Sounds like an ARG. Reminds me of that "this is my milwaukee" thing.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to go with ARG. I would be beyond shocked if actual intelligence information were being transmitted over an unencrypted channel like this.
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Strange phone number: asks for Agent Code, gives encoded coordinates.
11–20 of 33 posts
Re: Strange phone number: asks for Agent Code, gives encoded coordinates.
#12After reading some of the speculation about it in the online forums, I thought "Wouldn't it be fun to set up something like this as a prank?" It almost sounds like something Woz would be into...
It would be awesome and easy to set something like this up on twilio. I would have chosen a 702 area code though and when posting about it speculated that it had something to do with area 51. ;)
Just remember that there is a NSA location in Denver, Colorado.
Re: Strange phone number: asks for Agent Code, gives encoded coordinates.
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be awesome and easy to set something like this up on twilio. I would have chosen a 702 area code though and when posting about it speculated that it had something to do with area 51. ;)
Just remember that there is a NSA location in Denver, Colorado.
Just about any major city will have an intelligence office of some kind.
I'm pretty sure the NSA has better ciphers for phones than poorly coded ASCII. Isn't there an art installation at the NSA that still hasn't been cracked after 20 years?
Re: Strange phone number: asks for Agent Code, gives encoded coordinates.
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just remember that there is a NSA location in Denver, Colorado.
Just about any major city will have an intelligence office of some kind. I'm pretty sure the NSA has better ciphers for phones than poorly coded ASCII. Isn't there an art installation at the NSA that still hasn't been cracked after 20 years?
You're thinking of the Kryptos sculpture, which is at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos); "of the four messages, three have been solved"; it was installed in November 1990, so it's been almost 22 years.
Re: Strange phone number: asks for Agent Code, gives encoded coordinates.
#15Sounds like an ARG. Reminds me of that "this is my milwaukee" thing.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to go with ARG. I would be beyond shocked if actual intelligence information were being transmitted over an unencrypted channel like this.
So I agree with you that's it's an ARG, but transmitting intelligence (or, more typically, instructions for agents) over unencrypted channels has been going on for years - the security of the channel itself is irrelevant if the data you're sending is only usable by the intended recipient.
This is how numbers stations work: you send alpha-numeric codes over shortwave, which assets in the field then decode using one time pads.
So generally speaking, transmitting intelligence over an unencrypted land-line wouldn't shock me in and of itself.
Re: Strange phone number: asks for Agent Code, gives encoded coordinates.
#16I hope a government or corporation would be smart enough not to use such a simplistic system to hide covert or confidential data. Then again most military drones were not encrypting their video feeds until rather recently, so who knows.
Intelligence agencies are adept at transmitting information in plain sight. I already mentioned numbers stations [1] in another comment, but they're a perfect example of how intelligence data is broadcast through a easily intercept-able channel but totally unusable to anyone except the recipient due to the use of a one-time pad. The only way you can stop them is to jam them, which is easier said than done.
Intelligence agencies use the simplest systems of transmitting data because they're proven to work. Dead drops are another great example of what on the surface seems horrifically insecure (you want me to leave my intelligence in a public place for anyone to find?) but that in practice work extremely well.
Re: Strange phone number: asks for Agent Code, gives encoded coordinates.
#17After reading some of the speculation about it in the online forums, I thought "Wouldn't it be fun to set up something like this as a prank?" It almost sounds like something Woz would be into...
It would be awesome and easy to set something like this up on twilio. I would have chosen a 702 area code though and when posting about it speculated that it had something to do with area 51. ;)
Or better yet, a VOIP provider that pays you for incoming calls.
Re: Strange phone number: asks for Agent Code, gives encoded coordinates.
#18I want to believe this isn't a clever marketing scheme for a movie, or shiny gadget, or game.
Re: Strange phone number: asks for Agent Code, gives encoded coordinates.
#19After reading some of the speculation about it in the online forums, I thought "Wouldn't it be fun to set up something like this as a prank?" It almost sounds like something Woz would be into...
Ha, I had the same thought - which makes me think that this is almost definitely a big prank that someone set up. Evidence:
- It was first posted on /b/
- Words like "TROOP" and "AGENT" are encoded in ASCII, and accessible by (nearly) any "passcode" that the user types in
and the dead giveaway in my mind:
- The "please stay on the line for the next available circuit" message played by the number was found to have been originally recorded by Time Warner Cable... No serious entity with any use for a numbers station would bother to steal a recorded message from a cable company.
So it's not real (duh :(). Part of me hopes it's an ARG, but in my heart of hearts, I know someone is just trolling /b/, albeit extremely masterfully.
Re: Strange phone number: asks for Agent Code, gives encoded coordinates.
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to go with ARG. I would be beyond shocked if actual intelligence information were being transmitted over an unencrypted channel like this.
So I agree with you that's it's an ARG, but transmitting intelligence (or, more typically, instructions for agents) over unencrypted channels has been going on for years - the security of the channel itself is irrelevant if the data you're sending is only usable by the intended recipient. This is how numbers stations work: you send alpha-numeric codes over shortwave, which assets in the field then decode using one ti…
If you need an OTP to decode it, it's encrypted.