Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you. Well, it's Thanksgiving week
Speaker 1: here in America and that means we're taking some time off,
Speaker 1: but we still want to bring you shows. So I'm
Speaker 1: bringing you a couple of reruns. Today. We're going to
Speaker 1: listen to an episode that published last year that we're
Speaker 1: two thousand twenty one, and it is titled tech Stuff
Speaker 1: by the Numbers Stations. It's a pretty creepy one. Um,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite little topics, weird tech topics to
Speaker 1: talk about because it's a secret thing that's not outright hidden.
Speaker 1: The meaning is hidden, but you can discover these things
Speaker 1: if you just happen to have a short wave radio
Speaker 1: and some patients and you know, some good positioning. So
Speaker 1: fun topic. Hope you enjoy tech Stuff by the Numbers Stations. Recently,
Speaker 1: Amazon canceled their television series truth Seekers, which I thought
Speaker 1: of as sort of a cross between Shaun of the
Speaker 1: Dead and The X Files. So in the series, a
Speaker 1: cable technician named Gus played by Nick Frost, is obsessed
Speaker 1: with ghost hunting, and he gradually indoctrinates his new partners
Speaker 1: as his name is Elton John. He's played by Samson Keo. Uh. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's it's a cute show. It's a little odd in tone.
Speaker 1: And the part that really applies to this episode, however,
Speaker 1: is that one of the things that Gus fixates on
Speaker 1: in the early episodes is a radio frequency playing a
Speaker 1: numbers station, and it's based off of an actual historical
Speaker 1: number station that folks call the Lincolnshire Poacher. And here's
Speaker 1: what it sounds like. Gree nine seven one five, Gree
Speaker 1: nine seven one hive, Gree nine seven one hive. So
Speaker 1: that's a real thing, or it was a real thing,
Speaker 1: and it's not the only such station out there. There
Speaker 1: have been lots of numbers stations over the years, some
Speaker 1: using different jingles to signal an incoming series of numbers.
Speaker 1: Some of them have male voices, some use female voices,
Speaker 1: some used children's voices, Some of them are in more code,
Speaker 1: Some have people reciting not just numbers but letters and
Speaker 1: code signals. A lot of them are super creepy, which
Speaker 1: makes them really ideal for a show about paranormal investigation.
Speaker 1: But while the supernatural stuff is fanciful nonsense, the numbers
Speaker 1: stations are actually anchored in our real world. And while
Speaker 1: tech stuff did do an episode about numbers stations many
Speaker 1: many years ago, I thought it would be good to
Speaker 1: use numbers stations as a way to talk about not
Speaker 1: just what they are, but also about short wave radio communications,
Speaker 1: the physics of radio in general, and the process of
Speaker 1: ciphering and encrypting information. So this is really gonna be
Speaker 1: a big overview, catch all kind of podcast. So let's
Speaker 1: start off with radio itself. Radio waves are part of
Speaker 1: the electro magnetic spectrum. Uh. They are there along with
Speaker 1: stuff like my microwaves, visible light, X rays, and gamma rays.
Speaker 1: All of this is part of one big spectrum of
Speaker 1: electromagnetic radiation. You could actually think of it all as
Speaker 1: different flavors of light if you like. It's just that
Speaker 1: the slice of light that we can see is a
Speaker 1: very small slice of the overall spectrum. Now, specifically, radio
Speaker 1: waves are in the long wavelength part of that spectrum.
Speaker 1: Electromagnetic radiation moves in waves all at the speed of light,
Speaker 1: because hey, really it is just light, just different flavors
Speaker 1: of it. But those flavors of light do have different wavelengths,
Speaker 1: which also means they have different frequencies. So what does
Speaker 1: that mean exactly, Well, let's start with wavelengths. Imagine a
Speaker 1: nice smooth wavy line. The distance between two consecutive crests
Speaker 1: on that wave, so the very peaks at the top
Speaker 1: parts of our curve. In other words, that would be
Speaker 1: one wavelength from one crest to the next. A frequency
Speaker 1: just refers to the number of times a given cycle
Speaker 1: happens within a given amount of time, and we frequently
Speaker 1: use one second as the time unit. And with electromagnetic radiation,
Speaker 1: we talked about how many full wavelengths of a given
Speaker 1: signal pass a specific point in space within one second.
Speaker 1: We also use the unit hurts to describe this relationship.
Speaker 1: A one Hurts frequency would have one cycle or one
Speaker 1: wavelength per second passing you know this given point in
Speaker 1: one second. A giga Hurts frequency has a billion cycles
Speaker 1: per second. Now, all electromagnetic radiation is traveling at the
Speaker 1: same speed, which is around three thousand kilometers per second
Speaker 1: in a vacuum. Because the speed actually changes depending upon
Speaker 1: the medium through which the radiation is traveling, that happens
Speaker 1: to be the speed limit of the universe. Nothing goes
Speaker 1: faster than that, so the energy is traveling at that speed,
Speaker 1: but the frequency is dependent not just on speed but
Speaker 1: how long those waves are. In fact, because we know
Speaker 1: all these waves are traveling at that same speed, we
Speaker 1: can figure out the wavelength if we know the frequency,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. So the formula is wavelength equals the
Speaker 1: speed of light divided by the waves frequency. Alternatively, frequency
Speaker 1: is equal to the speed of light divided by the wavelength.
Speaker 1: So as long as we know either the frequency or
Speaker 1: the wavelength, we can figure out the other one. Because
Speaker 1: the speed of light is a constant, it's not a variable.
Speaker 1: On the longest wavelength side of the spectrum are radio waves,
Speaker 1: which can measure more than a hundred meters in length.
Speaker 1: So a radio wave with the wavelength of one would
Speaker 1: a frequency of about three mega hurts, meaning about three
Speaker 1: million wavelengths would pass a given point in a second,
Speaker 1: and each wavelength is measuring one meters between those crests. Again,
Speaker 1: the speed of the signal is still the speed of light.
