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The Buzzer

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Re: The Buzzer

#21

Post by DisposableAcct »

DisposableAcct wrote: post #19
petercooper wrote: post #5

The article speculates that its use as a way of communicating regular instructions to the military is "unlikely considering the station transmitted the simple buzz tone for at least 15 years before any words or numbers were broadcast." Yet: "The station transmits a buzzing sound that lasts 0.8 seconds, pausing for 1–1.3 seconds, and repeating 21–34 times per minute." Given that the transmission even of the "buzz tone…

There are a dozen ways to encode a message in that buzz if you don't mind the bandwidth being poor. That is, it will take a long time to send a message of any length. The buzz might also be a cover for the message. There are other considerations. First, it's essential to have a variety of media for transmitting messages. They need to be set up well in advance, so as to be readily available when an operation is set up…

The end result is a plethora of channels with little real traffic on them, mostly "reserved for future use". But to avoid traffic analysis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis ) dummy traffic fills them.

Re: The Buzzer

#23

Post by ruslan »

rlpb wrote: post #18
blackswan wrote: post #10

It will be interesting to see whether use of these stations declines over the next few decades. Surely global adoption of the internet has made it the easiest place to hide clandestine communication?

It's a question of where connectivity is available and how easy it is to track. For example, how do you replace a submarine surfacing somewhere to receive a pre-scheduled radio transmission?

They use VLF/ELF to send "message pending" and/or some other very short predefined signals. Russian military transmitter (ZEVS) is still operating on 82Hz frequency and uses Earth as an antenna.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_low_frequency

Re: The Buzzer

#24

Post by _mattb »

dzuc wrote: post #3

http://www.archive.org/details/ird059 is a great archive of numbers station recordings

The Wilco album 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' has one such recording on the title track -- a woman repeating 'yankee, hotel, foxtrot..' Edit: Er, there is no title track. The clip comes at the end of 'Poor Places.' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GanNE5LWF4#t=4m35s

Re: The Buzzer

#25

Post by dionysianstanza »

ErrantX wrote: post #2

I know quite a few interesting Wikipedia entries get posted here but this was a particularly fascinating one! I've spent the best part of an hour learning about numbers stations and fail-deadly game theory :) Great submission. On topic: does anyone have anything extra (link wise) about "The Buzzer", Google searches are mostly leading to conspiracy sites...

I don't wish to rain too heavily on the potential smug parade that other HN users might be participating in after reading such praise for their collective submission pool, but I thought it might be worth pointing out that this particular topic was posted on 4chan yesterday, subsequently causing quite a stir.

This also accounts for the continued vandalism on the wiki entry, as mentioned in some of the comments beneath mine.

Re: The Buzzer

#26

Post by ErrantX »

dionysianstanza wrote: post #25
ErrantX wrote: post #2

I know quite a few interesting Wikipedia entries get posted here but this was a particularly fascinating one! I've spent the best part of an hour learning about numbers stations and fail-deadly game theory :) Great submission. On topic: does anyone have anything extra (link wise) about "The Buzzer", Google searches are mostly leading to conspiracy sites...

I don't wish to rain too heavily on the potential smug parade that other HN users might be participating in after reading such praise for their collective submission pool, but I thought it might be worth pointing out that this particular topic was posted on 4chan yesterday, subsequently causing quite a stir. This also accounts for the continued vandalism on the wiki entry, as mentioned in some of the comments beneath…

Probably quite a null point (everything has to be come across through some medium); lots of stuff gets posted to 4chan and little of it makes it here... :-)

I'd say it's a pretty good filter.

Re: The Buzzer

#27

Post by Scott_MacGregor »

You are assuming it is a "Buzz" because that's what your ears "Hear" after it comes out of a speaker and after being processed by radio receiving equipment of a certain design.

Perhaps the "Buzz" is not meant to be a sound anyone hears. Maybe it is something more like a dialup modem tone that is acted upon by something other than a shortwave receiver. Maybe there is more to this noise than just buzzing. Maybe the buzzing is a spurious side effect of some other process going on.

Old dialup in audio and visual waveform: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=16475

Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

Re: The Buzzer

#29

Post by sabat »

ugh wrote: post #7
ErrantX wrote: post #2

I know quite a few interesting Wikipedia entries get posted here but this was a particularly fascinating one! I've spent the best part of an hour learning about numbers stations and fail-deadly game theory :) Great submission. On topic: does anyone have anything extra (link wise) about "The Buzzer", Google searches are mostly leading to conspiracy sites...

Skeptoid has a nice episode on number stations and also “The Buzzer” including audio samples: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4107

Sorry, but I have to be skeptical about any show that declares itself skeptical. Skepticism isn't good science or good logic; it's just reverse religion. True science does not immediately believe or disbelieve. It investigates dispassionately.

Re: The Buzzer

#30

Post by nso »

sabat wrote: post #29
ugh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skeptoid has a nice episode on number stations and also “The Buzzer” including audio samples: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4107

Sorry, but I have to be skeptical about any show that declares itself skeptical. Skepticism isn't good science or good logic; it's just reverse religion. True science does not immediately believe or disbelieve. It investigates dispassionately.

Yeah, and that is also what Skeptoid promotes.
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