Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Random numbers, Persian code: A mysterious signal transfixes radio sleuths

rferl.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 128 posts

Re: Random numbers, Persian code: A mysterious signal transfixes radio sleuths

#101

Post by OJFord »

srean wrote: post #68
OJFord wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sifr is also a valid word both in Farsi, I think That is the root of 'cipher'; meaning zero/empty/nothingness.

Indeed and used cleverly in Casino Royale by naming Le Chiffre that way. I knew 'sifr' was an Arabic word and only today I came to know that it works in Farsi too. The double pun/irony is that the John Sipher's surname is related to the topic of cryptography and that the etymological roots is Middle-Eastern.

Also Hindi, Urdu, and no doubt others if we're drawing lines :) – there's an awful lot of overlap/loanwords.

Re: Random numbers, Persian code: A mysterious signal transfixes radio sleuths

#102

Post by anigbrowl »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #12

I wonder why they keep using a dedicated numbers station instead of embedding the code in a regular radio broadcast on a traditional channel? I'm sure that even before LLMs one could find a way to create a story where certain numbers / code words would be embedded without altering the underlying story too much. And they could probably get BBC / whatever station to air it. It would be a bit less inconspicuous to liste…

Because you can drive intel analysts crazy with this one weird trick. They know you can't decrypt one time pads, but they can't resist checking for entropy and trying to match it to known OTPs they may have acquired through intelligence channels. Running and programming the shortwave transmitter is dirt cheap; tying up some of opponents' SIGINT resources on a wild goose chase is good value for money.

Re: Random numbers, Persian code: A mysterious signal transfixes radio sleuths

#103

Post by lioeters »

srean wrote: post #94
lioeters wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Al-Jabr, from where we get the word albebra , is an abbreviated name of the book (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing). The translator's name was al-Khwarizmi, from where we get the word algorithm . He was of Persian origin.

Why do say "translator's name" ? Al-Khwarizmi authored the book Al-Jabr.

Oh you're right, I was confused by the rich cultural exchange of translations happening at the time, from Greek and Sanskrit texts to Arabic then later Arabic texts to Latin. Both the book and the author are fascinating subjects I enjoy learning more about.

Re: Random numbers, Persian code: A mysterious signal transfixes radio sleuths

#105

Post by baxtr »

red_admiral wrote: post #97
rustyhancock wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shortwave radio is more challenging than you might imagine. Near to the transmitter it's received by ground wave, further it's scattered off the ionosphere. In-between it's undetectable due to the skip zone. This might also explain why Amelia Earhart went missing [1] Coverage is obtained from multipath and reflections. Leading to variable strength and timing. Not as bad as DXing on HF with low power but much harder t…

I would guess that the combined EU/NATO counterintelligence forces could find the station if they wanted to, especially for the rough location in the article. EDIT: apparently the source is on a U.S. military base in Germany (other posts on this topic). Looks like its "ours" then.

Explains why it’s still sending

Re: Random numbers, Persian code: A mysterious signal transfixes radio sleuths

#106

Post by srean »

lioeters wrote: post #103
srean wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do say "translator's name" ? Al-Khwarizmi authored the book Al-Jabr.

Oh you're right, I was confused by the rich cultural exchange of translations happening at the time, from Greek and Sanskrit texts to Arabic then later Arabic texts to Latin. Both the book and the author are fascinating subjects I enjoy learning more about.

Islamic golden age was an interesting time indeed. In addition to algebra, significant contribution to Optics.

Re: Random numbers, Persian code: A mysterious signal transfixes radio sleuths

#107

Post by ndiddy »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #85
IAmGraydon wrote: post #70

The location of this transmitter is a shortwave transmission facility within a US military base in Böblingen, 15 km southwest of Stuttgart, Germany. The coordinates: 48°41'26"N 9°05'12"E https://www.google.com/maps/place/48%C2%B041'26.0%22N+9%C2%B...

Interesting. I have no reason to disbelieve you. So... If its being broadcast by the US military or the CIA, why Persian? Because they're issueing activation orders to their network of ani-regime operatives inside Iran? Who, mysteriously for spies, only know that language? Or because they want the Iranian government to think that? And a numbers station broadcasting in - unusually - Persian, is an easy way to get the…

The CIA recruits a lot of Iranians to spy for them. Since the Internet is a thing, they typically communicate with them that way. For example, in the 2010s the CIA ran hundreds of fake news, sports, travel, religious, etc. websites, where typing a password into a search box or other text field would open a hidden message area where operatives could read messages from the CIA and send back information. This network was eventually destroyed and hundreds of sources were arrested because the CIA made the error of using the same few messaging scripts and hosting the sites from a few contiguous IP blocks, but it's a good idea of how they generally operate. See here for more info: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spie... https://cirosantilli.com/cia-2010-covert-communication-websi...

However, since the US-Israeli bombing of Iran on Feb 28, the Iranian government has shut down the whole country's Internet access. This means that the CIA needs another way to send information out, hence the numbers station.

Re: Random numbers, Persian code: A mysterious signal transfixes radio sleuths

#108

Post by IAmGraydon »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #85
IAmGraydon wrote: post #70

The location of this transmitter is a shortwave transmission facility within a US military base in Böblingen, 15 km southwest of Stuttgart, Germany. The coordinates: 48°41'26"N 9°05'12"E https://www.google.com/maps/place/48%C2%B041'26.0%22N+9%C2%B...

Interesting. I have no reason to disbelieve you. So... If its being broadcast by the US military or the CIA, why Persian? Because they're issueing activation orders to their network of ani-regime operatives inside Iran? Who, mysteriously for spies, only know that language? Or because they want the Iranian government to think that? And a numbers station broadcasting in - unusually - Persian, is an easy way to get the…

The latter seems more plausible to me as well. It’s psychological warfare - make them think that the enemy is amongst them.

Re: Random numbers, Persian code: A mysterious signal transfixes radio sleuths

#109

Post by susiecambria »

red_admiral wrote: post #95
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who's to say they aren't doing both? They may not even be sending anything over the number station; these stations will continue on a schedule even when there is nothing to say and nobody is listening because it makes it harder to eek out a foothold in the event of a weakness in the encryption.

Even if the encryption is one-time pads, if you broadcast a bit every day then you don't warn the enemy that something's up by the fact that you're transmitting at all.

My thought exactly.

Of course my next thought was "Maybe they are reading the Epstein files."

Re: Random numbers, Persian code: A mysterious signal transfixes radio sleuths

#110

Post by ted_dunning »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #86
JohnFen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radios capable of receiving shortwave bands aren't exactly rare among normal people. They're not really "special hardware". Just owning one would not be inherently suspicious. What would be suspicious is being in possession of the one-time pad needed to decode the messages, regardless of which media those messages are transmitted through. For the record, "numbers stations" can be found in nearly every communication m…

> What would be suspicious is being in possession of the one-time pad needed to decode the messages Would it though? All you need is something with sufficient entropy. I reckon you could do a "good enough" job with any plausible-looking data you have lying around on your hard disk right now. Say for example if you took a couple of sha256s of any random image you might post on social media, you'd have quite a lot of k…

That is a book cipher, not a one-time pad.
Post reply on HN