31–40 of 77 posts
1977. Video equipment was VERY different then, especially on that side of the iron curtain. It would have had moving parts, motors, probably requiring a degree of soundproofing. I want to see pictures of where/how they hid this stuff because it wasn't easy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would have expected steganography in YouTube videos to be the numbers stations of today?
You seem unaware of the difference between unicast IP and broadcast radio. Watching youtube is just as anonymous as a phone call, not very hard to map to a person. Youtube has a log of every IP accessing their servers and what they do, augmented by cookies and google accounts. A radio station does not know who is listening.
So the counterespionage personnel may be able to track who has watched one specific video, but only if they know which video to track.
> To intercept the agency letters sent by Filatov or to detect if he has made new places to hide or send documents, a event called “Ruby” was carried out in his work cabinet, his living place and his mailbox by using a special chemical agent. Do you have any idea what they are talking about here? I'm imagining dispersing some invisible chemical (or isotope maybe?) in his house and then looking for increases in concet…
In SpyCatcher, Peter Wright describes contemplating a similar system to catch spies removing sensitive documents from MI5. From the book:
"I was asked if there was any technical way we could prove Vassall was removing documents from the Admiralty. I had been experimenting for some time with Frank Morgan on a scheme to mark classified documents using minute quantities of radioactive material. The idea was to place a Geiger counter at the entrance of the building where the suspected spy was operating so that we could detect if any marked documents were being removed. We tried this with Vassall, but it was not a success. There were too many exits in the Admiralty for us to be sure we were covering the one which Vassall used, and the Geiger counter readings were often distorted by luminous wristwatches and the like. Eventually the scheme was scrapped when fears about the risks of exposing people to radiation were raised by the management"
Peter Wright also described a radioactive agent for discovering secret writing, which may be similar to how the secret writing that tipped them off was detected on the letters to the embassy to begin with:
"The techniques of secret writing are the same the world over. First the spy writes his cover letter. Then he writes the secret message on top, using a special sheet of carbon paper treated with a colorless chemical. Tiny particles of the chemical are transferred to the letter, which can then be developed by the recipient. Most developing agents make the chemical traces grow, so that the message becomes legible, and unless the correct agent is known, the message remains undetectable. But Morgan created a universal developing agent, using radioactivity, which transformed the possibilities of detection."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer is that in 2020, when the median page weighs 2 MB and makes 70 requests over a dozen TCP connections, everything is a potential numbers station. I had been joking about www.duckdascism.gov in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24458630 but https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24526075 has people who've used that channel. (for the record, ~64kbps is more than most people had over dialup in the early days…
Internet connections are fundamentally different in that they are traceable. You've identified the "station", you can immediately see who's "listening". Unless you co-opt a page everyone "listens" to, such as facebook or something.
>> When Filatov was at work, the operative workers infiltrated his apartment and installed technical surveillance resources for video surveillance and photography. 1977. Video equipment was VERY different then, especially on that side of the iron curtain. It would have had moving parts, motors, probably requiring a degree of soundproofing. I want to see pictures of where/how they hid this stuff because it wasn't easy…
>> When Filatov was at work, the operative workers infiltrated his apartment and installed technical surveillance resources for video surveillance and photography. 1977. Video equipment was VERY different then, especially on that side of the iron curtain. It would have had moving parts, motors, probably requiring a degree of soundproofing. I want to see pictures of where/how they hid this stuff because it wasn't easy…
1. Do not try to sneak stuff past the Russians in invisible ink.
2. If you are a spy and your friendly neighbours suddenly have to move, consider taking an unscheduled vacation in GTFO.
>> When Filatov was at work, the operative workers infiltrated his apartment and installed technical surveillance resources for video surveillance and photography. 1977. Video equipment was VERY different then, especially on that side of the iron curtain. It would have had moving parts, motors, probably requiring a degree of soundproofing. I want to see pictures of where/how they hid this stuff because it wasn't easy…
Perhaps it is lost in translation, but video isn't film. So video surveillance probably means they placed a video camera (probably based on a video tube) and ran cables.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Today we're seeing number stations move off of ham radio and onto protocols like MQTT. Wouldn't a MQTT station be lacking one of the major advantages of a radio number station - that it is very difficult to know who is listening to the broadcast. Using weather reports (or obituaries in newspapers etc) are not number stations, though they can be used as covert channels.
I would have expected steganography in YouTube videos to be the numbers stations of today?
I expected to see something along the lines of vans with directional antennas driving around Moscow listening for spurious emissions from local oscillators of superheterodyne receivers 465 kHz away from the number station frequency, as in Operation RAFTER.