WEBVTT - What is a Numbers Station? 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.520 Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:13.039 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:16.599 Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and this is oh 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:22.599 Jerry and this is sufficient eight. Can you say it 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:28.240 in German? You speak German? Don't even drive me? That's 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:33.159 why did I? Ah, Stephen? Now can you do that 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:38.560 in a little girl voice? No? You always make me 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:44.320 play st poly girl. I'm tired of it. Save Polly Girl. Now. 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.680 This is apparently even younger than the sat Polly Girl. 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.680 It's like a little girl and it was alive little 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:55.640 girl who in the Swedish rhapsody number station it was 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.760 a young a little girl reading out numbers and letters 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:03.840 in German, which makes it even creepier. This is a 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.920 very neat subject, so kudos to you for tossing this 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:09.720 one out there. Well, I've been waiting for it to publish. 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.640 I've seen it in the calendar coming up and coming up. 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:14.840 I'm like, come on and published. And I think it 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:19.880 published on Friday Tuesday, right out of the oven. And uh, 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.920 we're talking about it just as they are completing their decline, 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:27.319 so we are on top of this. Well, I think 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:28.880 that well, we'll get into it. I think that's what 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.240 makes it even more interesting is that it's still happening, 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:37.080 all right. Numbers stations. Numbers stations. Yeah, like you said, 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:41.480 number both words are a little clumsy, um, and number 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:45.559 of stations are. We should just come out and say 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:54.440 they're short wave radio transmissions or transmitters, making really weird 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:59.640 baffling is the best word for it. Transmissions and have 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.240 been doing so apparently since at least World War one. 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:10.080 Oh really, Yeah. Supposedly the first mention of a numbers station, 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.560 uh came from a German magazine. In World War One 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:16.799 and World War Two they were in full swing, sure, 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:20.480 but apparently they somehow popped up first round world War one, 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.799 which makes them some of the earliest short wave transmissions 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.720 in the world, because shortwave radio didn't come around, at 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:33.600 least into commercial use until about World War One. Was 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:35.960 a few years before that, if you'll remember correct. Yeah, 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.480 that's why I didn't even think that that was possible. 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.480 But like you said, world War two was when they 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:44.919 were full swing. They really peaked in the Cold War, um, 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.519 and they've been dying out slowly ever since. But I 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:50.320 think one of the neatest things is they are still 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.200 if you have a short wave radio, you can tune 0:02:53.200 --> 0:03:00.600 into a frequency and here be one to seven eight. 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:03.480 You know, it's it's usually like some sort of tone 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.160 we should mention to Jerry of the future. Yeah, you're 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:09.480 supposed to leave that beep in because it's part of 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.880 the numbers stations. Yeah, we beat Jerry to signal when 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:13.840 we want something edited. But yeah, number station. It's not 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:15.400 always a beat, but will just have some sort of 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.400 Sometimes it's a bit of a song, yeah, like this 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:24.680 Swedish Rhapsody or the Lincolnshire Poacher of British English Ukish 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:31.960 folk song and uh. And the reason um that they 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.679 the transmission starts off with a tone or a beep 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:37.840 or a song is so you can it alerts like 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.760 here comes the transmission to in your station hone and 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.120 make sure you get some good reception because the secret 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.360 code is about to be revealed. And that's exactly what 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:52.000 everyone is pretty much in consensus on that what comes 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.480 after this and what is broadcast over these numbers stations 0:03:55.920 --> 0:04:02.440 are secret codes. Yeah. Again for the Swedish Rhapsody station. Um, 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:07.480 it is a little girl in speaking in German, reading 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:12.520 numbers and letters random seemingly random numbers and letters, and 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.680 then the transmission is over and that happens like or 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.080 it used to happen. That's a defunct numbers station now, 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.880 but it happened on a fairly regular schedule. There's other ones. 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:28.800 The atension station is a woman saying attension and then 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:33.120 reading Spanish numbers and then repeating them over and over 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:36.839 again and then going on to the next set. And everybody. 