Speaker 1: But let's say we get to the other end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum, towards the very very very tiny wavelengths on
Speaker 1: the electromagnetic spectrum, and when I say tiny, I mean
Speaker 1: really tiny. Gamma radiation, which represents the smallest of the
Speaker 1: waves that we know about, are less than one hundred
Speaker 1: pico meters in length, and a picometer is one trillionth
Speaker 1: of a meter, so this is actually smaller than the
Speaker 1: nano scale. The frequency started out at around ten to
Speaker 1: the power of nineteen hurts or ten quintillion hurts. Now,
Speaker 1: I've talked about electro magnetic radiation in terms of waves,
Speaker 1: but we also know that it behaves as both a
Speaker 1: wave and a part nicle. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: experiments that have shown this, and they're fascinating. But I
Speaker 1: don't want to get too far off track. Some of
Speaker 1: you out there might be screaming too late now, So
Speaker 1: we should also mention photons, the particles of light. A
Speaker 1: photons energy is directly proportional to the electro magnetic frequency
Speaker 1: of that wave. It's also inversely proportional to the wave length.
Speaker 1: So gamma rays pack a huge energetic wallop, while radio waves,
Speaker 1: by comparison, are whimps. So let's get back to the
Speaker 1: radio spectrum in particular. We know that radio waves have
Speaker 1: the longest wavelengths in the electro magnetic spectrum, which means
Speaker 1: they also have the lowest frequencies and the lowest amount
Speaker 1: of photonic energy. Generally speaking, we group electromagnetic frequencies ranging
Speaker 1: from thirty hurts or thirty wavelengths per second up to
Speaker 1: three hundred giga hurts or three hundred bill in wavelengths
Speaker 1: per second. Obviously, this is a really big range, but
Speaker 1: all of that are radio frequencies. Now, different countries divvy
Speaker 1: up this spectrum of frequencies for different uses, some of
Speaker 1: which depend upon the capabilities of those frequencies. So, for example,
Speaker 1: if you're looking at around thirty hurts, this is the
Speaker 1: extremely low frequency or e L f ELF range. You know,
Speaker 1: I used to play in ELF range in Dungeons and Dragons. Wait,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of something else. So these wavelengths are really long,
Speaker 1: and they are good at penetrating stuff like deep water,
Speaker 1: so it can be used for very basic communications with submarines.
Speaker 1: A M radio would be up in the medium frequency
Speaker 1: range for radio frequencies, and also the medium wavelength range.
Speaker 1: Just above that are the high frequency short wave radio bands,
Speaker 1: which are what we're really going to talk about a
Speaker 1: lot today. These have a wavelength between ten and one,
Speaker 1: and frequencies that are between three and thirty mega hurts.
Speaker 1: Radio Waves in this band of frequencies have some really
Speaker 1: useful properties, and one of those is the broadcast range,
Speaker 1: as in how far these radio waves can travel. So
Speaker 1: higher frequency radio bands can essentially only travel by line
Speaker 1: of sight, so there is a limited range to them.
Speaker 1: If you've ever listened to an FM radio station, because
Speaker 1: FM frequencies are in a band called very high frequency
Speaker 1: or VHF, then you might have had the experience of
Speaker 1: the station starting to give out as you travel away
Speaker 1: from the source. Depending upon the power of the broadcasting station,
Speaker 1: you typically have a range of around thirty to forty
Speaker 1: miles or fifty to sixty kilometers, but radio waves that
Speaker 1: are a bit longer can travel further thanks to a
Speaker 1: layer in Earth's atmosphere called the ionosphere. Higher frequencies can
Speaker 1: move right through the ionosphere. They just punch right through
Speaker 1: and go into space, but lower frequencies, those having the
Speaker 1: longer wavelengths, aren't able to do that, so they actually
Speaker 1: bounce off the layer and come back down to Earth.
Speaker 1: By reflecting back down to Earth, these radio waves could
Speaker 1: travel much further than they would just by line of sight. Now,
Speaker 1: as the name suggests, the ionosphere is a layer of
Speaker 1: our atmosphere that is host to ionized particles. Ionization is
Speaker 1: the process by which an atom becomes charged, either with
Speaker 1: a positive charge, meaning it has lost electrons electrons are
Speaker 1: the negatively charged particles. So then you've got an imbalance.
Speaker 1: You have more protons with the atom than you have electrons,
Speaker 1: and thus you have an overall positive charge, or it
Speaker 1: could become negatively charged, meaning that an atom has taken
Speaker 1: on more electrons. Now, this makes that layer of Earth's
Speaker 1: atmosphere electrically conductive. It happens because our atmosphere is hit
Speaker 1: by ultra violet light from the Sun and it hits
Speaker 1: the atoms in this layer of the atmosphere. It energizes
Speaker 1: those atoms, and when the atoms get really energetic, the
Speaker 1: electrons move further out from the nucleus and they can
Speaker 1: actually peel off if they have enough energy. Now you've
Speaker 1: got free electrons, and those free electrons are either reflecting
Speaker 1: radio waves if they have a long enough wavelength, or
Speaker 1: they can actually absorb them or otherwise allow them to
Speaker 1: pass through for shorter wavelengths. This works in both directions.
Speaker 1: By the way, not just radio waves coming from Earth,
Speaker 1: but also radio waves that are coming in from space,
Speaker 1: because lots of stuff out there generates radio waves. I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about aliens, I'm talking about like solar activity
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Now, the activity of the ionosphere
Speaker 1: changes throughout a day over any given spot on Earth.
