Re: Numbers Stations, Phreaking and other oddities?
Oh my God. I've been obsessed with "the numbers" for years. Hell, when I was like 12 and I first learned about numbers stations, I went wild, reading as much as I possibly could--how they work, where they come from, and what their purpose is in the first place. Awesome to know I'm not the only person on this forum who is obsessed with them.
I've been interested in knowing weather the ITU or any government entity licences numbers stations to operate, or if it is like military stations. Some people think numbers stations are like encrypting messages, and the music is sort of a personalised ringtone to alert someone of a incoming message.
Maybe, if someone who was bored and had the appropriate rig, sent a brief transmission slightly above the MF band for AM and short wave broadcasts, or just at the bottom of the HF band.
Numbers stations are not licensed. They just broadcast, and sometimes they interfere with genuine radio communication as a result. Sure, government agencies know they exist, however according to an NPR piece, the FCC will work with the offending country if the transmission is affecting any other sort of communication, but otherwise the regulatory agencies usually turn a blind eye on the numbers stations.
As for your ringtone theory, that's sort of correct. The ringtone (interval signal) tells the listener what station they're listening to; it doesn't signify a particular recipient. The hedder of the message (the groups of numbers read out before the message begins) is theorised to contain some sort of agent ID.
Finally, yes, the messages are encrypted somehow, most likely with a one-time pad which is mathematically unbreakable.
Yep number stations are weird. My favourite is the one that plays that cool little ice cream truck tune.
Are you talking about this one?
-- Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