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.760 No one can say for certain, but virtually everyone in 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.480 the world, from Cecil Adams that's straight dope to the 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:50.200 head of the UK's Trade and Industry Agency say these 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:55.360 are secret transmissions for spies. The whole basis of them 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.800 was for espionage. Yeah. And the reason why everyone is 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:04.559 speculating that that is absolutely the case, which almost certainly 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.760 it's like we said, is because no government to this 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.600 day has come forward and admitted this or own this. 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:17.520 It is all still technically speculation because you cannot point 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:22.200 to a factual statement. The closest we've ever come is 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:27.400 they finally got someone from the United Kingdom of spokesperson. 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:32.320 That was the dude from the Trade Agency the exact 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.840 quotas people should not be mystified by them they're not, 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:38.840 shall we say, for public consumption. Yeah, and that's the 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.680 only thing on record that any government has ever spoke 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:46.239 about what these transmissions are. Right, So, the the idea 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.800 that they are government transitions are the reason we have 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:53.160 to speculate, because the government has never claimed them. On 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.200 the flip side, the reason everyone thinks that they are 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:03.360 government backed claimed Stein transmissions is because these are pirate 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:08.240 radio frequencies, pirate radio transmitters. Yeah. My first thing was like, 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:09.960 just find one of these and look it up and 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:12.040 find out what the deal is. Yeah, you would think. 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:16.440 So they're totally unlicensed. Um, nobody knows exactly where they 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:20.040 are illegal. Technically, yes, they're very illegal because they transmit 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:25.760 over air traffic control frequencies. Um, well that's a big one. 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:30.000 And no one investigates them. There's no investigation into these 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.479 number stations whatsoever. So the fact that the government won't 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.919 say anything about them, and the fact that the government 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:41.840 isn't investigating these very blatantly out in the open um 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:47.600 weird baffling transmissions suggests that yeah, everybody's right that these 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:53.640 are government backed transmissions used to communicate anonymously and in 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:58.280 one direction. Two spies embedded in foreign countries. Yeah. I 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.520 was about to call it a conversation, but it's really not. 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.240 It's a it's um. I think on the BBC documents 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.600 all they called it a monologue. You're just sending a 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.200 one way message. Um, all right, Right after this break, 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.600 we're gonna talk a little bit about short wave radio technology. 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:18.360 The secret key to sending these messages after this break, 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.160 all right, The key to this whole thing is sending 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.800 a short way Like you might think in this day 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:39.480 and age, why not just send a telefax? No, that's 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.720 send an email or you know, there's surely, surely there 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:48.720 are safer ways to send espionage, this information, highly classified 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.880 instructions to go kill the leader of a country, perhaps, right, 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:55.680 like if you want to activate Reggie Jackson to kill 0:07:56.000 --> 0:08:00.600 Queen Elizabeth kill Norberg. Yeah, that's that's how would you 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.560 do it in this day and age? You think an 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:04.600 email would do it? No, And you want to know 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:10.920 who proves definitively that that is not safe for secure? Um? Who? 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:17.760 J Edward Snowden? Yeah there there. Um. If you use 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:22.000 a computer, you leave a trace. It's virtually impossible to 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.080 erase anything on a computer. If you think you have, 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:28.800 then you haven't. Plus, if you are, say emailing somebody, 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:33.679 you're transmitting what's supposed to be highly sensitive even encrypted 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:38.160 information over a network. That stuff can be captured, Like 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.840 go listen to ours an employer. Is your employer spying 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:43.559 on new episode? You? You can't do it like you 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:47.199 You can communicate like that, but you're leaving digital traces everywhere. 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:52.240 The beauty of the short wave radio transmission is that again, 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.079 it's anonymous and it's one directional. But if you get 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.760 caught with a short wave radio at least say back 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.240 in the sixties or the M and D s or something, yeah, 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:04.400 it wasn't weird. It didn't prove that you were a spy. 