WEBVTT - Selects: What is a Numbers Station? 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:05.080 A happy Saturday, everybody, chuck here. I hope you're enjoying 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.200 your weekend. I hope you're enjoying your year, your month. 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:11.200 I hope you're enjoying the very hour in which you 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.159 are coming across this. It is the select episode for 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.079 the week, and I'm picking this one because honestly don't 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:18.720 remember much about it, and I got to listen to it, 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.239 so maybe I'll learn it all over again. It's about 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.280 number stations and it's called what is a number Station? 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:35.440 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.640 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:46.199 Charles W Chuck Bryant, and this is oh Jerry and this. 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.600 Is Stuffish seven four two five eight. 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.840 Can you say it in German? You speak German? Don't 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:55.880 even jog me. 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:01.040 It's why dry boom ah Steven, Now, can. 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:02.840 You do that in a little girl voice? 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:06.479 You're just toying, Come on, do it. No, you always 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:08.240 make me play Saint Paly Girl. I'm tired of it. 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:14.680 Same poly girl. Now. This is apparently even younger than 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.920 the Saint Poly Girl. It's like a little girl and 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.560 it was a live little girl who in the Swedish 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:26.679 rhapsody number station. It was a young little girl reading 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:28.840 out numbers and letters in German. 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:30.000 Which makes it even creepier. 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:31.720 Yeah, it's very creepy. 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.319 This is a very neat subject, so kudos to you 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:35.640 for tossing this one out there. 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:38.520 Well, I've been waiting for it to publish. Yeah, I'd 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:40.800 seen it in the calendar coming up and coming up. 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.039 I'm like, come on and publish, and I think it 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:49.040 published on Friday is Tuesday, yes, and we're talking about 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.720 it just as they are completing their decline, so we 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:54.720 are on top of this. 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:56.560 Well I think that well, we'll get into it. 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:58.400 I think that's what makes it even more interesting is 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:00.600 that it's still happening, all right. 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.680 Numbers stations, number stations. 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.240 Yeah, like you said number, both words are pluralized. It's 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:13.040 a little clumsy, and number stations are we should just 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:19.079 come out and say their short wave radio transmissions or 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:25.120 transmitters making really weird baffling is the best word for it. 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:30.520 Transmissions and have been doing so apparently since at least 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:31.359 World War One. 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:32.720 Oh really. 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:40.080 Yeah. Supposedly, the first mention of a numbers station came 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.280 from a German magazine in World War One and World 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:45.880 War Two, they were in full swing, sure, but apparently 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.280 they somehow popped up first around World War One, which 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:54.000 makes them some of the earliest shortwave transmissions in the world, 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.079 because shortwave radio didn't come around at least into commercial 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.840 use until about nineteen twenty. World War One was a 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:03.840 few years before that, if you'll remember correct. 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.639 Yeah, that's why I didn't even think that that was possible. 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.560 But like you said, World War II is when they 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:11.480 were in full swing. Yeah, they really peaked in the 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:16.200 Cold War and they have been dying out slowly ever since. 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.080 But I think one of the neatest things is they 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.920 are still If you have a short wave radio, you 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:27.640 can tune into a frequency and here beep one, two, seven, 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:32.160 five eight. You know, it's usually like some sort of tone. 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.320 We should mention to Jerry of the future. Yeah, you're 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:37.640 supposed to leave that beep in because it's part of 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:38.440 the numbers station. 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:40.840 Yeah, we beep Jerry to signal when we want something edited. 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:42.800 But yeah, number station. That's not always a beep, it'll 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:44.600 just have some sort of Sometimes it's a bit of 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:45.240 a song. 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:50.320 Yeah, like this Swedish Rhapsody or the Lincolnshire poacher a 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.520 British English uksh folk song. 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:58.600 Yeah, and I'm so scared of thetuff like that. And 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.360 the reason that the transmission starts off with a tone 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.360 or a beep or a song so you can it 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.800 alerts like here comes a transmission in your station. Hone 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.840 in make sure you get some good reception because the 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:13.880 secret code is about to be revealed. 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:18.360 And that's exactly what everyone is pretty much in consensus 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:22.080 on that what comes after this and what is broadcast 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:26.000 over these numbers stations are secret codes. 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:26.440 Yeah. 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.200 Again, like for the Swedish rhap City station, it is 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:37.400 a little girl in speaking in German, reading numbers and letters, 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:42.000 random seemingly random numbers and letters, and then the transmission 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.719 is over and that happens like or it used to happen. 