Guess again, missster Bamford.
Posted on 12/29/2006 4:40:07 AM PST by aculeus
It turns out that anybody can tune in to the world's top spy agencies talking to operatives. All you need is a cheap shortwave-radio receiver, the kind available at any drugstore.
Tune it to 6855 or 8010 kHz.
On the hour, you might hear a girlish voice repeating strings of numbers monotonously in Spanish. "Nueve, uno, nueve, tres, cinco-cinco, cuatro, cinco, tres, dos . . .," went one seemingly harmless message heard last month on a Grundig radio.
It was the Cuban Intelligence Directorate or Russian FSB broadcasting coded instructions from Havana to spies inside the United States.
Turn the dial up to 11545 kHz, and you might hear a few notes of an obscure English folk song, "Lincolnshire Poacher," followed by a voice repeating strings of numbers. That's believed to be British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, broadcasting from Cyprus.
On 6840 kHz, you may hear a voice reading groups of letters. That's a station nicknamed "E10," thought to be Israel's Mossad intelligence.
Chris Smolinski runs SpyNumbers.com and the "Spooks" e-mail list, where "number stations" hobbyists log hundreds of shortwave messages transmitted every month. "It's like a puzzle. They're mystery stations," explained Smolinski, who has tracked the spy broadcasts for 30 years.
While hobbyists guess at the meaning of each cryptic message or which spy service sent it, it's no mystery to intelligence officials, who confirmed the purpose is espionage.
The signals are too strong to be made by amateurs and are often on licensed frequencies. The State Department once complained to the Israeli Embassy in Washington that "E10" was blocking a U.S. broadcast, a source said.
"I can't imagine who else would waste the time in front of a microphone reading numbers" but a spy, said James Bamford, who has written about intelligence.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
As we all know messages are now passed on FR ... in responses on those "IBTZ" threads and as keywords.
Retrieve... documents... from.. Sandy... Berger's... socks... deposit... funds... his.. swiss.. bank... account...
Is there a NYT's article to go with this article to give us even more details?
So out of date? Sending coded messages over the radio started around, what was that thing again? Oh, yeah, World War 1.
If you use your decoder pin, it says, "bE sure to drink your ovaltinE".
a crummy commercial!
Back when I was a kid (1970's), I used to be into Shortwave radio. I used to find and listen to these things all the time, they gave me the creeps, it was cool! At the time, I thought they were secret coded messages, but almost in jest. Later found out that I was right. Kewl man!
ping
>>>>"I can't imagine who else would waste the time in front of a microphone reading numbers"
1, 2, 3, 4 o'clock rock
5, 6, 7, 8 o'clock rock
UR 599 73 OM QRZ
John has a long mustache.....repeat.....John has a long mustache.....
OT - Does anyone know that Morse Code site someone posted a while back. It teaches Morse Code free online.
Son of a bitch!
I had a job for a while as an announcer at WWV but I finally quit, because I couldn't stand the hours.
Son of a bitch!
Hahahaha, my favorite part of the whole movie.
So that's baud rate of about 0.001, right?
The chair is against the wall.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.