for cuban. Toronto man cracked the code to scratchlottery tickets the star. Aug 05, 2016 changemeemf2016112 numbers stations coldwarshortwaves for a period of time which coincided suspiciously closely with the cold war, europes shortwave spectrum was full of mysterious radio. The monitor was placed in the mirrored bar of a console radio, creating reflected images. As has been pointed out possession of a short wave radio these days is sufficient in itself to be suspicious. Intelligence agencies sometimes started a transmission with a bit of music one uk. May 24, 2018 numbers stations were most active starting around 1960, when secret coded message stations such as the lincolnshire poacher, the swedish rhapsody, and gongs were broadcasting. Recorded at my location in the mojave desert of california, usa, on july 1, 2011, starting at 1500 utc. The fringe episode 6955 khz involved a numbers station that transmitted a brown note that erased peoples memories, and the number code translated to coordinates for the. Inside the string of seemingly nonsensical characters is a code which, if you have the decoding mechanism, delivers secret messages across borders and long distances to foreign agents spies. Clicking on a station name leads to the priyom page about the said station, where you may learn about its transmission format, habits, and recent activity.
This image is from an art installation about the numbers stations that goren collaborated on in 2012. Numbers stations send encrypted text transmissions over shortwave. Statistician cracks secret code behind lottery tickets. Some reading on the web will help you understand what numbers stations are. Morse code numbers stations were once common, but their number. A numbers station is a shortwave radio station characterized by broadcasts of formatted. You are listening to number stations was created by eric eberhardt and hugh mandeville. And that makes the country irresistible to numbers trackers. The moderator of an email list for global numbers station hobbyists claimed that someone on the spooks list had already cracked the code for a. It broadcast from the 1970s and shut down in june 2008. The cuban station often runs audio from a normal station by accident, smolinski says. Also, a radio magazine article published during the 198090s, described hobbyists using portable radio directionfinding equipment to locate a numbers station in florida or warrenton, va, smolinski reported by mays, 2005 from the outside, they spotted the stations antenna inside a military facility.
The first mention of a numbers station being heard was in the 12 edition of the enigma newsletter 4 and in the conet project 3. Number stations are shortwave transmissions from foreign intelligence agencies to spies in the field of foreign countries. Numbers stations were most active starting around 1960, when secret coded message stations such as the lincolnshire poacher, the swedish rhapsody, and gongs were broadcasting. With john cusack, malin akerman, liam cunningham, richard brake. Enthusiasts have uncovered numerous stations that broadcast weekly.
Numbers stations are anonymous, shortwave am radio stations that broadcast messages at preset times, sometimes periodically and sometimes random, on specific frequencies. The lincolnshire poacher numbers station was brought up in the egttr code breaker thread, but i dont think the significance was fully exploredand a discussion of it and its relationship to some of the shropshire references in the game might be relevant in order to understand the structure of the tonalnumerical codes broadcast over radios, tvs, home phones, and computers throughout the game. An online magazine called the kernel wrote an article under a year ago about it. The most recent occurrence was 2006, a mere three years before the time of this writing. I think these number stations may be quite important, in their own right. Even if the encryption cannot be cracked easily, the transmissions can be detected. With the use of a onetime pad, there is no way to decode the. Shortwave numbers stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Hello, we are the numbers stations research and information center, a project that is dedicated to the research, monitoring, information gathering, and publishing about numbers stations, military stations, and other shortwave radio phenomena. Some voices are synthesized and created by machines. Do shortwave numbers stations really instruct spies. All about those weird numbers stations used to talk to spies. Jul 31, 2008 in a clammy basement three decades ago, 12yearold chris smolinski fiddled with the tuner on his shortwave radio, hoping to catch the end of his favorite weekly rock show. The most popular number station naming system was devised by the european numbers information gathering and monitoring assocation enigma, a number station research group active in 19932000, and later maintained by enigma 2000.