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.359 That's a defunct numbers station now, but it happened on 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.560 a fairly regular schedule. There's other ones. The Intension station 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:58.520 is a woman saying a tension and then reading Spanish 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.960 numbers and repeating them over and over again and then 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.560 going on to the next set and everybody. No one 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:09.440 can say for certain, but virtually everyone in the world 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.080 from Cecil Adams at Straight Dope to the head of 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:20.240 the UK's Trade and Industry Agency say these are secret 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:25.520 transmissions for spies. The whole basis of them was for espionage. 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:26.039 Yeah. 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:30.000 And the reason why everyone is speculating that that is 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.479 absolutely the case, which it almost certainly is, like we said, 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:38.599 is because no government to this day has come forward 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.480 and admitted this or owned this. It is all still 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:48.160 technically speculation because you cannot point to a factual statement. 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:50.520 The closest we've ever come is. 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:55.560 They finally got someone from the United Kingdom, a spokesperson. 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:57.640 That was the dude from the Trade Agency. 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:02.039 Oh really, Yeah, the exact quotas people should not be 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:06.599 mystified by them. They're not, shall we say, for public consumption. Yeah, 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:08.720 And that's the only thing on record that any government 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.840 has ever spoke about what these transmissions are. 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:17.360 Right, So the idea that they are government transitions are 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:19.480 the reason we have to speculate is because the government's 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.440 never claimed them. On the flip side, the reason everyone 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:30.599 thinks that they are government backed clandestine transmissions is because 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:35.680 these are pirate radio frequencies, pirate radio transmitters. Yeah. 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:37.400 My first thing was like, just find one of these 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:39.400 and look it up and find out what the deal is. 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:40.200 Yeah, you would think. 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:40.320 So. 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.800 They're totally unlicensed. Nobody knows exactly where they are. 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:46.479 They're illegal technically. 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:49.719 Yes, they're very illegal because they transmit over air traffic 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:55.000 control frequencies. Well that's a big one. And no one 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:59.359 investigates them. There's no investigation into these number stations whatsoever. 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.960 So the fact that the government won't say anything about them, 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.120 and the fact that the government isn't investigating these very 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:14.520 blatantly out in the open, weird baffling transmissions suggests that, Yeah, 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:19.000 everybody's right that these are government backed transmissions used to 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:25.200 communicate anonymously and in one direction two spies embedded in 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:26.000 foreign countries. 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:26.320 Yeah. 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:28.280 I was about to call it a conversation, but it's 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.680 really not. It's I think on the BBC documentary Saw 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:32.760 they called it a monologue. 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.160 You're just sending a one way message exactly. 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:37.960 All right, Right after this break, we're going to talk 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:43.119 a little bit about shortwave radio technology. The secret key 0:07:43.600 --> 0:08:08.280 to sending these messages, all right, The key to this 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:10.960 whole thing is sending a short way Like you might 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:15.520 think in this day and age, why not just send 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:16.560 a telefax? 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:18.440 Right now? 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.320 Why not send an email or you know, there's surely, 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:27.000 surely there are safer ways to send espionage, this information, 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:32.240 highly classified instructions to go kill the leader of a country, perhaps. 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.719 Right, like if you want to activate Reggie Jackson to 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:39.560 kill Queen Elizabeth kill Norberg. Yeah, yeah, that's that's how 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:41.280 would you do it in this day and age, you'd 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:43.800 think an email would do it? No, And you want 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:47.160 to know who proves definitively that that is not safe 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:47.720 for secure? 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.480 Who Jimmy Fallon, Edward Edward Snowden. 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.880 Yeah, there there are. If you use a computer, you 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:02.280 leave a trace. Yeah, it's virtually impossible to erase anything 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:03.400 on a computer. 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:05.319 Yeah, if you think you have, then you haven't. 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:10.080 Plus, if you are, say emailing somebody, you're transmitting what's 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:15.600 supposed to be highly sensitive even encrypted information over a network. 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.320 That stuff can be captured, like go listen to our 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.920 employer as your employer spying on you episode. Yeah, you 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.520 can't do it, Like you can communicate like that, but 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.240 you're leaving digital traces everywhere. The beauty of the short 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:32.920 wave radio transmission is that again it's anonymous and it's 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.240 one directional. But if you get caught with a short 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.079 wave radio. At least, say back in the sixties or 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.880 the seventies or something, it wasn't weird. It didn't prove 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:43.760 that you were a spy. 