The Secret Radio Stations Used to Communicate with Spies
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 พ.ค. 2024
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All the good videos are probably viewer suggestions. There’s only like, two of us and at least 50 of you so obviously you guys have more/better ideas. If we use your idea, we’ll toss you a free t-shirt. They’re pretty dopealicious, kids.
I thought you had a stroke
Code for the link is wrong it spells SKLDOTSHSLASHHAITWENTYNNE (skl(dot)(slash)hai(twentynno)) 3rd letter (6th, 5th digit) from the end is wrong it spells n instead of o
@@gjhabcvhj8280 So glad you mentioned that, spent about 9 mins trying to work out why it wasn't ONE rather than NNE. It wasn't a transcription error!
Half as Interesting wait u can actually pronounce kurzgesagt
@@gjhabcvhj8280 I got that too! He just needs to change the 87 to 88 in the third last pair in the first sequence of numbers.
I wish you were just, like, better
*dabs*
Yes
Wendover Productions Responding to yourself I see
Wendover Productions I am thanos
RuDe
The greatest line ever: “sometimes the US gets confused and spies on itself.”
69 likes, can’t ruin it
if skillshare would make a class on how to pronounce “kurzgesagt” that’d be great
Just put it into Google translate and the pronunciation will be pretty close or go to forvo and type "Kurz" and "gesagt" and kurzgesagt is just an amalgamation of those words
Curz-gez-at
koortz-geh-sockt
kurts
·
guh
·
zaakt
Courtesy of google
Last time I was this early, this was known as That Wikipedia List
ああ theres this fantastic wikipedia article
The memories
OGs right here bois
the first view letters should be "sklfowsh" but i gave up after this.
OGs
As a kid, I used to hear these stations all the time as I tuned around on my ham radio, listening outside the amateur bands. I always thought they were spy stations, but never had any idea how the numbers worked, until now!
THE NUMBERS MASON! WHAT DO THEY MEAN
Skldotshslashhaitwentynno
And as far as I could tell, they actually did make a mistake....
oh beat me to it haha
@@jasonoesch4652 I got nne for the last three letters. Pretty sure it's supposed to be one.
@@anthony3644 yeppers.... Excel tells me the same thing
@@pauvelasco06 First!...? I guess?
Sometimes the US gets confused and spies on itself...
👏
What if someone walks up and ties a string to your string?!
@Oliver D
You left out the NSA and a few others. I am sure it happens a lot.
BTW: I have never knowingly met a CIA agent that was worthy of the "I" in "CIA"
@Fmono • 38 years ago • Updated
Note the"knowingly" in my comment. There I some I do know about.
@Fmono • 38 years ago • Updated dude hes saying the ones he know aren't worthy of the "I", ehich is basically what you said. Why are you trying to disagree with him so bad?
@GeogWoofy that's actually true. That's basically all 20 remaining members of the KKK now.
My dad grew up in Soviet Union and at nights, quietly, in his room, he used to tune up some advance radio receiver to listen to Radio Liberty and BBC. That`s the way he learnt English and got to know about Freddie Mercury.
He would get seriously punished if he got caught.
WOW amazing story thank you for sharing
@@ee326k It wasn't that dramatic at all, especially on not during 70s or 80s, half of Tallinn (capital of previously mentioned Estonia) apartment blocks had visible and not hidden antennas at all turned to Finlands direction, often even with shared cables between apartments on whole section of building. Part that soviet had SECAM tv band and Finland used PAL is true, to pick up signal correctly you needed to let your TV modded - what as well - was made pretty openly by TV repair shops back in then.
@@maitsepolitsei "capital of previously named Estonia", nobody named Estonia...
@@axellor9836 there has too be somebody named Estonia somewhere on earth
@@Lungoose I mean nobody mentioned it
Fun fact: one time pads only work when you use them once. Near the end of the Soviet union, they could not afford to print enough books with random numbers for all their spies. As a result, they wound up reusing pads with a predictable pattern. That enabled the US to decode messages of theirs.
I call bullshit. Source?
Can't afford fucking paper?
It first happened in WW2 and the Germans read Soviet traffic. Nazi Germany was extremely successful at breaking USSR codes (including ultra-secret encrypted radio teletype traffic) which is why the Anglo-American TICOM mission in Europe, starting May 1945, scooped up all the German SIGINT personnel and their equipment and records.
