I'm not usually a fan of stuff like this but I've stumbled across information about "number stations" recently and had to have a listen. Managed to scrape together some recent recordings from numerous stations, one in particular that is supposed to based right here in Australia as part of a British network.
It's purported that it's a tool to communicate with various agents involved in covert operations. The actual communications mean nothing with something called a "One-Time Pad" (OTP.) Basically the OTP is a dictionary of sorts held by only the sender and receiver which means that the code being sent can only be deciphered by those in possession of the OTP. They are generally single use and are discarded/destroyed after their use.
One station in particular, nicknamed "the Lincolnshire Poacher," is named as such as it repeats the same two bars of the song which is also channels' namesake, sporadically interrupting transmission in order to transmit numbers in an artificial female voice.
Is anyone a SWL and have experience in this? As I've said previously, I'm not usually into stuff like this but I listened to numerous recordings and it's somewhat haunting. No government or prominent security agency has come forward to confirm or refute the use of these stations, with the exception of a British public servant who was quoted to have said to a Daily Telegraph reporter: "These [numbers stations] are what you suppose they are. People shouldn't be mystified by them. They are not for, shall we say, public consumption."
It's purported that it's a tool to communicate with various agents involved in covert operations. The actual communications mean nothing with something called a "One-Time Pad" (OTP.) Basically the OTP is a dictionary of sorts held by only the sender and receiver which means that the code being sent can only be deciphered by those in possession of the OTP. They are generally single use and are discarded/destroyed after their use.
One station in particular, nicknamed "the Lincolnshire Poacher," is named as such as it repeats the same two bars of the song which is also channels' namesake, sporadically interrupting transmission in order to transmit numbers in an artificial female voice.
Is anyone a SWL and have experience in this? As I've said previously, I'm not usually into stuff like this but I listened to numerous recordings and it's somewhat haunting. No government or prominent security agency has come forward to confirm or refute the use of these stations, with the exception of a British public servant who was quoted to have said to a Daily Telegraph reporter: "These [numbers stations] are what you suppose they are. People shouldn't be mystified by them. They are not for, shall we say, public consumption."
