I 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.
Seems 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.
Shortwave propagates better and also its just a one time pad being distributed so embedding doesn't matter as much as long as the one time pad is longer than the intended message to send. There is no way to decrypt it because once you encrypt a message using a one time pad it is impossible to decrypt without the exact one time pad that it was encrypted with.
One time pads work only if only the sender and receiver have a copy of the pad - and they destroy each sheet on use. Distributing the pads is hard, but often it can be done easier than the message.
Distributing a one time pad like this is a stupid idea: it isn't hard to collect everything you ever send, and it takes a computer a few ms to check every encrypted message against every possible sequence. That is breaking a distribute one time pad via shortwave like this is something a single layperson can do, it doesn't even need a government scale attacker to break it.
Don't get me wrong, this can be used for good encryption. However it isn't a one time pad they are doing, it is something more complex.
I can't find it immediately, but I've read about something even sneakier than this. A standard broadcast station was modified such that its carrier signal was modulated by a PSK signal. The intended listener would use e.g., a PSK-31 modem to listen to the carrier signal and would be able to obtain the encoded digital data. Everyday listeners would hear the regular broadcast. The station involved _might_ have been a BBC station, but I don't recall.
who's to say they aren't doing both? They may not even be sending anything over the number station; these stations will continue on a schedule even when there is nothing to say and nobody is listening because it makes it harder to eek out a foothold in the event of a weakness in the encryption.
Sure, but that would be a benefit, I would think. Most old cars come with an AM/FM radio, most cheap phones now have FM (? I don't know about AM, don't think so) and so on. So it would be more inconspicuous to listen to a regular radio than to a special station on special hardware. You don't even have to broadcast from EU, you could probably purchase some Radio Quatar Classical Rock or something :)
Radios capable of receiving shortwave bands aren't exactly rare among normal people. They're not really "special hardware". Just owning one would not be inherently suspicious.
What would be suspicious is being in possession of the one-time pad needed to decode the messages, regardless of which media those messages are transmitted through.
For the record, "numbers stations" can be found in nearly every communication medium, including the web. The advantage of using shortwave (range, primarily) are large enough that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
Shortwave 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.
My 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.
Besides the problem caused by reflections and by the fact that unless you are very close to the transmitter you do not receive a direct wave but one reflected from the ionosphere, there is an additional difficulty.
Antennas with high directivity, which are needed for accurate triangulation, must be very big in the shortwave range (wavelength from 100 meter to 10 meter). Moreover, if they are too big it would be difficult to move them, to be able to measure an angle.
So traditional triangulation is inaccurate in this frequency range.
With modern technologies, using highly accurate synchronized clocks, one could distribute shortwave antennas over a large area, to create a synthetic aperture array, enabling a precise triangulation. However this would be expensive. An amateur would certainly not have such a thing. I doubt that even a state would bother to build such a thing, because it would not be worthwhile.
While precise triangulation of a shortwave transmitter from far away is very difficult, such a transmitter would not be hard to find during a local search wherever it is placed, because there not only the direction, but also the intensity of the signal would allow finding it.
Two receivers of the same signal may not be from the same proximate source. One could from the original antenna the other from a reflection. Both could be reflected but by different reflectors. Even if the proximate source was the same for both the receivers, triangulation might yield the location of a virtual image of the original source.
BTW I am just going by geometry and may be way off because radiowaves behave quite differently compared to visible light.
One might need effectively the inverse of beamforming to nail it.
Until 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.
If 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
> 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.
This 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.
Like the article says, satellite messages can be traced while radio is broadcast to everyone so it's impossible to find out who's listening. Shortwave radios are also cheap and widespread, so it's easy to get one anywhere in the world and if your house gets searched, it won't be suspicious if you have one.
> Shortwave radios are also cheap and widespread, so it's easy to get one anywhere in the world
I always hear this in discussions about number stations, but I don't think this is true in the US. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a general consumer "shortwave radio". Unless the regular AM band counts, which seems to be medium wave.