Speaker 1: So during the daytime, that part of the Earth is
Speaker 1: facing the Sun, so the atmosphere overhead is being hit
Speaker 1: with a lot more ultra violet radiation, and thus the
Speaker 1: lower part of the ionosphere, the part that's closer to us,
Speaker 1: ends up getting more crowded with ions. Now that means
Speaker 1: that longer radio waves are going to hit the ionosphere
Speaker 1: at a lower altitude and then reflect off. But at nighttime,
Speaker 1: the Sun is on the other side of the planet,
Speaker 1: so the lower part of the ionosphere kind of calms
Speaker 1: down a bit, and now the longer radio waves will
Speaker 1: actually travel at a further altitude. They'll go higher up
Speaker 1: before they hit the ionosphere and reflect back down. That
Speaker 1: also means that you can actually pick up longer wavelength
Speaker 1: radio signals from further away at nighttime because there's this
Speaker 1: different angle that allows the waves to reflect and travel
Speaker 1: even further. Now the history of radio, as in the
Speaker 1: technology that we use to leverage radio waves. This gets
Speaker 1: complicated because we call the technology the same terms as
Speaker 1: we call the the scientific phenomena that is in our
Speaker 1: operating with the technology. But we'll we'll carry on. So
Speaker 1: the tech radio has a very long and complicated history,
Speaker 1: and it's full of some really serious drama. I mean
Speaker 1: not just radio dramas like soap operas, I mean like
Speaker 1: drama drama. Just get a couple of radio enthusiasts talking
Speaker 1: about Tesla and Marconi or Armstrong and DeForest and see
Speaker 1: how things go if you want some entertainment. But we'll
Speaker 1: just cut to the chase and say that by World
Speaker 1: War One, people were figuring out potential uses for radio waves,
Speaker 1: like being able to send communications quickly across large areas
Speaker 1: if you know you're trying to coordinate numerous groups of
Speaker 1: soldiers in different theaters of combat. For example, communicating by
Speaker 1: radio involves generating a carrier wave signal at a specific
Speaker 1: frequency and then modulating it, so, in other words, changing
Speaker 1: that signal in some way in order for it to
Speaker 1: carry information. A steady signal gives you no real useful
Speaker 1: information other than someone or something is generating this signal,
Speaker 1: But by creating a way to encode and decode information
Speaker 1: by altering that signal, do you have a way to
Speaker 1: send more complex information. A M radio modulates a carrier
Speaker 1: signal by changing the amplitude of the wavelength, and this
Speaker 1: requires a good deal of power, and the long wavelengths
Speaker 1: mean you need big radio towers to beam out these signals.
Speaker 1: FM radio modulates signals through frequency modulation, altering the frequency
Speaker 1: of the signal slightly. And radio stations, like the kind
Speaker 1: we tune into for entertainment purposes, these are fixed frequencies
Speaker 1: right like If they weren't, you would never be able
Speaker 1: to tune into your favorite radio station because you wouldn't
Speaker 1: know what frequency to go to. So this means they
Speaker 1: can't take advantage of the changes in the ionosphere. They're
Speaker 1: always stuck transmitting at a set frequency. See whether conditions
Speaker 1: are good for long range transmission or not. Shortwave radio
Speaker 1: operators have a little more flexibility. They're working with a
Speaker 1: specific series of frequencies in the high frequency range of
Speaker 1: the RF spectrum, but they can swap from one of
Speaker 1: those sets of frequencies to another and thus take advantage
Speaker 1: of atmospheric conditions, so early in the day you might
Speaker 1: use one set of frequencies that are available to you,
Speaker 1: and late at night you might use a different set,
Speaker 1: because the actual radio waves will travel at different distances
Speaker 1: as the day changes. But there's another aspect to communicating
Speaker 1: during wartime, which is that, generally speaking, you don't want
Speaker 1: the people who are fighting on the other side of
Speaker 1: the war to know what the heck you're talking about,
Speaker 1: so you have to come up with some means of
Speaker 1: of you skating the meaning of your message. This is
Speaker 1: particularly important with radio for a very obvious reason. See,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different ways to send secret messages,
Speaker 1: and some of them are more secure than others. If
Speaker 1: you and I are the only ones who know about
Speaker 1: a black, glassy rock near a trina field, you know,
Speaker 1: a rock that has no business being there, and I
Speaker 1: hide a message under that rock for you, there's a
Speaker 1: decent chance that you'll get to the message before anyone
Speaker 1: else does. I might not even need to encode the
Speaker 1: message at all, because no one else even knows that
Speaker 1: there's a rock there. If I were to send you
Speaker 1: a message through the mail, well, now there's a few
Speaker 1: points where someone could intercept that message. Right. I mean,
Speaker 1: perhaps the batties check my mailbox. They see that I've
Speaker 1: put the little mail flag up, so they come and
Speaker 1: check it and they steal the message before I can
Speaker 1: even go anywhere. Or maybe they keep checking your mailbox
Speaker 1: on the other side, looking at incoming mail, and they
Speaker 1: grab my message when it arrives at your mailbox. Or
Speaker 1: maybe they're super tricksy and they've infiltrated the postal service
Speaker 1: and Cliff the mailman is secretly a dirty old spy
Speaker 1: always suspected it. Well. Radio communications are out in the open.
Speaker 1: Anyone with a receiver that has an antenna that can
Speaker 1: tune into whichever frequency is being used can actually listen
Speaker 1: in on that frequency. So you have no control over
Speaker 1: who can hear what you're sending out. So if you're
Speaker 1: sending something out in secret, you have to encode it
Speaker 1: in some way that makes it hard or impossible to
Speaker 1: determine what is being communicated. Now, when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about how this sometimes involves making creepy radio broadcasts.
