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Selects: What is a Numbers Station? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A happy Saturday, everybody, chuck here. I hope you're enjoying
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: your weekend. I hope you're enjoying your year, your month.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I hope you're enjoying the very hour in which you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: are coming across this. It is the select episode for
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the week, and I'm picking this one because honestly don't
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: remember much about it, and I got to listen to it,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: so maybe I'll learn it all over again. It's about
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: number stations and it's called what is a number Station?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Charles W Chuck Bryant, and this is oh Jerry and this.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Is Stuffish seven four two five eight.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Can you say it in German? You speak German? Don't
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: even jog me.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: It's why dry boom ah Steven, Now, can.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: You do that in a little girl voice?
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: You're just toying, Come on, do it. No, you always
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: make me play Saint Paly Girl. I'm tired of it.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Same poly girl. Now. This is apparently even younger than
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the Saint Poly Girl. It's like a little girl and
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: it was a live little girl who in the Swedish
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: rhapsody number station. It was a young little girl reading
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: out numbers and letters in German.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Which makes it even creepier.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very creepy.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: This is a very neat subject, so kudos to you
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: for tossing this one out there.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Well, I've been waiting for it to publish. Yeah, I'd
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: seen it in the calendar coming up and coming up.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I'm like, come on and publish, and I think it
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: published on Friday is Tuesday, yes, and we're talking about
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: it just as they are completing their decline, so we
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: are on top of this.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Well I think that well, we'll get into it.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: I think that's what makes it even more interesting is
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: that it's still happening, all right.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Numbers stations, number stations.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you said number, both words are pluralized. It's
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: a little clumsy, and number stations are we should just
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: come out and say their short wave radio transmissions or
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: transmitters making really weird baffling is the best word for it.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Transmissions and have been doing so apparently since at least
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: World War One.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Oh really.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Supposedly, the first mention of a numbers station came
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: from a German magazine in World War One and World
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: War Two, they were in full swing, sure, but apparently
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: they somehow popped up first around World War One, which
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: makes them some of the earliest shortwave transmissions in the world,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: because shortwave radio didn't come around at least into commercial
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: use until about nineteen twenty. World War One was a
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: few years before that, if you'll remember correct.
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's why I didn't even think that that was possible.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: But like you said, World War II is when they
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: were in full swing. Yeah, they really peaked in the
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: Cold War and they have been dying out slowly ever since.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: But I think one of the neatest things is they
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: are still If you have a short wave radio, you
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: can tune into a frequency and here beep one, two, seven,
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: five eight. You know, it's usually like some sort of tone.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: We should mention to Jerry of the future. Yeah, you're
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: supposed to leave that beep in because it's part of
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: the numbers station.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we beep Jerry to signal when we want something edited.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: But yeah, number station. That's not always a beep, it'll
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: just have some sort of Sometimes it's a bit of
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: a song.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like this Swedish Rhapsody or the Lincolnshire poacher a
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: British English uksh folk song.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm so scared of thetuff like that. And
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: the reason that the transmission starts off with a tone
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: or a beep or a song so you can it
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: alerts like here comes a transmission in your station. Hone
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: in make sure you get some good reception because the
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: secret code is about to be revealed.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: And that's exactly what everyone is pretty much in consensus
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: on that what comes after this and what is broadcast
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: over these numbers stations are secret codes.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Again, like for the Swedish rhap City station, it is
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: a little girl in speaking in German, reading numbers and letters,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: random seemingly random numbers and letters, and then the transmission
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: is over and that happens like or it used to happen.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: That's a defunct numbers station now, but it happened on
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: a fairly regular schedule. There's other ones. The Intension station
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: is a woman saying a tension and then reading Spanish
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: numbers and repeating them over and over again and then
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: going on to the next set and everybody. No one
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: can say for certain, but virtually everyone in the world
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: from Cecil Adams at Straight Dope to the head of
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: the UK's Trade and Industry Agency say these are secret
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: transmissions for spies. The whole basis of them was for espionage.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: And the reason why everyone is speculating that that is