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.319 Yeah you've done. Just tune an into my too, my stories. 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.319 Just listening to the BBC World Service. Uh, short wave 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:15.520 energy radio energy. It's all determined by the power of 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:18.880 your transmitter. So if you've got a humongous transmitter, you 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.120 can send and it didn't need to be that big, 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:22.839 but you can send a message when we message to 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.880 the other side of the world. And the reason it 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.280 can travel across the planet is because it's bouncing off 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.000 of it literally is bouncing off the ionosphere of the 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.280 Earth or of well, yeah, of the Earth, uh, fifty 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:40.079 to three seventy five miles up above our surface. It's 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:45.080 in the upper atmosphere, and solar ionization creates an electrical 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:48.760 charge and that charge reflects that signal right back down 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:54.280 to Earth. It's called skywave or skip and skywave. And 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.360 that's why you can with a seemingly pretty simple piece 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.240 of equipment, I can send a message to of the 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.719 South Pacific. Yeah, from my bedroom. Well, I don't know 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.320 if i'd have one big enough for my my bedrooms 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.480 pretty big. I wanted to see how big these things 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.280 were actually, you know, like if they say a really 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.080 big ones to send them further and further, Like how 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:17.040 big do they get? They get very huge. They can 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:23.160 cover scores of acres a big shortwave antenna um, which 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.800 is why I can get very expensive So that's bigger 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:27.920 than my bedroom. You can also use ones that are 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:31.440 the size of your bedroom. And it depends not only 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.839 like you said, on the size of the transmitter, it 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.960 depends on the atmospheric conditions to Supposually, shortwave transmissions are 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:43.560 received best at sunrise and sunset, and no one's sure, 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.120 but it has to do with the ion sphere, and 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:50.839 because that's where the northern lights are happening, that's where 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:56.120 solar rays hit the hit the Earth's atmosphere and they 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.320 the atoms loose their electrons I believe, so they become 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:04.520 ions forming the ionosphere. And because this is constantly changing, UM, 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:09.960 you can't predict exactly how a short wave radio wave 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.240 will act, but you can kind of guess, well, this 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:18.120 time the Sun's least active or most active, whatever, it 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:22.120 has some impact on that sky. What's it called the sky? 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:26.960 What the skywave effect? So you can communicate with somebody 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:31.400 in a foreign country, right, and not only can it 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:35.679 not be tracked, it's very difficult to trace who sent that, 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:39.080 where that transmission is coming from, it's impossible to trace 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.959 who's receiving it. So you have no idea who in 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.439 your country is getting this, which means that you're broadcasting 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.319 to anybody and everybody who feels like listening to this. 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:55.199 UM a secret code, but the fact is, if you 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:58.560 use the right kind of secret code, no one can 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:00.680 crack it all. Right. That brings up an important point 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:05.319 because you would think also you can hack into the 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.840 most secure computer system on the planet if you're good 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.720 enough as a hacker, So how in the world could 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.719 sending a coded key like it's nineteen fifty five and 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.760 you're trying to get your Dakota ring you know from 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:25.199 the Red was Red Rider? No, No, that's way off. No, 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:29.199 what was it? It was fy No? No, no, I'm 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.199 talking about it in the Christmas Story. Yeah, it was 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.080 a little orphan that was the show. Yeah, I didn't 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.320 think it was. He didn't. He didn't care about pirates 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:38.439 and all that jazz pirates and smugglers and all that. 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.880 He listened to a little or Fanny and little I'll 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.199 take a word for it. I remember, now do you know? 