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.120 Yeah, you done, just tuning into my my stories. 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:49.560 Exactly, just listening to the BBC World. 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:54.559 Service shortwave energy radio energy. It's all determined by the 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:57.720 power of your transmitter. So if you've got a humongous transmitter, 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.640 you can send and any be that big, but you 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:02.400 can send a message one way message to the other 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.360 side of the world, right, And the reason it can 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.880 travel across the planet is because it's bouncing off of 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.720 it literally is bouncing off the ionosphere of the Earth 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.319 or well, yeah, of the Earth, fifty to three hundred 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.480 and seventy five miles up above our surface. It's in 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:24.880 the upper atmosphere, and solar ionization creates an electrical charge 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.840 and that charge reflects that signal right back down to Earth. 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.880 It's called skywave or skip and skywave. Yeah, And that's 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.200 why you can with a seemingly pretty simple piece of equipment, 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:41.080 I can send a message to the South Pacific. Yeah, 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:43.439 from my bedroom. Well, I don't know if i'd have 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.920 one big enough for my Bedroom's pretty big. I wanted 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.480 to see how big these things were actually, you know, 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:53.520 like if they say really big ones, to send them 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:55.040 further and further, Like how big do they get? 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.319 They get very huge. They can cover scores of acres. 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:02.880 Oh okay, a big shortwave antenna, which is why it 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:04.079 can get very expensive. 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:05.680 So that's bigger than my bedroom. 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:07.719 You can also use ones that are the size of 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:12.000 your bedroom. It depends not only like you said, on 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.360 the size of the transmitter, it depends on the atmospheric 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.800 conditions too, so uppusually shortwave transmissions are received best at 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.880 sunrise and sunset. And no one's one hundred percent sure, 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.000 but it has to do with the ion a sphere. 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.800 And because that's where the northern lights are happening. Yeah, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:34.240 that's where solar rays hit the hit the Earth's atmosphere 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:38.199 and they the atoms loose their electrons, I believe, so 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.800 they become ions forming the iono sphere. And because this 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:48.560 is constantly changing, you can't predict exactly how shortwave radio 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.280 wave will act, but you can kind of guess, well, 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:57.320 this time the Sun's least active or most active, whatever, 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.079 it has some impact on that sky. What's it called 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:05.160 the sky? What skywave, the skywave effect, So you can 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.319 communicate with somebody in a foreign country, right, yea. And 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.520 not only can it not be tracked, it's very difficult 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.560 to trace who sent that, where that transmission's coming from. 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.319 It's impossible to trace who's receiving it. 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:20.240 That's right. 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.400 So you have no idea who in your country is 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.880 getting this, which means that you're broadcasting to anybody and 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:32.959 everybody who feels like listening to this a secret code. 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.520 But the fact is, if you use the right kind 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.760 of secret code, no one can crack all right. 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:41.920 That brings up an important point because you would think also, 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:47.120 you can hack into the most secure computer system on 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.360 the planet if you're good enough as a hacker. So 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.760 how in the world could sending a coded key like 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.840 it's nineteen fifty five and you're trying to get your 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.280 decoder ring, you know from. 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:01.280 The Red Was it the Red Rider? 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:03.720 No story? No, that's way off. 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:05.880 No, what was it? It was? 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:08.079 No? 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:09.720 No, no, I'm talking about it in the Christmas story. 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:12.240 It was a little orphan any that was the show. 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:13.760 I didn't think it was. 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.439 He didn't he didn't care about pirates and all that jazz, 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.000 pirates and smugglers and all that jazz. He listened to 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:20.280 a little Orphan Anne. 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:22.480 And I'll take it word for it. I remember, now 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:23.559 do you know? 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:25.320 But I'll take your word for it, dude, I'm telling 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.320 you it's a little orphan any I will. That's say, 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:31.319 I'm taking my hat. I don't have a hat on 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.600 right now, but I would eat it if I if 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:34.160 I were wrong. 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.000 At any rate, you're not little Ralphie decoding the message 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:41.280 from little Orphanani. But it is actually the most secure 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:45.160 way that you can send a secret message is by 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:50.200 creating a unique code that you know and have written 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.600 down on a piece of paper, and your buddy knows 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:54.520 who has it written down on a piece of paper. 