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: absolutely the case, which it almost certainly is, like we said,
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: is because no government to this day has come forward
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: and admitted this or owned this. It is all still
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: technically speculation because you cannot point to a factual statement.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: The closest we've ever come is.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: They finally got someone from the United Kingdom, a spokesperson.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: That was the dude from the Trade Agency.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: Oh really, Yeah, the exact quotas people should not be
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: mystified by them. They're not, shall we say, for public consumption. Yeah,
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: And that's the only thing on record that any government
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: has ever spoke about what these transmissions are.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Right, So the idea that they are government transitions are
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: the reason we have to speculate is because the government's
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: never claimed them. On the flip side, the reason everyone
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: thinks that they are government backed clandestine transmissions is because
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: these are pirate radio frequencies, pirate radio transmitters. Yeah.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: My first thing was like, just find one of these
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: and look it up and find out what the deal is.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you would think.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: So.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: They're totally unlicensed. Nobody knows exactly where they are.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: They're illegal technically.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, they're very illegal because they transmit over air traffic
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: control frequencies. Well that's a big one. And no one
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: investigates them. There's no investigation into these number stations whatsoever.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: So the fact that the government won't say anything about them,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: and the fact that the government isn't investigating these very
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: blatantly out in the open, weird baffling transmissions suggests that, Yeah,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: everybody's right that these are government backed transmissions used to
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: communicate anonymously and in one direction two spies embedded in
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: foreign countries.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: I was about to call it a conversation, but it's
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: really not. It's I think on the BBC documentary Saw
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: they called it a monologue.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: You're just sending a one way message exactly.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: All right, Right after this break, we're going to talk
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: a little bit about shortwave radio technology. The secret key
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: to sending these messages, all right, The key to this
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: whole thing is sending a short way Like you might
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: think in this day and age, why not just send
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: a telefax?
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Right now?
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: Why not send an email or you know, there's surely,
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: surely there are safer ways to send espionage, this information,
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: highly classified instructions to go kill the leader of a country, perhaps.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Right, like if you want to activate Reggie Jackson to
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: kill Queen Elizabeth kill Norberg. Yeah, yeah, that's that's how
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: would you do it in this day and age, you'd
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: think an email would do it? No, And you want
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: to know who proves definitively that that is not safe
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: for secure?
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Who Jimmy Fallon, Edward Edward Snowden.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there there are. If you use a computer, you
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: leave a trace. Yeah, it's virtually impossible to erase anything
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: on a computer.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you think you have, then you haven't.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Plus, if you are, say emailing somebody, you're transmitting what's
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: supposed to be highly sensitive even encrypted information over a network.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: That stuff can be captured, like go listen to our
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: employer as your employer spying on you episode. Yeah, you
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: can't do it, Like you can communicate like that, but
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: you're leaving digital traces everywhere. The beauty of the short
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: wave radio transmission is that again it's anonymous and it's
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: one directional. But if you get caught with a short
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: wave radio. At least, say back in the sixties or
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: the seventies or something, it wasn't weird. It didn't prove
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: that you were a spy.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you done, just tuning into my my stories.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly, just listening to the BBC World.
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: Service shortwave energy radio energy. It's all determined by the
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: power of your transmitter. So if you've got a humongous transmitter,
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: you can send and any be that big, but you
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: can send a message one way message to the other
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: side of the world, right, And the reason it can
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: travel across the planet is because it's bouncing off of
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: it literally is bouncing off the ionosphere of the Earth
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: or well, yeah, of the Earth, fifty to three hundred
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: and seventy five miles up above our surface. It's in
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: the upper atmosphere, and solar ionization creates an electrical charge
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: and that charge reflects that signal right back down to Earth.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: It's called skywave or skip and skywave. Yeah, And that's
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: why you can with a seemingly pretty simple piece of equipment,
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: I can send a message to the South Pacific. Yeah,
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: from my bedroom. Well, I don't know if i'd have
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: one big enough for my Bedroom's pretty big. I wanted
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: to see how big these things were actually, you know,
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: like if they say really big ones, to send them
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: further and further, Like how big do they get?