The purpose of numbers stations has been guessed at first by anonymous leaks, stories of people being arrested with radios and onetime pads and other scattered pieces of evidence, as well as. Among the most popular and most viable theories is that the numbers stations are a covert means by which government spy agencies use to maintain contact with their operatives. No one knows for sure what ciphers are used to encrypt the various. They carry encrypted messages in form of groups of numbers or letters, using. Mohan srivastava is the man who figured out how to beat a scratch lottery game. May 30, 2018 numbers stations are inextricably linked to short wave radio.
Around 60 years ago, in the 1950s, a written article from the time magazine stated numbers stations first came into existence a short time following the 2nd world war. Numbers stations, shortwave radio, and their role in the. Number stations, sometimes called oneway voice links owvl broadcast a series of loops of numbers or letters. Numbers stations using english, german, and other languages generally follow similar formats, although often with some significant variations. This calendar displays all known number station broadcasts in an accessible fashion. A former gchq officer, who does not wish to be named, whose duty was to intercept signals towards the uk and search for these numbers stations in.
Spooks list had already cracked the code for a repeated transmission from. Soon, they find themselves in a lifeordeath struggle to stop a. A s a part of our release of the quadruple cd set the conet project, we are issuing a set of difficult cryptographic challenges in an attempt to try and further unravel the mystery of numbers stations what numbers stations send encrypted text transmissions over shortwave. What numbers stations send encrypted text transmissions over shortwave. Numbers stations are used to transmit coded messages to spies and is encrypted with a onetime pad. Numbers radio stations category is a curation of 24 web resources on, the conet project, numbers stations by, spy numbers mailing list. Mystery over the airwaves in the forgotten reaches of the shortwave band, strange voices read out endless strings of numbers. Many numbers stations went off the air due to the end of the cold war in 1989, but many still operate and some have even continued operations but changed schedules and operators. Possibly the most unnerving aspect of number stations is that many of them seem to be impervious to jamming, which is a practice used by communications bureaus to shut down pirate radio stations. The most active period of numbers stations monitoring began in 1980s as in efforts by havana moon or william bill thomas godbey, simon mason and. In 2008, for example, the number station ezi 1 was jammed on frequency 9 khz. If that was transmitted, it could be cracked by a cryptanalyst in minutes. Numbers stations have appeared on lost, fringe, scandal, and the americans.
No one knows for sure what ciphers are used to encrypt the various transmissions, though it is widely believed that. Lincolnshire poacher was a uk numbers station thought to be operated out of cyprus by mi6. Spies located anywhere in the world can be communicated to by. But the information, which was in limited circulation dx magazines, didnt find its way outside of those for some years. These messages are transmitted by hundreds of numbers stations. A disgraced black ops agent is dispatched to a remote cia broadcast station to protect a code operator. Clicking on a station name leads to the priyom page about the. Heres where cold war numbers stations broadcast spies. A numbers station was used as the setting for notterriblysuccessful thriller the numbers station. So i just recently got into number stations and am looking into. A numbers station is a shortwave radio station characterized by broadcasts of formatted numbers, which are believed to be addressed to intelligence officers operating in foreign countries. The makers of the conet project a fourcd set of numbersstation recordings have.
We believe that information about military and intelligence activity on. Numbers station, south korean, v24, july 1, 2011, 1500 utc. During the cold war, there were hundreds of secret broadcasts. It is descended from cracked magazine, which dates back to 1958. This would mean numbers stations have been around for 100 years now. Links to numbers stations and intelligence websites. Numbers stations and use of shortwave have declined after the cold war, but there are still transmissions heard every day the shortwave decline has not been as pronounced as one would expect. Although few numbers stations have been tracked down by location, the technology used to transmit the numbers has historically been clearstock shortwave transmitters using powers from 10 kw to 100 kw.
