jungle

Posted on Monday, October 10, 2011 11:02:35 by Army Air Corps

Background

A little after 1600 UTC on February 21, 2010, in the #wunclub IRC channel, a user (LDO, a European region monitor) threw out the question "Vietnamese numbers? 10255" I had been paying fairly close attention to the Asian numbers stations for the past year or so, and immediately tuned to the indicated frequency of 10255 kHz.

Sure enough, there was a previously unreported Vietnamese language numbers station on that frequency. S6 or stronger here in Southern California. What made this signal fairly interesting is that as far as I know no Vietnamese numbers station of any kind had been reported in recent years.

The transmission consisted of a female voice, in Vietnamese, announcing groups of numbers. Each group consisted of 5 numbers between 0 and 9. The frequency was 10255 kHz and the mode was USB.

Unfortunately I did not catch the beginning of the transmission. I caught about 20 seconds of groups before there was a non-numeric announcement that was repeated several times.

After a short pause a new message started, with several lines of announcement and again into 5 figure groups.

That first recording is about 4 minutes and 41 seconds long total. I have since learned that this recording probably contains the tail end of one message body and the entirety of another.

UPDATE (May 20, 2011): The station is back on the air after a lengthy absence. Between March 1 and March 7 the station resumed operation with essentially the same formats and habits as before, and still on 10255 kHz starting at about 1600. The speaker was again female, as heard in February of 2010, and with a new 30 group message.
================================================== ===


How they work, what they are:Numbers station - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

tomgoodman

These are just routine broadcasts on the Reptilian-Bavarian Illuminati communications net.
No cause for alarm, Citizen. Move along now.

vagabond

My head exploded just reading the Wikipedia article.

I think there is a conspiracy somewhere in there! Runway 27 at MEM type of thing.

FlyJSH

Ahh, the nights I spent in a room with no windows, listening to the monotonous synthesized speech pouring out group after group, with the sound of AMTOR and PACTOR idling in the back ground.... like electronic crickets on a summer night.

http://wb8nut.com/resources/amtor.wav

So much more soothing than the DUGA aka the Russian Woodpecker

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Woodpecker.ogg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Woodpecker

FlyJSH

For those who are curious, here is a famous one from Havana known as Atencion! or V02A

(recorded 25 August 2011)
http://priyom.org/media/34272/v02a-5...sg-byavare.ogg

Atencion 86281 62052 88161 [message preamble]
86281 [message number]
[message consisting of 150 five digit groups]
Final Final

In 1998, Atencion! was the first, and possibly the only, numbers station to be publicly accused of espionage. One of the messages the USA claimed was aimed at a Cuban spy decoded as:

“Under no circumstances should [agents] German nor Castor fly with BTTR [Brothers to the Rescue aka Hermanos al Rescate] or another organization on days 24, 25, 26, and 27.”
Atención

On 24 February 1996, two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft were shot down by a Defensa Aérea Revolucionaria (Cuban Air Force) MiG-29.
Brothers to the Rescue - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Several Atencion! messages were used as evidence against the "Cuban Five." One of the Five, Gerardo Hernández was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for supplying information to the Cuban government which according to the prosecution led to the shootdown.
Cuban Five - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

jungle

Thanks FlyJSH, it is an interesting history.

Numbers stations are a relic of the 40s to 60s and have been replaced by other methods.
Seeing one today is like seeing someone carrying an eight foot spear, an antique but still effective, and it does draw an excess of attention.

rickair7777

Unless you were to sue truly random one-time pads, the basement full of supercomputers at Ft. Mead would make short work of any code simple enough for voice transmission.

One-time codes based on books or dollar-bill serial numbers wouldn't work either...Ft. Mead can crunch through all of that stuff (unless the book has never been published)

jungle

The use of one time pads, which is the norm, essentially makes the system unbreakable.

"The one-way voice link (OWVL) described a covert communications system that transmitted messages to an agent's unmodified shortwave radio using the high-frequency shortwave bands between 3 and 30 MHz at a predetermined time, date, and frequency contained in their communications plan. The transmissions were contained in a series of repeated random number sequences and could only be deciphered using the agent's one-time pad. If proper tradecraft was practiced and instructions were precisely followed, an OWVL transmission was considered unbreakable. As long as the agent's cover could justify possessing a shortwave radio and he was not under technical surveillance, high-frequency OWVL was a secure and preferred system for the CIA during the Cold War."

rickair7777

But you had to physically possess a one-time pad, which was a death-sentence to get caught with because you can't explain it away...

Before supercomputers the alternative was to use a book, or serial numbers from a dollar bill (or other currency). Either of those you could possess innocently, and in the case of a published book, you could obtain a copy (correct version and printing!) as needed. A large book made a suitable key as long as the opposition didn't know which one you were using. But nowdays I'm sure everything ever widely published can be indexed by the massive terra-floppers at No Such Agency...eventually they will match your string.

atpwannabe

....nothing here to see or hear!



atp