Discussion

A Mysterious Numbers Station Is Broadcasting Through the Iran War

hypeatei: This reminds me of UVB-76[0], a shortwave military radio in Russia. It would be interesting know why they're using this method to communicate covertly rather than beaming down messages to a phone via satellite or something. I'm not an expert on radios, though, so maybe it's not as clunky as I'm imagining where an undercover asset is hauling around bulky equipment.0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76

jacknews: perhaps it's not directed at deeply embedded lone spies with radios in their attics, but at 'military assets' which as a matter of course can receive these transmissions on a designated schedule.

srean: Does this move around geographically ? Triangulating broadcast location is a well understood craft.

rustyhancock: Shortwave radio is more challenging than you might imagine.Near to the transmitter it's received by ground wave, further it's scattered off the ionosphere. In-between it's undetectable due to the skip zone.Coverage is obtained from multipath and reflections. Leading to variable strength and timing. Not as bad as DXing on HF with low power but much harder than you might imagine.Fine for someone to transcribe some numbers but useless for people trying to identify sources.So locally you get an apparent direction to the source which is clearly not the source.Add to that the complex local terrain and a well placed number stations can be very difficult to locate with precision.Edit: unrelated but interesting there are some mysteries in HF transmission including long delayed echoes where a signal takes far longer than reasonable to travel out and back over several seconds [0] which given its travelling light milliseconds is a conundrum.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_delayed_echo

Supermancho: My father regailed tales of his college years where it was a game to have a HAM radio operator start broadcasting and to have teams try to find where they were hiding, first.More challenging? Not really. It does require multiple boots on the ground to do it.

srean: This seems to be a common treasure hunt game conducted by HAM clubs.

Supermancho: That was it. Treasure hunt.

xanderlewis: Also known as fox hunting.

NitpickLawyer: I wonder why they keep using a dedicated numbers station instead of embedding the code in a regular radio broadcast on a traditional channel? I'm sure that even before LLMs one could find a way to create a story where certain numbers / code words would be embedded without altering the underlying story too much. And they could probably get BBC / whatever station to air it. It would be a bit less inconspicuous to listen to BBC than to a dedicated numbers station, even if the message would be undecryptable either way.

coldpie: Seems to me like coordinating with an entity outside of the spooks' control, such as the BBC, would give more opportunities for leaks. It would also reveal some information about who is controlling the signal--someone with some kind of relationship with the broadcaster.

ndiddy: Like the article says, satellite messages can be traced while radio is broadcast to everyone so it's impossible to find out who's listening. Shortwave radios are also cheap and widespread, so it's easy to get one anywhere in the world and if your house gets searched, it won't be suspicious if you have one.

tdeck: > Shortwave radios are also cheap and widespread, so it's easy to get one anywhere in the worldI always hear this in discussions about number stations, but I don't think this is true in the US. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a general consumer "shortwave radio". Unless the regular AM band counts, which seems to be medium wave.

misnome: Presumably doing it locally within a known few mile radius is different from nation-scale broadcast areas bounced from god-knows-where?

Supermancho: If you can receive a shortwave signal, you can triangulate the source.

ndiddy: If anyone is interested in further reading, this group are the world's leading experts on number stations (outside of intelligence services of course). They've done a detailed article on the new station, including recordings, technical mishaps, and analysis of why they believe the station is CIA run. https://priyom.org/number-stations/other/v32> Considering the topical interest in this station, the Priyom team shares its further expertise regarding V32's attribution, beyond being transmitted from a US military facility. While this remains unconfirmed speculation, and not facts, a prime candidate for the operator of this station would be the CIA. Contrary to popular belief, US intelligence has not entirely moved away from numbers stations. Sources in the intelligence community indicate that the CIA provides extra training about numbers stations and one-time pads to clandestine agents assigned to locations with a very hostile operating environment, such as Iran or North Korea: it is envisioned as a last-resort means of communication with high-value sources. So according to this, numbers stations are actually still an institutional part of the CIA playbook. The war in Iran, and the Internet blackout installed by the regime, fulfill the very circumstances for which the CIA would have planned this.> We already know that the CIA has a significant presence in Iran and involvement in the war, having provided crucial intelligence tracking Iranian leaders that enabled the assassination strikes that kickstarted the war. They most probably have had a network of infiltrated assets already in place and organized, ready to be reached through a numbers station if need be right when the war started - which makes the CIA a candidate for running V32 consistent with a legitimate intelligence operation. However, what we've observed from V32's operations - technical quirks and shifting formats - suggest that the technical deployment of the numbers station and shortwave transmissions themselves may have been a little rushed by the circumstances.> Another noteworthy feature of V32 is how all its transmissions take place on the same frequency. Most other numbers stations in general are comprehensive operations targeting many different recipients in different countries, and making use of many different transmission times and frequencies suited to the particular signal propagation needs corresponding to all those areas. In contrast, the fact that V32 always uses a single, same frequency, at always two given times of the day, would be consistent with an operation that only needs to target a single geographical area: Iran.

nemomarx: Phones usually contain the hardware for radio too, so making sure agents have some set of models for that doesn't sound bad. Even if you had to use a dedicated one having a radio at home isn't that conspicuous? Or in a car, etc

gorfian_robot: a consumer phone usually would only have an FM receiver

srean: Reflections will pose a problem though.Two receivers of the same signal may not be from the same proximate source. One could from the original antenna the other from a reflection. Both could be reflected but by different reflectors. Even if the proximate source was the same for both the receivers, triangulation might yield the location of a virtual image of the original source.BTW I am just going by geometry and may be way off because radiowaves behave quite differently compared to visible light.One might need effectively the inverse of beamforming to nail it.

gorfian_robot: def a niche consumer item these days. but pretty easy to make your own.

chinathrow: https://priyom.org/number-stations/other/v32

nhecker: I can't find it immediately, but I've read about something even sneakier than this. A standard broadcast station was modified such that its carrier signal was modulated by a PSK signal. The intended listener would use e.g., a PSK-31 modem to listen to the carrier signal and would be able to obtain the encoded digital data. Everyday listeners would hear the regular broadcast. The station involved _might_ have been a BBC station, but I don't recall.

butler14: "We don't need NATO." But we do need our bases in Germany plz.

Cthulhu_: These two don't have to be related per se, but it sure helps with maintaining a healthy mutually beneficial military relationship.

srean: For intelligence agencies, it is important to communicate with their spies to gather intelligence,” says John Sipher, a former US intelligence officer Is Sipher really his name. Nominative determinism strikes again

gorfian_robot: regular AM/FM stations are not broadcasting on shortwave bands

NitpickLawyer: Sure, but that would be a benefit, I would think. Most old cars come with an AM/FM radio, most cheap phones now have FM (? I don't know about AM, don't think so) and so on. So it would be more inconspicuous to listen to a regular radio than to a special station on special hardware. You don't even have to broadcast from EU, you could probably purchase some Radio Quatar Classical Rock or something :)