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: They get very huge. They can cover scores of acres.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, a big shortwave antenna, which is why it
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: can get very expensive.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: So that's bigger than my bedroom.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: You can also use ones that are the size of
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: your bedroom. It depends not only like you said, on
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: the size of the transmitter, it depends on the atmospheric
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: conditions too, so uppusually shortwave transmissions are received best at
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: sunrise and sunset. And no one's one hundred percent sure,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: but it has to do with the ion a sphere.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: And because that's where the northern lights are happening. Yeah,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: that's where solar rays hit the hit the Earth's atmosphere
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: and they the atoms loose their electrons, I believe, so
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: they become ions forming the iono sphere. And because this
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: is constantly changing, you can't predict exactly how shortwave radio
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: wave will act, but you can kind of guess, well,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: this time the Sun's least active or most active, whatever,
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: it has some impact on that sky. What's it called
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: the sky? What skywave, the skywave effect, So you can
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: communicate with somebody in a foreign country, right, yea. And
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: not only can it not be tracked, it's very difficult
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: to trace who sent that, where that transmission's coming from.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: It's impossible to trace who's receiving it.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: So you have no idea who in your country is
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: getting this, which means that you're broadcasting to anybody and
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: everybody who feels like listening to this a secret code.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: But the fact is, if you use the right kind
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: of secret code, no one can crack all right.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: That brings up an important point because you would think also,
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: you can hack into the most secure computer system on
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: the planet if you're good enough as a hacker. So
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: how in the world could sending a coded key like
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: it's nineteen fifty five and you're trying to get your
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: decoder ring, you know from.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: The Red Was it the Red Rider?
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: No story? No, that's way off.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: No, what was it? It was?
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: No?
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: No, no, I'm talking about it in the Christmas story.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: It was a little orphan any that was the show.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: I didn't think it was.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: He didn't he didn't care about pirates and all that jazz,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: pirates and smugglers and all that jazz. He listened to
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: a little Orphan Anne.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: And I'll take it word for it. I remember, now
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: do you know?
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: But I'll take your word for it, dude, I'm telling
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: you it's a little orphan any I will. That's say,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I'm taking my hat. I don't have a hat on
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: right now, but I would eat it if I if
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: I were wrong.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: At any rate, you're not little Ralphie decoding the message
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: from little Orphanani. But it is actually the most secure
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: way that you can send a secret message is by
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: creating a unique code that you know and have written
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: down on a piece of paper, and your buddy knows
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: who has it written down on a piece of paper.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: You only use it once, that's the kind of the
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: key here, and then you destroy it afterward. That still
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: the most it's unbreakable.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: So what it's called is a one time pad, the
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: old one time because you only use it once, and
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: it is old. It's from the nineteenth century.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's still uncrackable. It is.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: And the reason why it's uncrackable is because you each
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: have like you said, you each have a copy of
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: this this code. But it's randomly generated. Right, So let's
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: say you have the sheet of paper and the other
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: person as the sheet of paper, and the sheet of
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: paper says, it's just like strings of random numbers, like
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: four or five numbers long, and it's just totally random,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: and it just covers, you know, several sheets of paper. Well,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: you guys start at the same place, and when the
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: person transmitting the message wants to encrypt it, they run
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: their message. So say you guys have agreed like zero
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: is a, B is one, C is two, et cetera.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: So you take that and you'd get you I know, dude,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: it is mind boggling, Like this is about as simple
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: a cryptology gets. In it it makes me bleed from
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: my ears.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: Because all you have to do is agree on what's what.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: You know, it could be anything, right, So.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: You're agreeing on what's what, but you also have this
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: randomly generated code. Sure key, right, So let's say I
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: want to say, what up, chuck? That's w h A
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: t U P C h U c K. So that's
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: eleven letters, right. So if you have your your key
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: and you're encoding it, you would use these first, the
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: first eleven numbers to encode what's already encoded. So the
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: w is say, Y says it's the number twenty two, okay, right,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: and then so on. So like there's a number assigned
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: to each letter, so you have that, and then you
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: run it through this code, this randomly generated code. So
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: you add that and then so you have twenty what
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: I say, twenty two, yeah, and then say the first
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: letter or the first number of this code is seven,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: so you have twenty nine.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: So that's what the little German girl reads on the air,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: twenty nine, yeah, fifty two, thirty seven eighteen.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: It means nothing to anyone else in the entire world
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: except for you and the person who has the other
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: copy of this code, since there's only two copies and
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: you're only using it once and.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: You're gonna eat it afterward.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the key is that it's randomly generated numbers. Yeah,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: then it'll it's theoretically it will never be broken.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. But I mean that's just one example. You could
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: You could have five pre code rules.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: To confuse someone trying to crack this code, right, yeah,
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: and they don't eat It's not like the simplest code
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: is this letter represents this number, this represents this letter.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: It gets more complex than that. You could both have
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: agreed upon a book. You have to kill a mockingbird.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: I've got to kill a mockingbird. Four eight twelve ninety thirteen.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: Four means go to page four. Thirteen means now you're
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: really going to page thirteen. Ignore the four then look
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: at the twelfth line. Then look at the eighth word
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: on that page.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Right. What a one time pad would do is take
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: that already agreed upon code and encrypt it even further.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, But the point is it doesn't have to represent letters.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: It can represent full words in a text that you've
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: agreed upon. True, And it's basically like thumbing through this
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: book picking out all these various words to make a sentence.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Right. The problem is that's its vulnerability as well. Like
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: to get a copy of the randomly generated key that's
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: used to encrypt this message, right, you have to have
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: some sort of contact with somebody. Yeah, So that's one
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: vulnerability of it. The thing is is like, depending on
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: how long this is, as many numbers as there are is,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: as long as as many transmissions as you can transmit.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Does that make any sense? No?