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. Let's say you
Speaker 1: want to create your own radio station. You've put up
Speaker 1: a transmission tower, you figured out your power needs, to
Speaker 1: generate the signal necessary to claim a subsection of the
Speaker 1: r F spectrum set aside for broadcasts, and you're ready
Speaker 1: to go right, Well, no, not if you don't want
Speaker 1: to get shut down and find or worse. In order
Speaker 1: to make sure the spectrum isn't just a free for all,
Speaker 1: which would make communication difficult at least, governments have designated
Speaker 1: specific bands of frequencies for specific uses. See if multiple
Speaker 1: transmitters were trying to use the exact same frequency, everything
Speaker 1: would get garbled. You would have tons of interference. If
Speaker 1: you've ever used a pair of walkie talkies, you probably
Speaker 1: know that it's standard for folks to say over when
Speaker 1: they're done talking because the walkie talkies switched between transmitter
Speaker 1: and receiver mode, and without the over you might have
Speaker 1: both parties trying to talk at the same time and
Speaker 1: no one can hear anything because you're both holding down
Speaker 1: the transmit button. Well, when you think about all the radio, television, cellular, WiFi,
Speaker 1: and other signals zooming around out there, all of which
Speaker 1: are part of the RF spectrum, you quickly realize that
Speaker 1: you've got to make up some rules or else no
Speaker 1: one would ever know who they're talking to. Now, way
Speaker 1: back in eighteen sixty five, the International Telegraph Union came
Speaker 1: into formation, and in nineteen thirty four it changed its
Speaker 1: name to the International Telecommunication Union, and it's part of
Speaker 1: the United Nations today, and one of its jobs is
Speaker 1: to designate specific slices of the RF spectrum for specific
Speaker 1: uses to allow for seamless operations between the world. That way,
Speaker 1: the radio is made by a company in Japan will
Speaker 1: work in places like the US because the frequencies that
Speaker 1: we've set aside for terrestrial radio stations are the same,
Speaker 1: assuming that both US and Japan are following the suggestions
Speaker 1: from the i t U. Now it's up to the
Speaker 1: governments of various countries to enforce these rules. In the
Speaker 1: United States, radio stations have to obtain a license from
Speaker 1: the Federal Communications Commission to get a permission to broadcast
Speaker 1: on specific frequencies within the A, M or FM bands
Speaker 1: of the ur F spectrum. There are other frequencies reserved
Speaker 1: for amateur radio operators, but if you want to operate
Speaker 1: your own amateur station, you have to get a license
Speaker 1: from the f c C, and passing a test is
Speaker 1: part of that process. Now, if you just want to
Speaker 1: listen to radio. That's different. You don't need a license.
Speaker 1: In that case. You could have a shortwave radio set
Speaker 1: and as long as you're not transmitting, you're just listening,
Speaker 1: no licenses needed. But to transmit you gotta get permission first,
Speaker 1: and the f c C will even assign a call
Speaker 1: signed to you. Number stations are different. With commercial radio stations,
Speaker 1: you can do some research to see who owns and
Speaker 1: operates that station, but with numbers stations, there's a distinct
Speaker 1: lack of information. This puts them in the realm of
Speaker 1: pirate radio stations. These are stations that have no identifying
Speaker 1: information associated with them, and they are operating without being
Speaker 1: registered with the FCC or similar agency in other countries.
Speaker 1: Now that doesn't mean that these agencies like the FCC
Speaker 1: don't know about them. There is a look the other
Speaker 1: way situation in which one part of the government is
Speaker 1: using stuff that the other parts just don't need to
Speaker 1: worry about. You know, by the way, if you're wondering
Speaker 1: if people operate pirate radio stations, they sometimes do. But
Speaker 1: there are ways to triangulate signals and determine where those
Speaker 1: signals are coming from. So if someone is broadcasting without
Speaker 1: permission on a specific frequency. It's typically just a matter
Speaker 1: of time before the Feds come in and shut things down. Now,
Speaker 1: you could hop onto other frequencies, but unless your audience
Speaker 1: knows where to tune in, you would likely be talking
Speaker 1: to no one or at least very few people. So,
Speaker 1: since we know that it's possible to figure out where
Speaker 1: a radio signal originates, and since numbers stations can remain
Speaker 1: in operation for years or decades, we have to draw
Speaker 1: the conclusion that these numbers stations have some sort of
Speaker 1: sanction from governments, otherwise they would get shut down. Now,
Speaker 1: some sources say that numbers stations, these radio frequencies that
Speaker 1: are sending out seemingly nonsensical information, got their start in
Speaker 1: World War One. Others say it was actually closer to
Speaker 1: World War Two, and I tend to suspect that the
Speaker 1: ladder is more accurate. Radio was important in World War One,
Speaker 1: but it was also still pretty early on in the
Speaker 1: evolution of the technology. But at some time around World
Speaker 1: War One. In World War Two, someone got an idea,
Speaker 1: and that idea was to establish a transmission on a
Speaker 1: particular signal, or sometimes a series of signals that would
Speaker 1: change throughout the day to take advantage of the ionosphere
Speaker 1: and the differences and signal propagation, and the signal would
Speaker 1: broadcast encoded information presumably two spies. So let's say you're
Speaker 1: running a top secret spy organization like the m I six. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: you're spending a lot of time dealing with the fact
Speaker 1: that your top spy has a habit of introducing himself
Speaker 1: to any one in hearing range and then drinking his
Speaker 1: way across the world. But you've got a lot of
Speaker 1: other more responsible spy types out there too, and you
Speaker 1: might occasionally need to send them orders. But if your
Speaker 1: operative is halfway across the world, deep in enemy territory
Speaker 1: and you can't rely on normal communication channels, you might
Speaker 1: want to send a coded message by shortwave radio. This
Speaker 1: has a huge advantage and that the radio signal goes
Speaker 1: out everywhere, so you know that your enemies will be
Speaker 1: able to detect the signal, but they won't know what
Speaker 1: the message was or who it was actually for. If
Speaker 1: you were to call your operative, it's possible someone could
Speaker 1: detect the call and trace it to the recipient, the spy,
Speaker 1: and thus compromising them. So sending out a message by
Speaker 1: a radio means you give no information about who is
Speaker 1: supposed to receive that message. The operative knows to tune
Speaker 1: into a specific radio frequency at a specific time. This
Speaker 1: is something that you have to work out beforehand, obviously,
Speaker 1: as most of us aren't aware of what's going on
Speaker 1: with radio waves all around us, or we'd have a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble concentrating on anything. You might set up
Speaker 1: a regular broadcast session using different frequencies throughout the day,
Speaker 1: depending upon whichever one works best. And maybe some days
Speaker 1: you have nothing to report, so you might even send
Speaker 1: out a code for that, or it might just be gibberish.
