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What is a Numbers Station? · Stuff You Should Know

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