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

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

#121

Post by ErroneousBosh »

ted_dunning wrote: post #110
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I guess, although you don't use the same jpeg every time.

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

#122

Post by GJim »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #40
gorfian_robot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

regular AM/FM stations are not broadcasting on shortwave bands

Sure, but that would be a benefit, I would think. Most old cars come with an AM/FM radio, most cheap phones now have FM (? I don't know about AM, don't think so) and so on. So it would be more inconspicuous to listen to a regular radio than to a special station on special hardware. You don't even have to broadcast from EU, you could probably purchase some Radio Quatar Classical Rock or something :)

Good lord!

It was once common knowledge that VHF radio ("FM") typically doesn't travel over the horizon, LW and MW radio ("AM") travel by ground wave and are regional, but that you need shortwave kit for international and global communications.

Quite how a reader on a modern technical news site is unaware of this (no, you can't send direct messages to spies half way around the planet to be received on an "AM/M" car radio) shows just how common public knowledge of radio communications has faded over the last few years.

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

#123

Post by iammjm »

wgrover wrote: post #114
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #87

> Fernandez, who more than two decades ago published a four-CD audio compendium of hundreds of recordings from around the world called the Conet Project. It's considered the Bible for numbers-station enthusiasts. The Conet Project is an interesting listen -- very analogue, Cold War-ish, and a bit sinister. Seems to be available on the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/The-Conet-Project

Fans of the band Wilco will recognize one of the Conet Project's recordings as the source of the woman repeating "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" in the song "Poor Places" from the eponymous album. Wilco failed to license the sample and the resulting lawsuit gave the Conet Project a portion of Wilco's royalties on that track.

Thanks for that, I love this album and never knew that info

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

#124

Post by ndiddy »

wgrover wrote: post #114
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #87

> Fernandez, who more than two decades ago published a four-CD audio compendium of hundreds of recordings from around the world called the Conet Project. It's considered the Bible for numbers-station enthusiasts. The Conet Project is an interesting listen -- very analogue, Cold War-ish, and a bit sinister. Seems to be available on the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/The-Conet-Project

Fans of the band Wilco will recognize one of the Conet Project's recordings as the source of the woman repeating "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" in the song "Poor Places" from the eponymous album. Wilco failed to license the sample and the resulting lawsuit gave the Conet Project a portion of Wilco's royalties on that track.

Why would they need to license the sample? You don't own the copyright for something just because you recorded it off the radio, that's silly. I looked it up and the station in question was operated by the Israeli government, so presumably they would be due the royalties. https://priyom.org/number-stations/english/e10

This reminds me of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel, which established that copying someone's photograph of a public domain painting is not a copyright violation, as the photograph is not copyrightable under US law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel....

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

#125

Post by wildzzz »

ndiddy wrote: post #124
wgrover wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fans of the band Wilco will recognize one of the Conet Project's recordings as the source of the woman repeating "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" in the song "Poor Places" from the eponymous album. Wilco failed to license the sample and the resulting lawsuit gave the Conet Project a portion of Wilco's royalties on that track.

Why would they need to license the sample? You don't own the copyright for something just because you recorded it off the radio, that's silly. I looked it up and the station in question was operated by the Israeli government, so presumably they would be due the royalties. https://priyom.org/number-stations/english/e10 This reminds me of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel, which established that copying someone's photogra…

The recording of a public performance can be copyrighted.

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

#126

Post by wildzzz »

fortran77 wrote: post #75
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…

I think they do this, too. However, the numbers stations transmissions are never a big secret. They're intentionally powerful so someone can pick them up on simple equipment without raising suspicion. A person can modify an off-the-shelf AM radio to pick up shortwave, for example, even in an oppressive regime. It's a one-time pad, so the encryption is unbreakable.

Well, it's unbreakable if you do everything right.

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

#127

Post by ndiddy »

wildzzz wrote: post #125
ndiddy wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they need to license the sample? You don't own the copyright for something just because you recorded it off the radio, that's silly. I looked it up and the station in question was operated by the Israeli government, so presumably they would be due the royalties. https://priyom.org/number-stations/english/e10 This reminds me of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel, which established that copying someone's photogra…

The recording of a public performance can be copyrighted.

Sure, but there's an element of creativity there (what parts to focus on, how much you zoom in, how closely you follow the motion) vs. simply turning a radio on and pressing record, with the intention of producing a 1:1 recording of what's being broadcast. All the creative parts of the Conet Project recording (the message to broadcast, the way it's formatted, the voice samples used, etc) were done by the Israeli government, not the Conet Project.

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

#128

Post by zinekeller »

ndiddy wrote: post #127
wildzzz wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recording of a public performance can be copyrighted.

Sure, but there's an element of creativity there (what parts to focus on, how much you zoom in, how closely you follow the motion) vs. simply turning a radio on and pressing record, with the intention of producing a 1:1 recording of what's being broadcast. All the creative parts of the Conet Project recording (the message to broadcast, the way it's formatted, the voice samples used, etc) were done by the Israeli gove…

TLDR: you're basically applying the US standard to something that has been released worldwide, and US intellectual property law is known to be one of the most lax when dealing on derivatives (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co.). Without saying that the original broadcaster/s do not held any copyright (because, of course, there is a reasonable claim for their copyright), there are two good candidates for the Conet Project's case, both hinging on European IP laws.

The first one is the "sweat of the brow" concept, where effort (not originality, or at least not significant originality) is the determiner. Because this was released in 2001, most European jurisdictions (like Britain's "skill and labour" and Germany's Leistungsschutzrecht) still had this concept. Because the collaborators of the Conet Project did exert significant effort here (they didn't just tune, but significantly denoised and made it reasonably intelligible), it could be argued that they held a new copyright on these works. New laws now significantly tilt towards the creativity/originality concept, but this is usually not a retroactive claim.

The second claim (and the reason that I said IP laws, not specifically copyright laws) is that Europe (incl. UK and Russia) has database rights which does not exist under US law (again, Feist v. RTS). Even if the Conet Project release is ineligible for copyright in most European jurisdictions (and I doubt it due to the non-retroactivity of these laws), they can still point out that the curation of the work provided for enforcement of database rights.

There is actually a third claim (although weak), based on the first publication of a recording of a performance (phonogram rights). This also exists under US laws, although I will be sure that the first "publication" is the broadcast, especially if it was also aimed in the US. (This is the reason why "sampling" some music is considered an IP infringement.)

P.S. If you think that US IP laws are bonkers, try to navigate European IP laws (it's not even harmonized inside EU). There's even a "Copyright in Typographical Arrangement" (UK) where even assuming that the text itself is not copyright, scanning the page might put you into a lawsuit (https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/copyright-typo...)

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