Speaker 1: But other days you need to alert your operative to
Speaker 1: return home, or step it up and place a bigger
Speaker 1: bet in baccarat or whatever it may be. So these
Speaker 1: numbers stations typically have some sort of indicator at the
Speaker 1: top of the hour. The Lincoln Share Poacher, which we
Speaker 1: played at the beginning of this episode, is an example
Speaker 1: of that. That little tune marked the beginning of a transmission,
Speaker 1: followed by the actual message. The message would be a
Speaker 1: sequence of some sort, typically numbers, sometimes letters. The voice
Speaker 1: might be a recording, or it might be read live
Speaker 1: on the air. It could be a man, a woman,
Speaker 1: or a child's voice. You might pick up a short
Speaker 1: wave signal with someone counting in another language. But what
Speaker 1: do those codes actually mean? Well, that's the real question,
Speaker 1: and that's one that's kind of impossible for us to
Speaker 1: answer because the coded messages use an approach that is
Speaker 1: unbreakable assuming you don't get hold of the secret. So
Speaker 1: this leads us to a discussion about cryptography. Cryptography, or
Speaker 1: the art of writing and or breaking codes, is ancient,
Speaker 1: and people have come up with a lot of interesting
Speaker 1: ways to hide important information even if it's in plain sight,
Speaker 1: and have it be indecipherable as it were to the
Speaker 1: uninitiated at least. These range from the very simple strategies
Speaker 1: such as a rudimentary replacements for like the Caesar cipher,
Speaker 1: where you just substitute symbols for letters or just shift
Speaker 1: letters around, so, for example, you might say a B
Speaker 1: actually means C and a C means D. That's a
Speaker 1: very simple Caesar cipher. While these sort of ciphers might
Speaker 1: confound someone at casual first glance, they aren't particularly hard
Speaker 1: to crack. If you happen to know what language was
Speaker 1: used to write the message, you can look for patterns
Speaker 1: in those symbols to indicate common letter combinations. So, for example,
Speaker 1: in English, the letters J, Q, X, and z are
Speaker 1: really pretty rare, but the letters A, E, O, and
Speaker 1: T are really common. So you can look for symbols
Speaker 1: that show up a lot and start to think, well,
Speaker 1: these most likely represent some of the most common letters.
Speaker 1: And then you have letter pairs. In English, you get
Speaker 1: stuff like T H, E, R, O, N and A
Speaker 1: N a lot. You can also look for common double
Speaker 1: letters like T, T, S, S, E and so on.
Speaker 1: Knowing the rules of the language means you can start
Speaker 1: looking for clues as to what these symbols actually represent.
Speaker 1: Some ciphers take one little extra step, including some symbols
Speaker 1: for common letter pairings. Really, this is just taking a
Speaker 1: page from other alphabets, including older English alphabets. So for example,
Speaker 1: the old English letter thorn represents the th h or
Speaker 1: the sound. So maybe you have symbols that can represent
Speaker 1: certain letter pairs or double letters or phonetic sounds, and
Speaker 1: that can make it a tiny bit more challenging if
Speaker 1: someone wants to break the code. Now. There are also
Speaker 1: ciphers that use clever means to change how letters are
Speaker 1: encoded in some predetermined way. Which is what the famed
Speaker 1: Enigma machine could do. The Enigma machine was like a
Speaker 1: really complicated typewriter, only when you hit a given letter
Speaker 1: such as W on the machine, the machine would generate
Speaker 1: a different letter based on whatever its initial settings were.
Speaker 1: So let's say you hit W and you get G instead.
Speaker 1: You write that down for your encoded message. Then the
Speaker 1: Enigma machine would advance its mechanism so that the entire
Speaker 1: encoding process changed. So if you hit W again, now
Speaker 1: the machine wouldn't produce G for the second W, it
Speaker 1: would produce something else, like maybe P. The Enigma machine
Speaker 1: was so complicated that it prompted Allied forces in World
Speaker 1: War Two to construct early computer systems. And had it
Speaker 1: not been for a couple of quirks with the machine, so,
Speaker 1: for example, the machine would never use the correct letter
Speaker 1: as a cipher for itself. Well, if it hadn't been
Speaker 1: doing those sort of things, the Allies might not have
Speaker 1: ever cracked that code. And there are other methods to
Speaker 1: send information in a clandestine way. There's hiding information within
Speaker 1: some other message or inside a physical object. This is
Speaker 1: called steganography. So you can imagine a painting that has
Speaker 1: a hidden message incorporated in it so that anyone who's
Speaker 1: just looking at the painting just see's a painting, but
Speaker 1: someone who knows what to look for can read the message.
Speaker 1: Steganography is fascinating stuff, and in our modern tech age,
Speaker 1: it can extend to stuff like files that are hidden
Speaker 1: within other files. So how do numbers stations keep information secret?
Speaker 1: Well's through one of the oldest tricks in the book,
Speaker 1: the one time pad. Using a one time pad properly
Speaker 1: is pretty much a guarantee that no one will ever
Speaker 1: be able to crack the code. It's a perfect cipher
Speaker 1: in that regard, though in other ways it has its
Speaker 1: own drawbacks. Now, when we come back, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: the one time pad some of the famous number stations
Speaker 1: out there and speculate on what it all means. Spies.