Several articles in the radio magazine popular communications. Bet celebrities, music, news, entertainment, tv shows. A s a part of our release of the quadruple cd set the conet project, we are issuing a set of difficult cryptographic challenges in an attempt to try and further unravel the mystery of numbers stations. May 30, 2018 numbers stations started in world war i and have likely been in continuous operation ever since, operating in more or less the same way. While the encryption methods used by most number stations are unknown, some have used and. If i had to guess and this is slashdot so rampant speculation is practically a mandate, i would say that 99. Six days later, the winning hot lotto numbers were selected. And wilco named its 2001 album yankee hotel foxtrot after a repeated snippet of one of the betterknown numbers stations, which broadcasts its opaque messages using the. Mohan srivastava is the statistician who cracked the olgs scratch lottery. The voices are usually female, although sometimes mens or childrens voices are used.
In general, the broadcasts can be classified into three categories, numbers, morse and noise, though all three tend to fall into the collective umbrella term of what has been dubbed as numbers stations. Spy numbers stations reported between 1059 utc on fridays last heard day time utc freq khz mode enigma reporter reporter qth comments. Tune across the shortwave bands above ammw, and chances are you will come across a numbers station. In the days when short wave radio was widespread for public broadcasting, possession of such a set was innocent enough. One such compilation has become the conet project, a four cd set of numbers station recordings from the past 30 years, released in 1997 by irdial discs. The atencion spy case evidence of article numbers station. Her hometown, rose hill, had 300 people, a grocery, a church and a service station. For many years, unidentified radio broadcasts have been transmitting coded messages, using numbers, such as 67926. Part of the reason for this is that it is a secure means of oneway communication. On friday, npr did an excellent story on those infamous numbers stations that broadcast on shortwave radio. But even once the soviets knew that the americans had cracked venona, there was nothing they could do. In its 20something year run, the sound has been interrupted only three times, the earliest known time being christmas eve in 1997. It was created to solve ambiguities in number station reporting, and classifies stations by language or type of signal.
They carry encrypted messages in form of groups of numbers or letters, using either automated voice, morse code, or a digital mode. Each time a voice comes on and lists several russian names and numbers before returning to the foghorn. Bb reader enkidu describes what looks curiously like a modern counterpart to the mysterious numbers stations of the cold war, radio frequencies carrying baffling sequencesspy c. I have started this thread as this number stations mystery is getting totally and utterly lost in the canonn thread, which is focusing on the ancient ruins at the moment. Cracked is an american humor magazine that originally ran from 1958 to 2007. Generally, numbers stations follow a basic format, although there are many differences in details between stations. If you understand what a numbers station is then this is a thoroughly enjoyable dvd. It discusses the cias use of spy numbers stations, called the one way voice link owvl. Jul 01, 2011 korean language numbers station v24 on 5115 khz, in am mode.
The conet project recordings of shortwave numbers stations ird059. Apr 16, 2014 the purpose of numbers stations has been guessed at first by anonymous leaks, stories of people being arrested with radios and onetime pads and other scattered pieces of evidence, as well as. The backward music station doesnt actually play backward music. This page is for discovering and sharing gibberish websites, these sites possible hold encoded messages. Basically these are encrypted comms and require decoding, so have at it peeps. Here is a list of current, active spy numbers stations. A video, created by tom miller, showed a slow crawl of numbers groups from an actual one time pad. If we can decipher any single numbers station transmission, we will instantly have an.
The random winning numbers on lottery tickets arent exactly random at all. That would explain the need for the official obfuscation of their source, and why the messages are so cryptic. Apr 16, 2014 shortwave numbers stations might seem lowtech but they probably remain the best option for transmitting information to agents in the field, some espionage experts suggest. This information was from an austrian radio program called kurzwellenpanorama shortwave panorama. Most identified stations use speech synthesis to vocalize numbers, although digital modes such as phaseshift keying and frequencyshift keying, as well as. Numbers stations are shortwave radio broadcasts believed to transmit messages to spies in the field using a series of sounds including human voices, morse code, songs and even the occasional cartoon character. Numbers station research and information center spanish language numbers station from 1966. Numbers stations offer the only chance for an average person to safely eavesdrop on spies, from the comfort and security of their own. Shortwave numbers stations might seem lowtech but they probably remain the best option. Whilst it is largely assumed that the broadcasts from numbers stations was primarily to message the spy community around this time, other sources believe that numbers stations. For more than 30 years the shortwave radio spectrum has been used by the worlds intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages.
