Note: “Gerät” is simply the German word for “Device”, “Machine” or “Equipment”.
The article points this out.
Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations
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Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations
#12Interesting! I wonder what these were actually used for. Word on the street was communication with spies using a one-time-pad or something. I'm sure it was important or they wouldn't have built all this stuff for it. It wouldn't have been for the "what are those soviets up to now???" effect :D And the more esoteric explanations like triggering preprogrammed behaviour (like the plot of Black Ops I refers to) are clear…
Maybe they were used for sending automated radio from lighthouses etc? Radio beacons.
I don't think so. Radio beacons are sending the same information constantly. And are well documented.
The numbers stations were sending seemingly random strings of numbers non-stop. They were a typical cold-war phenomenon shrouded in much mystery.
Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations
#13Interesting! I wonder what these were actually used for. Word on the street was communication with spies using a one-time-pad or something. I'm sure it was important or they wouldn't have built all this stuff for it. It wouldn't have been for the "what are those soviets up to now???" effect :D And the more esoteric explanations like triggering preprogrammed behaviour (like the plot of Black Ops I refers to) are clear…
There was a woman in East Berlin, who needed rescue. I can't remember if she worked with western intelligence, or if her husband did, but at any rate, she was in trouble. West Germany (or the Americans) decided to help her escape. At one point, she was given a pad. Told to turn her radio to a certain channel at a certain time of day. Write the numbers down and decode them with the pad.
Long story short, she and her son managed to get through one of the checkpoints into safety. Numbers stations were a key part of the plan because regular communications would have been impossible.
There's one example of how it was used. It's a little funny to me how the stations were quite mysterious to me, but they were just part of everyday life for others. A necessary chore.
Wish I had a link to the story. Heard it years ago. If this story rings a bell for anyone, and you have the link, I'd be forever grateful if you shared it. It stuck with me for not only being a good Cold War story, but also for the practical use of numbers stations.
Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations
#14That's cool.
I remember seeing a story about that weird Soviet radio station with the huge towers. Can't remember it exactly, but it was supposed to be a nuclear "dead man's switch," or something like that.
Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations
#15That's cool. I remember seeing a story about that weird Soviet radio station with the huge towers. Can't remember it exactly, but it was supposed to be a nuclear "dead man's switch," or something like that.
That was probably the Duga radar at chernobyl. It was an over the horizon radar (which never worked properly). There were more in other places but the Chernobyl one is the only one left because of its location in the exclusion zone. Nothing as sinister as a dead man's switch, it was meant to provide early missile / bomber warning, but by the time it was operational it was already superseded by satellites. And it had many operational issues.
Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations
#16Interesting! I wonder what these were actually used for. Word on the street was communication with spies using a one-time-pad or something. I'm sure it was important or they wouldn't have built all this stuff for it. It wouldn't have been for the "what are those soviets up to now???" effect :D And the more esoteric explanations like triggering preprogrammed behaviour (like the plot of Black Ops I refers to) are clear…
There was a woman in East Berlin, who needed rescue. I can't remember if she worked with western intelligence, or if her husband did, but at any rate, she was in trouble. West Germany (or the Americans) decided to help her escape. At one point, she was given a pad. Told to turn her radio to a certain channel at a certain time of day. Write the numbers down and decode them with the pad. Long story short, she and her s…
Was it Garbriele Gast?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_Gast
> After agreeing to help, Gast very soon found herself sent on an intensive spycraft course, including hands-on training with the latest in covert communications equipment. She was given a Stasi code name, "Gisela", which came with a false passport and a new handbag, incorporating a well concealed secret compartment. Back home in Aachen, every Tuesday evening at the same time she tuned into a shortwave radio station from East Germany and carefully wrote down a long line of numbers, read out in a monotone, without further elaboration, by a "radio presenter". When she decrypted the messages from Schmidt she found some were instructions while others were simply encouraging love messages.
Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations
#17Note: “Gerät” is simply the German word for “Device”, “Machine” or “Equipment”.
Reminds me of the Doener Geraet! :D
Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations
#18Interesting! I wonder what these were actually used for. Word on the street was communication with spies using a one-time-pad or something. I'm sure it was important or they wouldn't have built all this stuff for it. It wouldn't have been for the "what are those soviets up to now???" effect :D And the more esoteric explanations like triggering preprogrammed behaviour (like the plot of Black Ops I refers to) are clear…
I guess you could use that device to report telemetry from say an automated weather station. Spoken words can be probably propagated better over a noisy channel. Task an intern to listen to this every day & compile a report with the weather data inside and bam, daily weather report from an automated station. :)
Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations
#19> What I find quite surprising: The keyboard and output of the device mostly uses English words. A bit unexpected for a device developed in eastern Germany for use in the Soviet Union; I would rather have expected Russian there.
This isn't all that surprising, the Lingua Franca for electronics and software development in Eastern Germany was also English, not Russian (or rather a mix of German and English, with much more German than the "Denglish" that is used today, but for terms that didn't already have an established German word, the English word was used, and I guess it was much the same in the Soviet Union).
If you browse through East German vintage computer manuals, there's a lot of English used for "special terms" like "BREAK", "HOME", "ESCAPE" etc.
Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations
#20> What I find quite surprising: The keyboard and output of the device mostly uses English words. A bit unexpected for a device developed in eastern Germany for use in the Soviet Union; I would rather have expected Russian there. This isn't all that surprising, the Lingua Franca for electronics and software development in Eastern Germany was also English, not Russian (or rather a mix of German and English, with much m…
A much simpler explanation of the phenomenon is that a lion share of digital electronics made in the union was a direct copypaste down to documentation, and UI
Russian language based domestic computing industry existed, but it has stopped developing in early seventies, and by eighties was behind hopelessly, despite being quite well adapted in civilian use.
Funnily, it was the union's military that was the biggest user of hardware, and software derived from Western products, while civilians were left to use obsolete stuff from sixties, and seventies. Even mechanical computers were still around by the time of union's collapse.