Speaker 1: It means spies. We'll be right back, okay. So the
Speaker 1: beauty of the one time pad is that if you
Speaker 1: do it correctly, it is unbreakable. The reason for that
Speaker 1: is two fold. One is that the key that you
Speaker 1: used to actually encrypt the message is a randomly generated key,
Speaker 1: So each letter of your message has an encryption method
Speaker 1: that is independent of every other letter in your message.
Speaker 1: So someone intercepting the message won't be able to look
Speaker 1: for those patterns in the symbols. And the other reason
Speaker 1: is that you use each randomly generated encryption key only once.
Speaker 1: After you use it, you destroy the key. Since you
Speaker 1: don't repeat the process, you avoid giving code breakers enough
Speaker 1: information in order to crack a message. If the code
Speaker 1: never repeats, you can't establish any patterns. Now, the downside
Speaker 1: of this is that you do have to make sure
Speaker 1: that everyone you're communicating with has a copy of the
Speaker 1: encryption keys. So whenever you generate that random key, you
Speaker 1: have to make sure the person or people that you're
Speaker 1: sending messages to have exact copies that they are able
Speaker 1: to keep safe. Going back to the Enigma machine, if
Speaker 1: the Germans had followed the procedure of changing the machine
Speaker 1: settings for every single message, it would have made the
Speaker 1: code even more difficult to crack. But an actual practice,
Speaker 1: doing this was very hard to keep straight and could
Speaker 1: result in miscommunication. So for the sake of convenience and clarity,
Speaker 1: the Germans often wouldn't change the settings as frequently as
Speaker 1: they were supposed to, and that gave the Allies a
Speaker 1: foothold and figuring out what was actually going on. Generating
Speaker 1: a coded message requires a few steps, and since we're
Speaker 1: talking about numbers stations, I'll go with numbers first. But
Speaker 1: keep in mind, it's not just the way numbers work,
Speaker 1: it's just it's the easiest way to explain it to
Speaker 1: you guys. So your first step is that you create
Speaker 1: a simple substitution cipher for all the letters in the alphabet,
Speaker 1: plus any symbols that you plan on using, for example,
Speaker 1: any punctuation. You assign numbers to each of those letters
Speaker 1: and symbols, So you could go just as simple as
Speaker 1: numbering the English alphabet from one to twenty six A
Speaker 1: to Z, but that's pretty simplistic. So you establish your
Speaker 1: basic cipher, and you make sure everyone who needs it
Speaker 1: has that they know that if they see a one,
Speaker 1: that means a two means to be for ciphered text.
Speaker 1: But that's just one step. Next, you generate your encryption key. Now,
Speaker 1: this should be a string of random numbers, with each
Speaker 1: number ranging from zero to nine. Typically you group them
Speaker 1: in blocks to make it easier to trans it and receive.
Speaker 1: The most common one I've come across is blocks of
Speaker 1: five digits each. Now this is really important. Your encryption
Speaker 1: key has to be as long or longer than whatever
Speaker 1: message you intend to send. So if your message is
Speaker 1: one forty characters long, you need one hundred forty randomly
Speaker 1: generated numbers, and you create a whole bunch of these
Speaker 1: for the purposes of communication, with each encryption key taking
Speaker 1: up a single page out of a path of paper.
Speaker 1: If you were to look at one of these sheets
Speaker 1: of paper, all you would see are a bunch of
Speaker 1: digits divide up into groups of five, and just no
Speaker 1: apparent pattern to them because they would be randomly generated.
Speaker 1: So when it comes time to encode a message, let's
Speaker 1: say your message is extract asset. That's what you want
Speaker 1: to tell your operative. You would write down your message
Speaker 1: in English, So you write down extract have a space asset,
Speaker 1: and then you would use your cipher method to change
Speaker 1: each letter into its corresponding number. So we'll go with
Speaker 1: the very simple substitution of A is one, b as two,
Speaker 1: and so on, but we would probably use something different
Speaker 1: in the field. We're gonna use zero as an empty space.
Speaker 1: A lot of real number stations use a different method
Speaker 1: UH in order to make it easier for people who
Speaker 1: are receiving the messages to actually decode them, but you
Speaker 1: get where I'm going. So using our substitution cipher, we
Speaker 1: see that the first letter of our message, the E
Speaker 1: in extract, would be the fifth letter of the alphabet.
Speaker 1: So our first ciphered note is five. The second letter
Speaker 1: of extract is X. That's the twenty four letter, So
Speaker 1: then we have to write to four. So this actually
Speaker 1: takes up two digits in our our cipher text. When
Speaker 1: we're done, are simple substitution cipher would look like this.
Speaker 1: This is extract asset. If we were to write it
Speaker 1: all out by numbers, it would be five two four
Speaker 1: to zero, one eight one three two zero zero one
Speaker 1: one nine one nine five to zero. But this is
Speaker 1: not encrypted yet. It's just enciphered, which means that if
Speaker 1: someone were to intercept this message, they could potentially suss
Speaker 1: out what it means pretty quickly. I mean, for one thing,
Speaker 1: if you listen to that, even though it's broken up
Speaker 1: into two different blocks of of digits, you do have
Speaker 1: a repeating one nine one nine in there that could
Speaker 1: indicate a double letter, and in this case it actually does.
Speaker 1: Those are the two s. Is an asset, So now
Speaker 1: you have to encrypt this mess age. This is when
Speaker 1: we take one of those randomly generated encryption keys, the
Speaker 1: ones that are at least as long, but preferably longer
Speaker 1: than the messages we plan to send, and we've grouped
Speaker 1: the encryption key into blocks of five digits, but again
Speaker 1: these digits are each randomly generated. We grab the first
Speaker 1: key off our pad. Let's say that this key starts
Speaker 1: with a five digit block that says zero eight to
Speaker 1: three nine. Now we would probably just hold onto those
Speaker 1: first five numbers, not use them for encryption, because those
Speaker 1: first five numbers will alert our agents in the field
Speaker 1: which of the encryption keys they need to use, because
Speaker 1: remember they have a whole pad of these things, and
Speaker 1: each one is different, so they have to look in
Speaker 1: their pad and say, all right, well, let's look for
Speaker 1: the encryption key that starts with zero eight to three nine.