The term for shortwave radios targeting the general consumer market is "world band radio". They look like a standard portable AM/FM radio except they'll also pick up long wave, medium wave, short wave, and maybe weather band. They're more of a niche in the US now that internet streaming is a thing, but you should still be able to get one at most electronics stores. Of course like most niche products, you'll get much better selection and pricing online.
I'm in the US. At least half of the people I know own shortwave radios, although most don't think of them as "shortwave radios". They're more often called "world radios" or some other such synonym. I could run out to a consumer electronics store right now and buy one.
The younger people I know tend to own such a radio in the form of the Baofeng UV-5R or the like.
It’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.
Phones usually contain the hardware for radio too, so making sure agents have some set of models for that doesn't sound bad. Even if you had to use a dedicated one having a radio at home isn't that conspicuous? Or in a car, etc
perhaps 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.
https://archive.is/20260323190952/https://www.wired.com/stor...
I 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.
Seems 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.
Shortwave propagates better and also its just a one time pad being distributed so embedding doesn't matter as much as long as the one time pad is longer than the intended message to send. There is no way to decrypt it because once you encrypt a message using a one time pad it is impossible to decrypt without the exact one time pad that it was encrypted with.
One time pads work only if only the sender and receiver have a copy of the pad - and they destroy each sheet on use. Distributing the pads is hard, but often it can be done easier than the message.
Distributing a one time pad like this is a stupid idea: it isn't hard to collect everything you ever send, and it takes a computer a few ms to check every encrypted message against every possible sequence. That is breaking a distribute one time pad via shortwave like this is something a single layperson can do, it doesn't even need a government scale attacker to break it.
Don't get me wrong, this can be used for good encryption. However it isn't a one time pad they are doing, it is something more complex.
I can't find it immediately, but I've read about something even sneakier than this. A standard broadcast station was modified such that its carrier signal was modulated by a PSK signal. The intended listener would use e.g., a PSK-31 modem to listen to the carrier signal and would be able to obtain the encoded digital data. Everyday listeners would hear the regular broadcast. The station involved _might_ have been a BBC station, but I don't recall.
who's to say they aren't doing both? They may not even be sending anything over the number station; these stations will continue on a schedule even when there is nothing to say and nobody is listening because it makes it harder to eek out a foothold in the event of a weakness in the encryption.
regular AM/FM stations are not broadcasting on shortwave bands
Sure, but that would be a benefit, I would think. Most old cars come with an AM/FM radio, most cheap phones now have FM (? I don't know about AM, don't think so) and so on. So it would be more inconspicuous to listen to a regular radio than to a special station on special hardware. You don't even have to broadcast from EU, you could probably purchase some Radio Quatar Classical Rock or something :)
Radios capable of receiving shortwave bands aren't exactly rare among normal people. They're not really "special hardware". Just owning one would not be inherently suspicious.
What would be suspicious is being in possession of the one-time pad needed to decode the messages, regardless of which media those messages are transmitted through.
For the record, "numbers stations" can be found in nearly every communication medium, including the web. The advantage of using shortwave (range, primarily) are large enough that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
There are still quite a few shortwave radio stations broadcasting.
Does this move around geographically ? Triangulating broadcast location is a well understood craft.
Shortwave 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
[1] https://youtu.be/zTDFhWWPZ4Q?si=Ib8jfbdNP-sLHM0B
My 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.
Presumably doing it locally within a known few mile radius is different from nation-scale broadcast areas bounced from god-knows-where?
If you can receive a shortwave signal, you can triangulate the source.
Besides the problem caused by reflections and by the fact that unless you are very close to the transmitter you do not receive a direct wave but one reflected from the ionosphere, there is an additional difficulty.
Antennas with high directivity, which are needed for accurate triangulation, must be very big in the shortwave range (wavelength from 100 meter to 10 meter). Moreover, if they are too big it would be difficult to move them, to be able to measure an angle.
So traditional triangulation is inaccurate in this frequency range.
With modern technologies, using highly accurate synchronized clocks, one could distribute shortwave antennas over a large area, to create a synthetic aperture array, enabling a precise triangulation. However this would be expensive. An amateur would certainly not have such a thing. I doubt that even a state would bother to build such a thing, because it would not be worthwhile.