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:56.800 You only use it once, that's the kind of the 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:00.400 key here, and then you destroy it afterward. That still 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:02.120 the most it's unbreakable. 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.839 So what it's called is a one time pad, the 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.040 old one time because you only use it once, and 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.000 it is old. It's from the nineteenth century. 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.040 Yeah, and it's still uncrackable. It is. 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.960 And the reason why it's uncrackable is because you each 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:15.679 have like you said, you each have a copy of 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.880 this this code. But it's randomly generated. Right, So let's 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.680 say you have the sheet of paper and the other 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:24.520 person as the sheet of paper, and the sheet of 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:28.280 paper says, it's just like strings of random numbers, like 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:32.000 four or five numbers long, and it's just totally random, 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.800 and it just covers, you know, several sheets of paper. Well, 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.320 you guys start at the same place, and when the 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:44.280 person transmitting the message wants to encrypt it, they run 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.280 their message. So say you guys have agreed like zero 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:52.320 is a, B is one, C is two, et cetera. 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:57.040 So you take that and you'd get you I know, dude, 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.800 it is mind boggling, Like this is about as simple 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.920 a cryptology gets. In it it makes me bleed from 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:03.520 my ears. 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:05.080 Because all you have to do is agree on what's what. 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:07.920 You know, it could be anything, right, So. 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:11.240 You're agreeing on what's what, but you also have this 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:16.040 randomly generated code. Sure key, right, So let's say I 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:20.280 want to say, what up, chuck? That's w h A 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:24.840 t U P C h U c K. So that's 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.960 eleven letters, right. So if you have your your key 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.120 and you're encoding it, you would use these first, the 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:38.680 first eleven numbers to encode what's already encoded. So the 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:47.480 w is say, Y says it's the number twenty two, okay, right, 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.040 and then so on. So like there's a number assigned 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.000 to each letter, so you have that, and then you 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.960 run it through this code, this randomly generated code. So 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:01.400 you add that and then so you have twenty what 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.920 I say, twenty two, yeah, and then say the first 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.600 letter or the first number of this code is seven, 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:09.000 so you have twenty nine. 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:09.360 Yeah. 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:12.800 So that's what the little German girl reads on the air, 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:17.960 twenty nine, yeah, fifty two, thirty seven eighteen. 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:18.360 Yeah. 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.160 It means nothing to anyone else in the entire world 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.800 except for you and the person who has the other 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.720 copy of this code, since there's only two copies and 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:31.120 you're only using it once and. 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:32.160 You're gonna eat it afterward. 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:37.240 Yeah. And the key is that it's randomly generated numbers. Yeah, 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.680 then it'll it's theoretically it will never be broken. 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.000 Yeah. But I mean that's just one example. You could 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:49.440 You could have five pre code rules. 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:54.920 To confuse someone trying to crack this code, right, yeah, 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.680 and they don't eat It's not like the simplest code 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.080 is this letter represents this number, this represents this letter. 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:03.760 It gets more complex than that. You could both have 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.680 agreed upon a book. You have to kill a mockingbird. 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:13.160 I've got to kill a mockingbird. Four eight twelve ninety thirteen. 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:17.600 Four means go to page four. Thirteen means now you're 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.640 really going to page thirteen. Ignore the four then look 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.080 at the twelfth line. Then look at the eighth word 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:24.240 on that page. 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.280 Right. What a one time pad would do is take 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:31.040 that already agreed upon code and encrypt it even further. 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:34.199 Yeah, But the point is it doesn't have to represent letters. 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.880 It can represent full words in a text that you've 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.040 agreed upon. True, And it's basically like thumbing through this 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:43.600 book picking out all these various words to make a sentence. 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.119 Right. The problem is that's its vulnerability as well. Like 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:52.160 to get a copy of the randomly generated key that's 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:56.600 used to encrypt this message, right, you have to have 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.320 some sort of contact with somebody. Yeah, So that's one 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:02.680 vulnerability of it. The thing is is like, depending on 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:07.440 how long this is, as many numbers as there are is, 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:11.840 as long as as many transmissions as you can transmit. 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:13.720 Does that make any sense? No? 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:15.040 Say it clearer? 