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:45.959 But I'll take your word for it. Dude, I'm telling 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:50.920 you it's a little or Fanny was my hat. I 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.320 don't have a hat on right now, but I would 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:55.800 eat it if I if I were wrong. At any rate, 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.040 you're not a little Ralphie decoding the message from Little 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:02.640 or Fananny. But it is actually the most secure way 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:07.240 that you can send a secret message is by creating 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.079 a unique code that you know and have written down 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.760 on a piece of paper, and your buddy knows who 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:15.719 has it written down on a piece of paper. You 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:17.959 only use it once. That's the kind of the key here, 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.160 and then you destroy it afterward. That is still the 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.400 most it's unbreakable. So what it's called is a one 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.200 time pad, the old one time because you only use 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:29.920 it once, and it is old. It's from the nineteenth century. Yeah, 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.400 and it's still uncrackable. It is. And the reason why 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:35.320 it's uncrackable it is because you each have, like you said, 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:37.920 you each have a copy of this this code. But 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:42.160 it's randomly generated. Right, So let's say, um, you have 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:43.839 the sheet of paper and the other person has a 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.600 sheet of paper, and the sheet of paper says, it's 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:49.600 just like strings of random numbers, like four or five 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:54.120 numbers long, and it's just totally random and it just covers, 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:57.240 you know, several sheets of paper. Well, you guys start 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:02.080 at the same place, and when person transmitting the message 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.000 wants to encrypt it, they run their message. So say 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:11.280 you guys have agreed like zero is a, B is one, 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:16.520 C is two, etcetera. So you'd take that and you'd you, 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.880 I know, dude, is mind boggling. Like this is about 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.360 as simple as cryptology gets. And it makes me bleed 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:24.960 for my ears because all you have to do is 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:28.400 agree on what's what. You know, it could be anything, right, 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:31.440 So you're agreeing on what's what, But um, you also 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:36.360 have this randomly generated code key, right. So um, let's 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.120 say I want to say, what up, chuck. Let's W 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.360 H A T U P C h U c K. 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.200 So that's eleven letters, right. So if you have your 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:53.320 your key and you're encoding it, you would use these first, 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:58.840 the first eleven numbers to encode what's already encoded. So 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:08.160 the W who is say, says it's the number twenty two, right, 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:10.720 and then so on. So like there's a number assigned 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.640 to each letter, so you have that, and then you 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.600 run it through this code, this randomly generated code. So 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:22.080 you add that and then so you have, um, what 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.560 I say, twenty two and then um say, the first 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.280 letter or the first number of this code is seven, 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.360 so you have twenty nine. So that's what the little 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:39.800 German girl reads on the air two eighteen. It means 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.280 nothing to anyone else in the entire world except for 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:47.360 you and the person who has the other copy of 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.920 this code, since there's only two copies and you're only 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.240 using it once and you're gonna eat it afterwards. Yeah, 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:59.120 and the key is that it's randomly generated numbers. Then 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.800 it'll it's theoretically it will never be broken. Yeah, but 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.600 I mean that's just one example. You could You could 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:13.720 have five pre code rules to confuse someone trying to 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.840 crack this code. Yeah, and they don't even It's not 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.000 like the simplest code is this letter represents this number, 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.400 this number represents this letter. It gets more complex than that. 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.320 You could both have agreed upon a book you have 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:29.760 to kill a mockingbird. I've got to kill a mockingbird 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:36.840 for eight twelve thirteen four means go to page fourteen 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.200 means now you're really going to page thirteen, Ignore four, 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.120 then look at the twelfth line. Then look at the 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.200 eighth word on that page. Right. What a what a 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:49.200 one time pad would do is take that already agreed 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.960 upon code and encrypt it even further. Yeah. But the 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.200 point is it doesn't have to represent letters. It can 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:59.120 represent full words in a text that you've agreed upon. 