Speaker 1: That's our starting point. So we've got our ciphered text
Speaker 1: and beneath those numbers of the ciphers, so our first
Speaker 1: block was five to four to zero. Beneath that we
Speaker 1: would write the second block of the encryption key, and
Speaker 1: then we would do the third block of the encryption key,
Speaker 1: then the fourth block, and then the fifth block to
Speaker 1: correspond with the four blocks of five numbers that represent
Speaker 1: extract asset. Now again these are randomly generated digits from
Speaker 1: zero to nine. Then we do quick subtraction digit by digit.
Speaker 1: We take the encryption key number for each corresponding digit
Speaker 1: of our ciphered text, and we subtract the encryption key
Speaker 1: from the ciphered key. So I remember our first five
Speaker 1: numbers of our cipher text are five to four to zero.
Speaker 1: Let's say that our randomly generated encryption key is two seven. Well,
Speaker 1: if we're subtracting digit by digit, that means our first
Speaker 1: pairing would be the five from our block of cipher
Speaker 1: text and the two from the ccryption key. So five
Speaker 1: minus two gives us three. This is the beginning of
Speaker 1: our encrypted text. But our second subtraction is seven that's
Speaker 1: from our encryption key, from two that's from our cipher
Speaker 1: In this case, you would make the two a twelve
Speaker 1: for the purposes of subtraction, and your answer would be
Speaker 1: five and so on. So you subtract each encryption key
Speaker 1: digit from the ciphered message digit to create the encrypted message.
Speaker 1: So our first block of encrypted five digits would be three, five, three,
Speaker 1: three five. Remember we started with five to four zero.
Speaker 1: That in turn stands for the letters e x T. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you do this encryption method for your entire message, you
Speaker 1: turn it into blocks of numbers. Then you can broadcast
Speaker 1: those blocks of numbers through a number station. The agent
Speaker 1: tunes into that specific frequent see and agreed upon time.
Speaker 1: They listen for that first block of five numbers, they
Speaker 1: grab the sheet out of their pad that corresponds to that.
Speaker 1: They write down the message that's being broadcast, number by number.
Speaker 1: They match each new number to the next digit in
Speaker 1: the encryption key, and then they just add those two
Speaker 1: numbers together to get the ciphered version of the message.
Speaker 1: Then they convert the ciphered version to the original message,
Speaker 1: so they're just reversing the process. It's pretty elegant, and
Speaker 1: because that encryption key is random, it is impossible to crack.
Speaker 1: This is also why if you listen to a numbers
Speaker 1: station broadcast, the speaker typically will repeat a block of
Speaker 1: five numbers a couple of times, maybe several times, before
Speaker 1: moving on to the next block of five numbers. This
Speaker 1: gives the listener enough time to make sure they are
Speaker 1: transcribing each digit correctly, otherwise their decryption process isn't going
Speaker 1: to work. Now, this key is impossible to crack as
Speaker 1: long as that encryption key remains random. But generating random
Speaker 1: numbers is actually trickier than it sounds now. One way
Speaker 1: to do this would just be to take a ten
Speaker 1: sided die and roll it a bunch, and then write
Speaker 1: down each of the results of your roles as you go.
Speaker 1: The number of times you roll the die depends on
Speaker 1: how long you're encryption key is going to be, but
Speaker 1: keep in mind you want that encryption key to be
Speaker 1: at least as long as the messages you're planning to
Speaker 1: send preferably longer. So if your key has twenty blocks
Speaker 1: of five digits each, you would be rolling that die
Speaker 1: one d times and writing down the results, and the
Speaker 1: first five digits of your new key typically aren't used
Speaker 1: as encryption, but rather identification. You can use other means
Speaker 1: to identify which pad or which page and a pad
Speaker 1: you should be using, but that's a pretty common one.
Speaker 1: There are computer programs that are supposed to generate random numbers.
Speaker 1: You know, you've probably heard of r n g s
Speaker 1: A random and umber generators, but what these really do
Speaker 1: is that they generate pseudo random numbers. They're not true
Speaker 1: random numbers. Computers have to follow rules. Now, those rules
Speaker 1: can be really complicated, but they're still rules, and randomness
Speaker 1: sort of falls outside of the rules category. So computer
Speaker 1: random number generators typically aren't truly random. Now to mere mortals,
Speaker 1: it can seem random, but in most cases, a person
Speaker 1: who knew the rules that the program was following in
Speaker 1: order to generate the numbers could create another program to
Speaker 1: duplicate that result, and that means the numbers aren't really
Speaker 1: random at all, and that could put an encryption key
Speaker 1: at risk. For that reason, a lot of spy agencies
Speaker 1: don't rely on computers to generate random numbers. Typically they'll
Speaker 1: use other methods. Numbers stations really proliferated in the years
Speaker 1: after World War Two and throughout the Cold War, presumably
Speaker 1: because you had spies all over the Ding Dang during
Speaker 1: place with American spies in Russia, you had Soviet spies
Speaker 1: in America, and so on. The numbers stations declined in
Speaker 1: well number over the years, but there are still a
Speaker 1: few out there broadcasting digits to whomever is listening. Some
Speaker 1: of them may still be connected to espionage, but others
Speaker 1: might be connected to non governmental activities, you know, like drugs, smuggling.