@@rachel1426 just basic encryption rules you can do a the encryption with one of the messages as key and get the ammount of characters that both differ,
You might be thinking of venona, which was early cold war
*Spy:* [turn on the radio and plays Despacito 2]
*Enemy:* _I fear no man, but that thing... it scares me._
Alexa, play Despacitwo.
This is Scout. Rainbows make me cry!
No, im not talking to that freak. Hes not here is he?
r/unexpectedtf2
Mr. Friendship I would like to have friendship
Imagine, you tuning through different frequencies and then accidentally switch to one of those secret Radio-station!
I've always been fascinated with Numbers Stations, so this was truly excellent.
I was wondering if the Lincolnshire Poacher would be mentioned, and then it was used as the example, so that was cool.
At 3:10 when you started decrypting I seriously thought you were gonna spell out S K I L L S H A R E
I am already subbed to HAI.
I seriously thought that it was saying sub to pew 😂
Back in the 1980/90's you used to be able to hear Spanish numbers stations in the Washington DC area. I don't know if they're still around. The signals had no fading so had to be local. A reporter drove around the area until he found the transmitter. It was coming from National Security Agency HQ.
Was that a surprise? A hostile country such as Cuba would have to be pretty dumb to set up a numbers station in the heart of the enemy's capital.
4:29
*_*Top 10 Rappers Eminem Was Too Afraid To Diss*_*
How do we know that you are not a spy 🤔
70 likes nice
@@1224chrisng I see 69, though when I reload it will probably populate to 70.
@@AdiposeExpress thats the joke
We know criminal Trump and his associates are and defended and protected by Republican conspirators in and out of the US government!
@@1224chrisng thx
This has always been a topic that's interested me, so I'm really happy you covered it. Even after doing my own research, I still learned something here.
The one time pad IS absolutely secure but, the methods for generating it is not. Ensuring that All your agents have an adequate supply of truly random, all different OTPs is challenging. All nations have had agents inadvertently or deliberately, re-use OTPs with bad consequences. In WW2, the Germans developed printing machines that automatically produced 'random' OTPs (or at least, ones with a very long key length). Allied cryptologists identified a weakness in the randomisation and were able to accurately predict the key sequences.
I love this channel, you guys have amazing Infographics and Topics!
Me: *Hears the word encryption*
There's defnitely going to be a Dashlane commercial. It just has to happen.
For once I actually knew about the the topic before HAI/Wendover told me about it.
Most interesting thing about one time number pad is that there were actually a few cases where they got sloppy and used the same numbers and they picked up on it
It's the little things in life I'm a aviator so I'm "aww shit here we go again"
I’ve actually listened in on more than a few Number Station broadcasts on WebSDR, most of them were S11A Cherta since it seems to be the most common one.
I find it funny that one of the few videos not to have subtitles on your channel is one about communication
For a video about encryption Im surprised a VPN didn't sponsor this
While Nord VPN and Dashlane were beating each other up in the corner, Skillshare snuck in and grabbed the sponsor
@4:38 That's too many numbers for "Be Sure to Drink Your Ovaltine." Guess I'll never know.
it means "skldotshslashhaitwentynne"
🤣🤣🤣
A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch!
@@playgroundchooser "A Christmas Story" is one of my all time favorite Christmas movies! I love that you guys used references from it!
I remember back when I got my first SW radio how confused I was just hearing numbers being read aloud...back then not much info was in the internet since that didn't exist as it is today.
If anyone else is interested in numbers stations recordings, a good place to start is the Conet Project recordings. The one used in the video is a famous one called 'The Lincolnshire Poacher".
Wow I'm so early today! 😁
Lol "Spy things!!" 😂😂😂
Today I learned I could never be a spy, if only because I don't want to do math.
You can have a app or spreadsheet to do the math.
It is explaining those big long lists of numbers that is the hard part.
bro, that's like, super simple maths that you learn in primary school. You can just use a calculator if you're that lazy
Could you imagine going on a scenic drive in her tropical place and you hear 18,25,2,78,134,679,4,3,54,90. That is spooky.
You know, I've been hearing the number 8675309 on the radio for years, but I can never crack the code...
Have you tried calling that number?
I really just wasted 10 minutes figuring out what the numbers mean only to realise its the affiliate link for skillshare....