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Say it clearer?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: So I said, what up, Chuck, Yeah, that's eleven. That
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: uses the first eleven numbers on this key. But say
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: there's fifty thousand numbers on the key, Well, we have
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: a lot more messages I can send to you that
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: we're going through the pad. Eventually, though, we're going to
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: use up this pad and we need to meet again
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: so I can give you another randomly generated.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Key at Kinko's.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: That's the vulnerability of it.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: Well, the other fit well and not a fail safe.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: But the thing that makes it even safer is a
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: lot of times they would send and presumably are still
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: sending dummy messages, so you don't even know if it's
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: real to begin with, And there are only so many
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: person hours you can dedicate as a government to code crackers,
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: and they might be working on a it's not even real, right,
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: you don't know what transmissions are legit.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: And that is a proposal by a group called Enigma.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: And we'll talk about Enigma right after this message because
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: they're pretty awesome. So, Chuck, we were talking about Enigma.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I mentioned Enigma, and Enigma is this group that of
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: basically amateur radio people, short.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: Wave radio enthusiast. They really get into this. Yes it's
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: a thing, and.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: They started this is pre pre internet days. I think
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: it was in the eighties, the late eighties early nineties
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: that ENIGMA first came around and kind of coalesced. And
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: ENIGMA stands for European Numbers Information Gathering and Monitoring Association.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: And basically it was just a group of these people
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: who had all yeah, right, who had all and I
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: think they reverse engineered that well we always do, but
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: they had all kind of started to talk or find
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: each other and say have you heard this weird transmission
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: and they're like, yes, I've heard that one, and you should.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: You should check out this frequency on Tuesday nights at
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: eight pm because it transmits this. And they suddenly realized
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: there's this whole community of people out there, so they
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: set up a newsletter, they started a naming convention, and
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: they started assigning, collecting and assigning names to these different things.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: So like E.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Designated an English speaking trans numbers station, S was Slavic
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: v is various, which encapsulates everything from like French to Spanish.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: And ENIGMA really took this thing and put it into
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: you understandable terms. And they are basically eavesdropping or they
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: were eaves dropping on the spy community.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: Are they not doing that anymore.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: So Enigma disbanded I think in two thousand and then
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: almost immediately another group came and said, well, we're Enigma
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: in two thousand. We're going to carry this on. And
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: that's pretty fortunate because they were around to put all
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: this on the internet. Before it was like you had
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: to like subscribe to newsletters and have a shortwave radio.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Now it's like you can just go on the internet
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: and listen to all sorts of archives of these defunct
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: number stations as well.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they're creepy sounding. I don't like. It's
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: kind of cool.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I've got one for you. We've talked about it before.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Do you remember the Yosemite Sam transmission.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm convinced that that's just a person having fun.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Well, let's play it. I like that one. I think
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: it's full of info. It's cool.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: It's coming from somewhere out in Albuquerque in the desert
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: in New Mexico, and it's been going since what like
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: two thousand and four. Yeah, And what makes this one
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: interesting is that it's not a code, it's just Yosemite
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: Sam saying that thing.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Well, then it's followed by that data burst, yeah, which
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: they think is some sort of compressed information.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, seah, I don't believe it. I think this is
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: a short wave enthusiasts having a good time.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Well, he's been doing it like, it's pretty sophisticated. It
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: does it like over and over again, I think, for
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: forty seconds and switches to the next frequency and it
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: just goes through the band. Yeah, on a then he's
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: got a computer doing.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: It for him.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Maybe if it is just some dude, But either way,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: I like the use of useemite Sam. No, it's cool,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: but it's pretty It's exemplar of a number station, of
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: a numbers transmission. There's something that indicates that this is
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: about to happen, and then there's the happening, the transmission
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: of the secret code, whether it's digital in nature or
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: whether it's spoken. And then there it is ended by
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: you know, assumity Sam again or something like that. Yeah,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: it's saying here's the beginning, here's the information, here's the end.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: Now go kill Nordburg. Right.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: One of the other cool things about this is, and