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.520 And it's basically like thumbing through this book picking out 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:04.960 all these various words to make a sentence. Right. The 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.560 problem is that's its vulnerability as well, like to to 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:13.120 get a copy of the randomly generated key that's used 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:17.240 to encrypt this message. Right, Um, you have to have 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.919 some sort of contact with somebody, So that's one vulnerability 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.600 of it. The thing is is like, depending on how 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:27.200 long this is, as many numbers as there are, um 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:32.520 is as long as as many transmissions as you can transmit. 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:37.440 Does that make any sense? So so I said, what up, chuck, 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.760 that's eleven. That uses the first eleven numbers on this key. 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.000 But say there's fifty thou numbers on the key, Well, 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.200 we have a lot more messages we I can send 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:51.240 to you that that we're going through the pad. Eventually though, 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:53.720 we're going to use up this pad and we need 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:55.920 to meet again, so I can give you another randomly 0:17:55.960 --> 0:18:01.080 generated key. That's the vulnerability of it. Well, the other 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:03.720 well and not a fail safe. But the thing it 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:05.800 makes it even safer is a lot of times they 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:10.240 would send and presumably are still sending dummy messages, so 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.159 you don't even know if it's real to begin with. 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.760 And there are only so many person hours you can 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.959 dedicate as a government to code crackers, and they might 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.440 be working on a code that's not even real. You 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.080 don't know what transmissions are are legit and that that 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.360 is a proposal by a group called ENIGMA. And we'll 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.439 talk about Enigma right after this message because they're pretty awesome. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.679 So Chuck Um, we were talking about Enigma. I mentioned Enigma, 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:45.480 and ENIGMA is this group that of basically amateur radio people, 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:51.040 shortwave radio enthusiast. They really get into this. UM it's 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.440 a thing and they started This is pre pre internet days. 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.280 I think it was in the eighties, the late eighties 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.639 early nineties that ENIGMA first came around and kind of 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:05.200 coalesced an. ENIGMA stands for European Numbers Information Gathering and 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.440 Monitoring Association, and basically it was just a group of 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:11.320 these people who had all the spell enigma, yeah right, 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:15.000 who had all and I think they reverse engineer UM. 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.440 But they had all kind of started to talk or 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.040 find each other and say have you heard this weird 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.960 transmission and they're like, yes, I've heard that one, and 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.440 you should. You should check out this frequency on Tuesday 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.400 nights at eight pm because it transmits this. And there 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.600 they suddenly realized there's this whole community of people out there. 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.359 So they set up a newsletter, they started in a 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:43.119 naming convention, and they started assigning, collecting, and assigning names 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:47.280 to these different things. So like uh E designated a 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:52.320 an English speaking trans numbers station, um S was Slavic 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.000 v is various, which incumbani encapsulates everything from like French 0:19:56.160 --> 0:20:01.040 to Spanish. And Enigma really took this thing and put 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:07.280 it into understandable terms. And they are basically eavesdropping where 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:11.480 they were eavesdropping on the spy community. Are they not 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.239 doing that anymore? So? Enigma disbanded I think in two 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.320 thousand and then almost immediately another group came and said, well, 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:19.200 we're Enigma two thousand. We're going to carry this on. 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.800 And that's pretty fortunate because they were around to um 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.560 put all this on the internet. Before it was like 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.440 you had to like subscribe to newsletters and have a 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:30.639 short wave radio. Now it's like you can just go 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.880 on the internet and and um listen to all sorts 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:38.160 of archives of these defunct UM number stations as well. Yeah, 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.600 I mean they're creepy sounding. I don't like it's kind 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:42.960 of cool. I've got one for you. We've talked about 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.200 it before. Do you remember the Yosemite SAM transmission. Yeah, 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.800 I'm convinced that that's just a person having fun. Well, 0:20:49.880 --> 0:21:00.159 let's play it. I like that one. I think it's 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:06.200 full of info. It's cool. It's coming from somewhere out 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:11.000 in Albuquerque in the desert in New Mexico, and it's 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:15.080 been going since what like two thousand four and um 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.119 what makes this one interesting is that it's not a code. 