Come on man! You had one job!
Good job anyway, love your videos! Keep up the great work.
No, he had nne job.
@@LividImp XD That's great
When I learned to do OTP encryption I was told A is 0, B is 1, and so on. So decoding that last message was a nightmare.
Wow I live in Cyprus. The British used to transmit the BBC too. Also, you can often get Egyptian channels in the radio.
Imma need Dustin, Steve, Robin, and Erica to crack that code at the end
i was obsessed with these when i was around 14 lol good times
I had a Wendover video to watch yesterday and a HAI today. Sir you spoil me.
Thank you for this holy shit I LOVE numbers stations and there's finally some new content on them!
HAI: "Shortwave radio"
Reviewbrah: "Now this looks like a job for me"
00:16 i cant take it anymore
I grew up very close to one of these stations off 152nd St in Miami, at the old blimp base.
The British station he played the identifier and spoke about at the beginning was called the Lincolnshire Poacher.
The NUMBERS Mason, what do they MEAN
The NUMBERS mason what do they MEAN, where are they BRODCASTED from??
@@polokan Its a CoD Black Ops reference
@@SaraBearRawr0312 well I knew it was a reference to something but I still thought that he wanted to know the meaning
Me (my names mason): hm?
Kravchenko..., steiner...,dragovich... All must die.
Idk about you, but my spy’s use squarespace, skillshare, and brilliant to communicate...
Amazing story thank you for sharing this
You need a dedicated shortwave radio, a normal radio won't be enough
Tf2 spy wants to know your location*
Ahh,i see you are a man of culture aswell
Baguette
I like the TF2 spy as well.
**snort** **snort**
[GENTLEMEN INTENSIFIES]
0:16 they live WHERE? 😳😳
among us!
They did catch someone using a one time pad. Operation Verona. US signals intelligence found that the Soviets were stupid enough to repeat pads, and were able to catch a few of the now infamous Cambridge Five.
Oh and the video is fantastic
If you don't talk about the conett project I'm going to be mad.
Edit: I'm mad.
that's what I was hoping for too!
imamoose007 what’s that?
@@ToriKo_ A 5 disc (originally 4) collection of number station recordings. Search Google for The Conet Project. It's very interesting, in fact some of the recordings have been used in films and music. Like Wilco's album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has a song called Yankee Hotel Foxtrot that samples a recording.
@@ToriKo_ some of it is super creepy too
@@ToriKo_ The Conet Project is over a hundred recordings of many different Number Stations doing their number station things. You can listen to them here (archive.org/details/ird059) or order this lovely 5-CD set (www.irdial.com/conet.htm). The recordings are full of shortwave interference and noise and very authentically lofi, so, to the right ear, they are haunting, unique, puzzling, and beautiful. Like whale song, they seem to have meaning, but that meaning isn't intended for you.
Every single time I get a HAI notif I hope that this is a first - an HAI without bad comedy! Then I click on the video.
Dog: woof
Cat: meow
Roblox: Oof
Hai: Skillshare
Hotel: Trivago
3:47. How do you do 19-41????
There are also stations broadcasting coded messages in other formats like polyphonic.
0:16 THEY LIVE *WHAT*
SUUUUS
That number station played during the video was The Lincolnshire Poacher. Its one of the most infamous number stations along with UVB76 (MDZHB) and The Swedish Rapsody. It actualy had a sister station called Cherry Ripe that I believe opperated out of Australia.
But what if the result of the subtraction is negative? For example the 6th pair of numbers on 3:46 are 19 and 41, which gets you -22. Is it the 22 letter on the alphabet or something else?
How to decrypt the code lazy way.
1. Use OCR scanning to scan the number sequence.
2. Write short program that will separate those by 2 digits from the first and second and subtract them.
3. Use the result numbers to find the letters.
Now use your knowledge for good.
Was watching something else but naturally this is more important
Stuart Nixon other content is just not half as interesting
Tim Bögel 🙌😜
(maths exam tomorrow)
(new half as interesting video)
Me: *YEEEEEEEETTTT*
Well good luck with the exam anyway
Same here, but with ASP .Net
You have school? Is it not spring break for you guys yet?
@@khalilmarianito9769 I'm in my final semester of college & it's the finals.
oh bro, where i'm from there's no such thing as spring break. I'm from Indonesia btw@@khalilmarianito9769
That British station started with the tune to The Irish Volunteer if you were wondering.