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: you know, when we were talking about surely there's better ways,
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: and the government could theoretically shut down the Internet. They
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: could zap a satellite transmissions, they could shut everything down.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: This is almost unstoppable. You can't shut down shortwave radio.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, I guess you've cut power maybe.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well no, supposedly no, I mean yeah, and then
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I guess if people have batteries though in their shortwave radio.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Good point.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: The one way to combat it is called jamming. Frequency jamming,
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And basically it's just broadcasting on the same frequency that
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: these other transmitters, the numbers stations are transmitting on. And
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: so if you're broadcasting within your country, you're probably gonna
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: reach those shortwave radios better than somebody on the other
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: side of the planet's transmission. Well, and so apparently Russia
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: spent billions or the Soviets spent billions of dollars during
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: the Cold War jamming frequencies from all sorts of different transmissions,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: and they play things like the sound of seagulls or
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: random beeps or whatever. And it was just to prevent
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: people from transmitting into Russia. But even with all of
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: that money and technology mustard or marshalled against it, they
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: still weren't entirely successful. Like shortwave radio transmissions get through.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: It's just too big to fight.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you can't jam the entire frequency of all shortwaves,
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: like every single frequency.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: If you have ever heard the uh the Wilco.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: Remember Yankee Hotel Foxtrot that album, Yeah, that was on
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: the album at some point. I can't remember what song
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: it Yankee Hotel fox Trot in a woman's voice and
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: that is a famous.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Is it code?
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Was that from the Content project?
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think so, but we should talk about that.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: That was a project and it was also I guess
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: in the wild West days where you're talking about pre internet,
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: if people wanted to hear the stuff, some people got
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: together and put together the greatest hits sort of on
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: CD with a lot of accompanying material about what you're
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: listening to, and none of them. Obviously, you can't break
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: these codes. That's the thing I find interesting is people
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: sit around listen to this stuff but with no aim
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: of cracking the code.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: I think some people do attempt to crack the code
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: and it's impossible. Well, it's not impossible, and we should
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: say with the reason why it's not impossible is because
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: if you're using a computer generated random number A computers
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: not capable of truly of generating a truly random number
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: because computers run on algorithms. Yeah, algorithms are designed to
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: follow patterns, so they're just incapable of it. So you could,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: especially today, a hacker could conceivably crack one of these,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: especially old transmissions.
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: But yeah, but you still don't know what those numbers
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: stand for. Even if you find a pattern of numbers.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Right, they're still an agreed upon thing that you would
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: have to figure out, but it would it makes it
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: possible if you could crack that one time pad key,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: then you have a real chance at de deciphering the
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: message itself.
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, if you know what they stand for. But
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: I still maintain if only you and I know what
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: those numbers represent.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Right to kill a Mockingbird pages.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Uh, well, you were saying the Content Project thing. Yeah,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: so it's a four CD compilation and apparently I read
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: an article from the time when it came out, which
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: is the nineties. It was like perfect timing because there
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: was y two K going on, there was millennium angst,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: there was the X files, and this thing came out
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety seven and Selon wrote an article on it,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: and this guy who wrote it was like a music
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Concrete Aficionado. So people appreciated it, not just for the
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: fact that it's like recordings of real live spy transmissions,
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: but some people like the kind of avant garde noise
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: that it had going on too.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: And I'm sure the Flaming Lips are currently planning an
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: album composed of nothing but messages from number stations.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Number eight.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: There's a movie that exists that I had never heard of,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: called The Number Station.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: I hadn't heard of it either.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think it was released really. It said
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: it from twenty thirteen, and like I know most movies
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: that are released, it probably went straight to video or something.
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: I watched trailer day. It's John Cusack and Malin Ackerman,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: and you know, they work at a number station and
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: he's to protect the number station, but something bad happens
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: and they're compromised.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Right and is who he says he is? And is
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: she who she says she is?