Speaker 1: Some of the numbers stations are shall we say, executed
Speaker 1: in a less than professional manner, which suggests that they
Speaker 1: are not backed by, you know, state backed operations. It's
Speaker 1: also possible that some numbers stations are broadcasting out meaningless
Speaker 1: numbers just to obvious skate what's really going on. If
Speaker 1: you flood the airwaves with nonsense, you keep your opponents
Speaker 1: guessing at what you're actually up to. Now I've already
Speaker 1: played for you a bill of the Lincolnshire Poacher Numbers Station,
Speaker 1: which may have well been connected to the Seek Intelligence
Speaker 1: Service of the UK. But there was also the Swedish Rhapsody,
Speaker 1: which would begin with a jangly little tune that sounds
Speaker 1: like it came straight from an ice cream truck. There
Speaker 1: was the Gong, which began with a series of low
Speaker 1: pitched percussive tones as if bells or gongs were being struck,
Speaker 1: followed by someone reading out numbers in German. There were
Speaker 1: tons of others, and there's still several in operation today.
Speaker 1: A Keen Fernandez, a short wave radio enthusiasts, became fascinated
Speaker 1: with these numbers stations and released a set of CDs
Speaker 1: containing recordings of various Numbers stations from around the world.
Speaker 1: You can find the recordings available online for free, and
Speaker 1: lots of musicians have actually incorporated parts of those recordings
Speaker 1: into their own works. One of the brilliant things about
Speaker 1: number stations is that, well you might figure out where
Speaker 1: the broadcast is coming from if you have the equipment
Speaker 1: to triangulate a signal. Like I said before, you have
Speaker 1: no way of knowing who those messages are intended for.
Speaker 1: They're just broadcast out into the world, so anyone could
Speaker 1: be the intended recipient. But there have been a few
Speaker 1: cases in which authorities caught spies and uncovered their involvement
Speaker 1: with Numbers stations, but not because they had some magical
Speaker 1: way of finding out who was getting the messages. So,
Speaker 1: for example, in two thousand one, U S authorities arrested
Speaker 1: Anna Mantez Montez had secured a position with the US
Speaker 1: Defense Intelligence Agency, which, y'all, that's impressive for a spy
Speaker 1: to infiltrate an organization that you know spies on people wowsers.
Speaker 1: And actually that happens, not like super frequently, but way
Speaker 1: more frequently than I would have thought. I figured, if
Speaker 1: you're the experts on spying, you should be pretty good
Speaker 1: at picking out ones that are trying to infiltrate your organization,
Speaker 1: but as the Mission Impossible movies tell us, that's not
Speaker 1: always the case. Anyway, the authorities suspected her of acting
Speaker 1: on behalf of another country. They searched her home and
Speaker 1: they found a code sheet for encrypting messages, plus a
Speaker 1: short wave radio. It turned out she was spying for Cuba,
Speaker 1: and in eleven German authorities arrested a married couple named
Speaker 1: Hydron and Andreas Anschlag, both of whom were spying for
Speaker 1: the Russians and had been for years before the Berlin
Speaker 1: Wall had come down. During the raid on the couple's home,
Speaker 1: Hydron was actually in the middle of receiving a short
Speaker 1: wave transmission. In the United States. In the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: the FBI identified possible Cuban spies in the United States
Speaker 1: and they managed to break into the home of one
Speaker 1: of those spies. They found a computer there with a
Speaker 1: decryption program on it. Essentially, it was a computer with
Speaker 1: the one time use pad programmed into it, so it
Speaker 1: had the codes used by numbers stations, and the FEDS
Speaker 1: just copied the key and they used it to decipher
Speaker 1: incoming messages that allowed them to build a big legal
Speaker 1: case against numerous spies. But again, if done correct, this
Speaker 1: approach is unassailable. It just requires that the spies remain
Speaker 1: you know, undetected through other means, and that they keep
Speaker 1: a tight grip on their decryption keys. Otherwise the jig
Speaker 1: is up. And while the number of stations continue to
Speaker 1: be creepy and a suitable fit for films and TV
Speaker 1: series about paranormal stuff or aliens or whatever, the truth
Speaker 1: of the matter is that they're probably telling operatives overseas
Speaker 1: to knock it off with all the martinis and extract
Speaker 1: assets stuff like that. Fascinating things. By the way, you
Speaker 1: can find lots of recordings of numbers stations online. You
Speaker 1: can also find websites that allow you to use a
Speaker 1: software that lets you tune into different shortwave radio frequencies
Speaker 1: around the world, which is really really cool that it
Speaker 1: lets you actually listen in two different shortwave broadcasts which
Speaker 1: may or may not be number stations. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people using shortwave radio to just
Speaker 1: chat with each other like amateur radio operators, but occasionally
Speaker 1: you can actually find operating numbers stations. There are lots
Speaker 1: of resources online if you are interested in looking into that.
Speaker 1: You can also always invest in short wave radio equipment,
Speaker 1: although that kind of depends on where you are, like
Speaker 1: it may not, you may not be able to pick
Speaker 1: up really interesting broadcasts depending on your location. You also
Speaker 1: typically have to use really super long antenna that need
Speaker 1: to be you know, elevated a pretty good distance to
Speaker 1: pick up broadcasts from really far away, so your mileage
Speaker 1: may vary with physical shortwave radio setups. But as I say,
Speaker 1: there are websites where you can tune into someone else's
Speaker 1: short wave radio and use special software that lets you
Speaker 1: tune into different frequencies, being able to really listen in
Speaker 1: on whatever is going on that's being picked up by
Speaker 1: that particular radio set. So if you are int said,
Speaker 1: make sure you do some more research and check it out.
Speaker 1: Very cool stuff, all right. That wraps up this episode
Speaker 1: of tech stuff. In our next episode, who knows what
Speaker 1: I'll talk about, I don't, but I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: If you guys have suggestions for topics I should cover
Speaker 1: in future episodes, let me know. It could be a technology,
Speaker 1: a trend in tech company, a person, really, anything that's
Speaker 1: related to tech I'm eager to look at, examine and
Speaker 1: then report back to you guys. But let me know
Speaker 1: on Twitter the handle there is tech Stuff h s
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really. Sion Text
Speaker 1: Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.