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.720 So I said, what up, Chuck, Yeah, that's eleven. That 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.879 uses the first eleven numbers on this key. But say 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.560 there's fifty thousand numbers on the key, Well, we have 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.520 a lot more messages I can send to you that 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.600 we're going through the pad. Eventually, though, we're going to 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:33.720 use up this pad and we need to meet again 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.280 so I can give you another randomly generated. 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:36.760 Key at Kinko's. 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:38.600 That's the vulnerability of it. 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.640 Well, the other fit well and not a fail safe. 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:44.359 But the thing that makes it even safer is a 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.400 lot of times they would send and presumably are still 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:50.679 sending dummy messages, so you don't even know if it's 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:53.040 real to begin with, And there are only so many 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:57.800 person hours you can dedicate as a government to code crackers, 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.679 and they might be working on a it's not even real, right, 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.399 you don't know what transmissions are legit. 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.240 And that is a proposal by a group called Enigma. 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:10.880 And we'll talk about Enigma right after this message because 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:37.159 they're pretty awesome. So, Chuck, we were talking about Enigma. 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:41.440 I mentioned Enigma, and Enigma is this group that of 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.000 basically amateur radio people, short. 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:49.480 Wave radio enthusiast. They really get into this. Yes it's 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:50.080 a thing, and. 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:53.680 They started this is pre pre internet days. I think 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.439 it was in the eighties, the late eighties early nineties 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:00.480 that ENIGMA first came around and kind of coalesced. And 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.960 ENIGMA stands for European Numbers Information Gathering and Monitoring Association. 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.520 And basically it was just a group of these people 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.879 who had all yeah, right, who had all and I 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:13.760 think they reverse engineered that well we always do, but 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:17.280 they had all kind of started to talk or find 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:21.360 each other and say have you heard this weird transmission 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.000 and they're like, yes, I've heard that one, and you should. 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.359 You should check out this frequency on Tuesday nights at 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:32.080 eight pm because it transmits this. And they suddenly realized 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:34.520 there's this whole community of people out there, so they 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.320 set up a newsletter, they started a naming convention, and 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:42.600 they started assigning, collecting and assigning names to these different things. 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:44.399 So like E. 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:50.800 Designated an English speaking trans numbers station, S was Slavic 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:55.200 v is various, which encapsulates everything from like French to Spanish. 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:59.880 And ENIGMA really took this thing and put it into 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:05.879 you understandable terms. And they are basically eavesdropping or they 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.440 were eaves dropping on the spy community. 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:10.560 Are they not doing that anymore. 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:13.399 So Enigma disbanded I think in two thousand and then 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.359 almost immediately another group came and said, well, we're Enigma 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:18.280 in two thousand. We're going to carry this on. And 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:21.879 that's pretty fortunate because they were around to put all 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:24.399 this on the internet. Before it was like you had 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.879 to like subscribe to newsletters and have a shortwave radio. 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:29.800 Now it's like you can just go on the internet 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:34.520 and listen to all sorts of archives of these defunct 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:36.280 number stations as well. 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:38.840 Yeah, I mean they're creepy sounding. I don't like. It's 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:39.360 kind of cool. 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:41.760 I've got one for you. We've talked about it before. 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.000 Do you remember the Yosemite Sam transmission. 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:47.080 Yeah, I'm convinced that that's just a person having fun. 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:58.280 Well, let's play it. I like that one. I think 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:02.800 it's full of info. It's cool. 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:07.159 It's coming from somewhere out in Albuquerque in the desert 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:10.920 in New Mexico, and it's been going since what like 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.560 two thousand and four. Yeah, And what makes this one 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:18.359 interesting is that it's not a code, it's just Yosemite 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:20.080 Sam saying that thing. 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:23.320 Well, then it's followed by that data burst, yeah, which 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:25.400 they think is some sort of compressed information. 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:27.879 Yeah, seah, I don't believe it. I think this is 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:29.800 a short wave enthusiasts having a good time. 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:33.920 Well, he's been doing it like, it's pretty sophisticated. It 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:35.600 does it like over and over again, I think, for 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:37.960 forty seconds and switches to the next frequency and it 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.840 just goes through the band. Yeah, on a then he's 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:43.000 got a computer doing. 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:43.280 It for him. 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:46.640 Maybe if it is just some dude, But either way, 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:49.160 I like the use of useemite Sam. No, it's cool, 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:54.600 but it's pretty It's exemplar of a number station, of 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:58.200 a numbers transmission. There's something that indicates that this is 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:02.280