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: Who knows? You'll have to rint that turkey to find out.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Did it look bad?
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Sure, it's looked pretty bad.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Sorry John Cusack, Yeah, sorry John Cusack. So I think
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: one of the most interesting things about numbers stations is that,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: like you said they peaked during the Cold War right
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: when the Berlin Wall fell, and then in the few
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: years after that the number of transmissions supposedly just dropped
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: off dramatically, although I did see in at least one
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: place that supposedly they increased, but I didn't see that
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: supported anywhere else. But the idea that they're still around
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: it all in twenty fourteen, that there's still no stations
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: transmitting gibberish really says a lot. So it says a
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: couple of things, and you've already mentioned one. It's possible
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: they are just transmitting gibberish to throw off anybody listening. Yeah,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: this one to basically just kind of sap their resources.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Right, like keep them riskies busy listening to our bach.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Sure. Another one is that they're keeping them going in
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: case they need to use them again.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: I think that's totally the reason.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: In which case that's pretty smart, because that's just you're
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: not showing your hand, like where all of a sudden
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: an inactive radio station suddenly starts up again indicase activity
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: or it's been doing the same thing for ten years,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: and on year seven it actually transmitted a real secret message.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: But it seemed just like the everything else in those
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: ten years, you're doing some pretty good spycraft there.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, or just to keep that, like you may not
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: be actively using it, but just to keep that a
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: method relevant, right, Like you know, if you quit doing something,
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: it's going to die off. No one's going to know
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: how to do it anymore. Sure, Yeah, so you know,
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: just keep those people working. And you know, they may
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: not even know if they're transmitting real messages or not.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: I would guess if you're just saying, oh yeah, yeah,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: if you just hand them a sheet of paper and
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: it's just yeah.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: In fact, that may be a pretty safe way to
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: do things. Sure, it's like the person with the nuclear key.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a test.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Who knows, war games. We'll find out in thirty minutes.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: There are also other theories that they are and I
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: think some of this does go on, maybe drug runners
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: right using stuff like this, because some of them are
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: less than professional. Apparently the ones from Cuba or Cuba, sorry, Jerry,
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: are a little.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Comical. Well, they were renowned for just having really bad
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: slip ups, especially during the whole war.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: Like you'd hear people talking and laughing in the back ground,
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: or an accidental transmission of a radio station.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Right, Radio Havana.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, so they were kind of known for not
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: being too skilled at it. But I imagine the drug
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: runners are the same.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's virtually the same thing. And I mean there's
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: absolutely no reason why drug runners couldn't have also couldn't
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: also use this. Yeah, alongside the espionage community too.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's might be as one b as two, right,
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: and they get the message, says huh Chipman of Kilo's
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: coming in Miami Beach tomorrow night.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Right, let's go get them kill one. I'm one.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: But I do think there may be a little bit
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: of that. I think it's a mixed bag of why
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: they're still being broadcast. I think there are enthusiasts that
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: are probably just doing their own.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: Thing for fun.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that'd be fun, man, if I was in Guam
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: and I could send you a private message to be
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: a short.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Wave Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you meant people
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: who are just doing it just to mess with, like
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: the Enigma community or something.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: I think that probably happens too. I bet you it's
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: all kinds of things.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure you're right.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: There's one guy out there, trust me.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: There have been some some actual spies who have been
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: busted in this century, long after the Cold War, who
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: had shortwave radios and one time pads in their apartments
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: or houses. Apparently, in twenty eleven in Germany, a couple
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: who'd lived there since nineteen eighty eight and were spying
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: for the Russians were caught in the act of receiving
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: a Numbers transmission in their home when they were apprehended
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: and busted for spying.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: I can see that scene.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: He's got like one headphone up and he's holding it
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: with his hand and he's writing something down in pencil
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: and his wife's trying to eat it really quick, spit
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: it out.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: And in two thousand and one, Anna A.
