ip: Hobbyists intercept spy transmissions

by way of believer@telepath.com believer at telepath.com
Thu Nov 30 06:15:20 PST 2000


http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/113000/numbers.sml


        For Some, Intercepting Spy
Transmissions Is Just a Hobby

By Michael Della Bitta    FOXNews.com

   Spending nights intercepting spy agencies' secret transmissions may
sound like an exciting career. But for shortwave enthusiast Chris
Smolinski, it's just a hobby. 

Smolinski and others tune in to numbers stations broadcasts — instructions
for deployed secret agents encoded into a sequence of numbers and read
aloud on shortwave radio.

Listening to a long string of numbers read over the radio may sound like
dullsville, but Smolinski disagrees. "They may think it's a waste of time,
but then they probably spend 30 hours a week watching sitcoms on TV."

Shortwave Subculture

What started as a fringe hobby for those exploring the frontiers of
shortwave radio in solitude has become a group effort, thanks to the
Internet.

"It made it possible for hobbyists to rapidly exchange information with
each other. Now someone can hear a station, and alert others in real-time,
so they can tune it in, rather than reading about it months from now,"
Smolinski said.

Smolinski runs an Internet mailing list called Spooks, named after the
slang word for an undercover agent. The mailing list, along with
Smolinski's Web site, is a clearinghouse for the observations of fellow
hobbyists, who can jump online and share their observations with each other.

And the subject of their observations is somewhat baffling. Every night,
the shortwave spectrum of radio is peppered with mysterious,
androgynous-sounding announcers who chant numbers in a monotone voice.

Many times the broadcast is introduced by an eerie piece of music that
identifies the particular station to those in the know. And since shortwave
signals bounce off the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth, sometimes
they can be heard from across the planet.

Listeners first noticed the stations during the beginning of the Cold War,
but didn't know what they were for. To this date, no government has
admitted to the purpose of these broadcasts or even to running the stations
that send them.

It wasn't until the '70s that the source and purpose of the stations
started becoming common knowledge.

Shortwave listeners, by comparing their observations, have traced some of
these signals back to their source. Most of them come from known military
installations of the world's governments.

The numbers stations are generally understood to be coded transmissions of
instructions from the intelligence agencies of the world's governments to
their undercover agents deployed in other countries.

So why are spy agencies using low-tech shortwave radio to get word out to
their agents? "The thought is that it is normal to have a small portable
radio that tunes shortwave, so possession isn't incriminating," Smolinski
said.

"If the agent were caught with James Bond-type sophisticated gear, it would
be pretty obvious he's a spy," he added.

Smolinski estimates some numbers listeners spend over 20 hours a week
practicing their hobby. Some postings to the Spooks list include logs of
hundreds of different stations caught in the act by listeners.

Unfortunately, listeners will never know the meanings of the mysterious
messages. They're encoded using something called a one-time-pad, which is
unbreakable unless you're in possession of a matching codebook to the one
that was used to scramble the message. And agents are trained to destroy
each page of their code book once used, hence the moniker "one-time."

But for Smolinski, the hobby still has rewards. For one, tuning in the
faint stations requires a little more shortwave-listening mettle than
tuning in the BBC, for example.

And by coordinating with fellow listeners, the Spooks list and other groups
of its ilk have managed to figure out who runs many of the stations and
their probable purpose.

For example, Spooks members have noted increased broadcasts from stations
run by the Mossad — the Israeli version of the CIA — during times when
conflict flares in the Middle East.

And listeners have determined that broadcasts from American stations on
this continent are usually read in Spanish — and thought to be aimed at
Cuba. Of course, Cuba is believed to run stations of its own.

A change in the regular pattern of broadcasts will often spark a
speculative thread on the Spooks list. Did equipment fail? Was it some CIA
agent's first day? Was that Latin beat underneath the latest broadcast
interference, or just some Cuban agent listening to the radio?

Spies are a mysterious bunch.


--- end forwarded text


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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
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[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'





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