While precise triangulation of a shortwave transmitter from far away is very difficult, such a transmitter would not be hard to find during a local search wherever it is placed, because there not only the direction, but also the intensity of the signal would allow finding it.
Reflections will pose a problem though.
Two receivers of the same signal may not be from the same proximate source. One could from the original antenna the other from a reflection. Both could be reflected but by different reflectors. Even if the proximate source was the same for both the receivers, triangulation might yield the location of a virtual image of the original source.
BTW I am just going by geometry and may be way off because radiowaves behave quite differently compared to visible light.
One might need effectively the inverse of beamforming to nail it.
Exactly I have friends who have had voice contacts reflecting off aurora at VHF
That made my day. Thanks for the laughs.
See content of post you initially replied in the context of:
> Shortwave radio is more challenging than you might imagine.
This seems to be a common treasure hunt game conducted by HAM clubs.
That was it. Treasure hunt.
Also known as fox hunting.
Multiple boots on Iranian ground is tricky for Americans right now.
Thanks that was quite illuminating. I knew about ionospheric reflections to be a problem but not the others.
The broadcast locations aren't really secret, and don't need to be.
Known locations can be taken out, no ?
Yes, but the locations of the big transmitters are in well-defended areas and smaller transmitters are easy to replace.
"We don't need NATO." But we do need our bases in Germany plz.
These two don't have to be related per se, but it sure helps with maintaining a healthy mutually beneficial military relationship.
N 48.690438° E 9.086693°
Neat, there's no Street View coverage but there is clear sattelite imagery: 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&s.... Can't determine how old those images are though.
Until 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.
https://priyom.org/number-stations/other/v32
If 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
> 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.
Thanks for the link, really interesting!
Sounds like a CIA numbers station transmitting info to agents on the ground.
This 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
Like the article says, satellite messages can be traced while radio is broadcast to everyone so it's impossible to find out who's listening. Shortwave radios are also cheap and widespread, so it's easy to get one anywhere in the world and if your house gets searched, it won't be suspicious if you have one.
> Shortwave radios are also cheap and widespread, so it's easy to get one anywhere in the world
I always hear this in discussions about number stations, but I don't think this is true in the US. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a general consumer "shortwave radio". Unless the regular AM band counts, which seems to be medium wave.
The term for shortwave radios targeting the general consumer market is "world band radio". They look like a standard portable AM/FM radio except they'll also pick up long wave, medium wave, short wave, and maybe weather band. They're more of a niche in the US now that internet streaming is a thing, but you should still be able to get one at most electronics stores. Of course like most niche products, you'll get much better selection and pricing online.
I'm in the US. At least half of the people I know own shortwave radios, although most don't think of them as "shortwave radios". They're more often called "world radios" or some other such synonym. I could run out to a consumer electronics store right now and buy one.
The younger people I know tend to own such a radio in the form of the Baofeng UV-5R or the like.
A Baofeng UV-5R cannot receive shortwave, it's in the VHF/UHF range for receive/transmit and can receive commercial FM broadcast.
Ah, true. My mistake.
def a niche consumer item these days. but pretty easy to make your own.
Satellite unicast receivers also can't be located. Iridium pagers were (maybe still are?) a thing, for example.
However, carrying one of these is probably highly suspicious compared to a world band radio receiver.
It’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.
Phones usually contain the hardware for radio too, so making sure agents have some set of models for that doesn't sound bad. Even if you had to use a dedicated one having a radio at home isn't that conspicuous? Or in a car, etc
a consumer phone usually would only have an FM receiver
perhaps 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.
Better source: https://www.rferl.org/a/mystery-numbers-station-persian-sign...
Ok, we've changed to that from https://www.wired.com/story/a-mysterious-numbers-station-is-... above, and I've put the latter link in the toptext. Thanks!
I've been off put by WIRE recently. Thanks for this.
Sifr is also a valid word both in Farsi, I think. An Ironic and cruel pun.
> Sifr is also a valid word both in Farsi, I think
That is the root of 'cipher'; meaning zero/empty/nothingness.
1/10 dentists hates nominative determinism. That dentist? Dr. Procter
Random chance has a really good sense of humor!