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.760 It's just Yosemite Sam saying that thing. Well, then it's 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.480 followed by that data burst, which they think is some 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:28.800 sort of compressed information. Yeah. See, I don't believe it. 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:30.960 I think this is a short wave enthusiast having a 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.959 good time. Well, he's been doing it like, it's pretty sophisticated. 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:37.080 It does it like over and over again, I think 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:39.359 for forty seconds and switches to the next frequency and 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:43.359 it just goes through the band on a then he's 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:46.320 got a computer doing it for him. Maybe if it 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:48.680 is just some dude, But either way, I like the 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.440 use of you, Samity Sam. It's cool, but it's pretty 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:56.159 it's exemplar of um of it's a numbers station, of 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:59.720 a numbers transmission. There's something that indicates that this is 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.800 about to happen, and then there's the happening, the transmission 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:07.280 of the secret code. Whether it's digital in nature, or 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:12.000 whether it's spoken um, and then there it is ended 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:14.960 by you know, yossemity sam again or something like that. 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:19.399 It's saying, here's the beginning, here's the information, here's the end. 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.280 Now go kill Northburg. One of the other cool things 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.119 about this is and um, you know when we were 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.560 talking about truly there's better ways. And the government could 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:35.240 theoretically shut down the Internet, they could zapp satellite transmissions, 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:39.040 they could shut everything down. This is almost unstoppable. You 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:42.480 can't shut down short wave radio. I mean, I guess 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.560 you cut power maybe yeah, well no, suppose you know, 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:49.520 I mean yeah, and then I guess if people have 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:52.960 batteries though in their shortwave radio. Good point. The one 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:56.560 way to combat it is called jamming frequency jamming, and 0:22:56.680 --> 0:23:01.040 basically it's just broadcasting on the same frequency that these 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:05.240 these other transmitters, the numbers stations are transmitting on. And 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:08.879 so if you're broadcasting within your country, you're probably going 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:11.840 to reach those. Shortwave radio is better than somebody on 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:14.720 the other side of the planet's transmission well, and so 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:19.320 apparently Russia spent billions or the Soviets spent billions of 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:23.480 dollars during the Cold War jamming frequencies from all sorts 0:23:23.520 --> 0:23:27.359 of different transmissions, um, and they play things like the 0:23:27.440 --> 0:23:30.800 sound of seagulls or random beeps or whatever. And it 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:35.920 was just to prevent people from transmitting into Russia. But 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:39.480 even with all of that money and technology mustard or 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:43.440 marshaled against it, they still weren't entirely successful. Like shortwave 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:48.040 radio transmissions get through. It's just too big to fight. Yeah, 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:51.800 you can't jam the entire frequency of all short waves, 0:23:52.280 --> 0:23:56.120 like every single frequency. Um. If you have ever heard 0:23:56.200 --> 0:24:02.879 the the Wilco remember Yankee Hotel Foxtrot that album that 0:24:03.160 --> 0:24:05.400 was on the album at some point, I can't remember 0:24:05.400 --> 0:24:09.760 which song it Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in a woman's voice 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:13.160 and that is a famous uh code. Was that from 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:16.359 the Content project? No, I don't think so, but we 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:19.879 should talk about that. For sure. That was a project. 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:23.120 And it was also I guess and the the wild 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:25.359 West days where you're talking about pre internet. If people 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:27.920 wanted to hear the stuff, some people got together and 0:24:28.040 --> 0:24:34.280 put together a greatest it's sort of on CD with 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:36.680 a lot of accompanying material about what you're listening to, 0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:40.119 and um, none of them obviously you can't break these codes. 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:42.400 That's the thing I find interesting is people sit around 0:24:42.440 --> 0:24:46.320 listen to this stuff, but with no aim of cracking 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:49.400 the code. I think some people do attempt to crack 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:52.159 the code and it's impossible. Well, it's not impossible, and 0:24:52.280 --> 0:24:54.280 we should say that with the reason why it's not 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:57.760 impossible is because if you're using a computer generated random number, 0:24:58.600 --> 0:25:01.960 computer is not capable of truly of generating a truly 0:25:02.080 --> 0:25:06.000 random number because computers run on algorithms, and algorithms are 0:25:06.080 --> 0:25:09.080 designed to follow patterns, so they're just incapable of it. 0:25:09.480 --> 0:25:14.679 So you could, especially today, a hacker could conceivably crack 0:25:15.040 --> 0:25:18.600 one of these, especially old transmissions. But but you still 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:21.840 don't know what those numbers stand for. Even if you 0:25:21.920 --> 0:25:24.720 find a pattern of numbers, right, there's still an agreed 0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:26.480 upon thing that you would have to figure out, but 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:30.840