Some numbers stations using morse code have been reported, although the morse is usually sent using audio tones over am instead of as cw. The conet project recordings of shortwave numbers stations. Numbers stations and enigma stations signal identification wiki. The one story that she takes seriously is from women who says that her son cracked a hidden code from listening to numbers stations and now believes his life is threatened. Today, these signals breach our airwaves on the am radio band and can be heard almost 24 hours a day on one hour or another.
Posted belowis the original post that kicked this off and then my reply. Numbers stations oneway voice link owvl a numbers station, also known as a oneway voice link owvl, is a special type of unusual radio broadcast, generally on the short wave sw radio bands, reading out incomprehensible lists of spoken numbers or morse coded messages. The spooky world of the numbers stations by olivia sorreldejerine bbc news magazine. Even today, tuning across the hf spectrum typically will yield a numbers station, a mechanicalsounding voice male or female methodically announcing groups of singledigit numbers for minutes on end. On a piece of paper before her were ten sets of numbers, arranged in fivedigit groups. The first known use of numbers stations was during world war i, and the first possible listener was anton habsburg of austria. But for srivastava, he saw that certain numbers appeared only once in. There was a drop in activity following the collapse of the soviet union, since many intelligence agencies using numbers stations were linked to the kgb, like the stasi. I found out that there were radio clubs and magazines about the hobby. Mar 18, 2012 how numbers stations operate a simple, consistent, and reliable format number stations, sometimes called oneway voice links owvl broadcast a series of loops of numbers or letters. Numbers stations are inextricably linked to short wave radio. Founded in 1958, cracked proved to be the most durable of the many publications to be launched in the wake of mad magazine. The encryption was never publicly cracked its impossible, but there have been operational.
A numbers station is a type of shortwave radio station characterized by unusual broadcasts, reading out lists of numbers or incomprehensible coded messages. The women code breakers who unmasked soviet spies history. Books related to spy numbers stations and spying spycraft is a new book about the history of the cias spy technologies. The voices are often created by speech synthesis and are transmitted in a wide variety of languages. A particular station will broadcast at a particular. Inside the string of seemingly nonsensical characters is a code which, if you have the decoding mechanism, delivers secret messages across borders and long. Number stations spy communications shortwave radio. Apr, 2017 numbers stations were a staple of cold war espionage and remain a fixture of intelligence and military communications. Heres where cold war radio stations broadcast spies secret. Such glitches are tipoffs to number station enthusiasts that the stations are governmentrun.
The new station will challenge radio 3 and classic fm with music and. In print, cracked conspicuously copied mad s layouts and style, and even featured a simpleminded, widecheeked mascot named sylvester p. Numbers stations offer the only chance for an average person to safely eavesdrop on spies, from the comfort and security of. Number stations are shortwave transmissions from foreign intelligence agencies. The stupidly simple spy messages no computer could decode. If you dont understand what a numbers station is then it might be a bit of a mystery to you. Intro to numbers stations these transmissions which many people find to be a mystery are coded messages that are made from a list of numbers, morse code, or even polytones. We recently caught up with goren, who continues to hunt for numbers stations occasionally. The new package consists of the 4 original conet project cds containing 150 recordings of numbers stations spanning the twenty years up to the release of the original set in 1997, an 80 page, perfect bound booklet, 4 post cards, plus a new 5th cd of 26 previously unreleased recordings of bizarre noise stations, and a new 8 page booklet. Having been a long time cracked magazine fan i had to pick up part one of this history.
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