4:30 reminded me of that awesome song by Kraftwerk, Numbers.
If anyone is interested, the code at the literally translates to "skldotshsslashhaitwentyone"
The first link in the description. Waste of five minutes hahaha
I did that too !
SKL DOT SH SLASH HAI TWENTY ONE
If anyone was wondering what the code meant
NNE*
Loved this!
3:20 I am already subscribed lol
Never clicked on a video so fast. Number stations are cool.
*Well, of to visit your Mother!*
Even knowing how they work I get creeped out by numbers stations
wait so i can listen to these with a normal shortwave radio receiver? i have lots of those, dont know if there are any stations near me in norway that i can pick up
Drink milk everytime you hear 'spies'
I'd prefer my breakfast to stay inside me for a bit longer, thank you very much.
I'd pop!
The transcripted code means: "skldotshslashhaitwentynne"
WTF
Thanks
That’s the link for the skill share promo with one misspelling.
i think it's supposed to say: skl dot sh slash hai twenty nine, or skl.sh/hai29
@@luked8449 21
@@luked8449 one, not nine
Can someone please Tell me what music that is in the background? I heard it somewhere else and it drives me crazy. Thank you very much
Clearly, the trick is to figure out the timetable for a station, broadcast your own a few seconds earlier (like the later part of 5:59 when its at 6) and just give random numbers.
Technically less secure I guess, but a spy wouldn't even have to carry a numbers book. They could memorize or carry a seed and then use math (a hashing algorithm, essentially) to generate the sequence of numbers to use. This could be done in a cryptographically secure manner.
The code at the end says “thanks for watching”. Very cool 👍🏻
😉
Ross D How long did that take to decode?
I came to SKLDOTSHSLASHHAITWENTYONE
its his refferal code...
Pyth110 op is wrong, its his referral link
Tellin it like it is at 0:20, mad props
I set up a numbers station like that using parts from the Goodwill Electronics store. It plays Matrix encrypted numbers and then plays kalinka on the accordion cuz i'm weird like that. Radio range is about maybe less than a mile.
3:12 I really thought that was gonna say subscribe.
Sub to HAI
Harrison La time traveler I know but subscribe is basically the same length
Last time I was woken up by a video this early, two things were happening:
1. My parents having sex
2. That Wikipedia List
Is your mom a moaner?
wtf
Im south korea you can still receive random radio announvements from north korea. They read out a page number and question numbers to "solve", then just shuts off
A spooky but badass method
In Soviet Russia, spies watch you
among us
Legend has it that this was used because Skillshare said it was a good idea.
One time pad can be weaken by a side channel attacks like messages length. So be sure to add padding
Amogus reference?!!?! 0:15
this was made before it was popular
@@evernevers5390 among us is 2 years old. This vid is 1 year old
Yes, I'm sad, I de-coded the final message to get:
SKLDOTSHSLASHHAITWENTYNNE
Same.
I suspect that the third letter from the end is a coding error think it was supposed to be O as with that correction you can convert the punctuation to symbols and the numbers to numeric and it returns his skillshare affiliate link skl.sh/hai21
Skill.Share/HAI29
If they are on regular schedule, can't you track down the radio tower where its coming from? Or would it be pointless since they hack into different towers each time?
I just remembered the John Cusack & Malin Akerman movie, NUMBERS.
My favorite thing about this video: says "Shortwave radios can transmit 1000s of miles" then spams stock footage of a tower crammed with cellphone radios that can only transmit a handfull of miles 😂
Excellent!
what the name of the song in 1:28 again?
@01:48 Did you misspell "Britannia" on purpose?
(Or is that the rural-US daughter of Britt and Tania?)
This video reminded me of a great book along the lines of this video. Cryptonomicon. If you are into cryptography it is a pretty good read.
@2:14 that’s how the enigma code worked and yet it was figured out
No, enigma was not truly random, which is precisely why it was possible to crack.
For anyone curios: Decrypted, the numbers at 4:38 say skldotshslashhaitwentynne , which I think is supposed to mean skl.sh/hai29 or skl.sh/hai21 . Yep, I think you messed up there.
The "numbers" stations are called Foxtrot broadcasts and not to be responded to. To do so would give away the transmitters location and have meaning only to the intended recipient