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: Montes worked for the US Civil Defension Intelligence Agency and
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: she was convicted of spying for Cuba. And when they
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: searched her home they found a short wave radio in
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: a code sheet. And so, yeah, I mean that's it's
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: still going on, man. I think it's pretty neat. Yeah,
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: I do too, Like it's old school but almost fool proof.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The big vulnerability is getting the random randomly generated
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: key to the spy.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: And they also point out on the article who wrote
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: this one by the way, Nathan Chandler. Nathan points out
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: that these days, you're likely your one timer might be
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: sent to you, maybe digitally somehow, but it's not It
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: doesn't like tip anyone off necessarily.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but not quite sure how.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would think if you're being watched, then an
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: email with a lot of random numbers might dip somewhere.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Right. Well, it used to be they'd print them on
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: the kind of paper that like dissolved quickly or burned
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: and left no ash or whatever. They were on such
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: tiny piece of paper you had to use a really
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: good magnifying oh like lens to read it. Yeah, and
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: you could hide them in like a walnut shell or
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: something like that. Oh wow, who knows what they're doing now, Yeah,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: but they are doing something.
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, i'd like to I thought about getting a short
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: I was a little bit inspired, but then I thought, man,
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: I've got so many other things to do.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I could do fall into their
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: rabbit hole.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: So that's numbers stations. If that peaqued your interest, just
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: type in numbers stations into your favorite search engine and
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: it will lead you down the rabbit hole of short
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: wave radio. Did you say rabbit holes there where I
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: got that from?
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: I said rabbit hole. But I didn't invent it.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: No, I know, but it just popped up in my head. Yeah,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: it wasn't my own invention.
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: And I think if you have a short wave radio
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: you probably tune into these anyway because you're just into
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: that lifestyle. But I think there's a website called spy numbers, yeah,
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: where you can actually find the frequencies and just go
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: right there and you don't want to search.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: For them, right, And if you want to read this article,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: you can type the words numbers stations in the search
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: part HowStuffWorks dot com. And since I said search part,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: it's time for listener mayo.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: I'm going to call this a bit on sushi from
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: someone in Japan. Hey, guys, and Jerry he spelled Jerry
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: right as well.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Man, it's Jerry's day.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: I enjoyed the sushi episode quite a bit and have
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: something to add. As a result of modern food production
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: following World War Two in Japan and of course the
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: US and elsewhere, the quality and traditional methods of making
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: show you miso and other Japanese food items sadly plummeted.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: For example, miso can be fermented and aged a matter
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: of weeks with the use of temperature control tanks, where
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: traditional dark miso would age up to two years. Same
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: goes with other ferminted products like show you Meran no
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: longer at sweet rice cooking wine is practically sugar water.
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: Speaking of sugar, modern Japanese food wouldn't exist without it.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: Bumi boshi, the sour salty pickled plum is lousy with
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: artificial color, sugar and refined salt.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: They're still good.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: As much as I loved Japanese food and culture, it's
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: quite heartbreaking to see these centuries of traditional food processing
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: supplanted by the Japanese version of a twinkie chemically made
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: in process as an alternative. There are good quality Japanese
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: products to be had, particularly those imported from Eden. Foods
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: just high quality, organic and widely distributed.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Is this the president of eating food?
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Are they based in Alameda, California?
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Sounds like you.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: That is from Lear in Alameda, California. I meant to
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: mention to you, I had the worst sushi I've had
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: my life.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: The other day. Oh no, where I'm not going to
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: say it, but I'm not going back.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: I'll tell you off air. I don't think you wouldn't
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: go there anyway, But it was the rice was gummy
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: and really gummy to the point where I ate it
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: just because I was starving, and I ate it really fast,
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: and I was like, oh, this kind of gummy. Then
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: afterward I was like, man, that was terrible.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you say that to yourself and like you
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: smiled in their whole mouth was coated and rice.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: It was gross, man, I was. I was ticked off afterward.
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: After I paid the bill and complained the who way
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: home to Emily, I was like, I really should have
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: said something because that was like they should have known
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: they shouldn't have served that rice.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Well, why didn't you say something?
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: Because, like I said, I just shoved it in my
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: face hole and left and complained afterward, which is that's
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: how I do things usually.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: I don't like to make a scene. I just like
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: to play the martyr afterward. I've talked about that gummy sushep.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: For two days. Yeah. Oh it was that bad.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: Huh. Yeah. The fish and stuff was good, but that
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: rice was just very subpar. They should have known better.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, well tell me where it is afterwards. Oh, will
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: okay if you want to, I guess inadvertently or quietly
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: clandestineley promote your business like Leir did with his eating
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: foods subversively. Yeah, you could send us an email to
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.