Subj : Numbers stations To : Angus McLeod From : Digital Man Date : Mon Aug 15 2005 02:35 am Re: Numbers stations By: Angus McLeod to Digital Man on Sun Aug 14 2005 09:11 pm > > > I am surprised that they (Wikipedia) do not consider the complexity > > > of the *receiving* station necessary to copy these transmissions. > > > > Wikipedia is a publicly created/edited site. Anyone (yes, even you) can e > > any page at any time. Try it! It's easy. The community makes the content > > Yeah, I know, but I've never been motivated to alter the content. It sounded like you had some good input on that article. > > > I am interested in hearing any ideas other DOVE-Netters may have. > > > > Me too. As an out-of-band source of OTP data or other cryptographic uses, > > intriguing to me. > > I don't know that the numbers stations would be a good *source* of OTP > data. If you want to create your own OTP, you need to code up a > pseudo-random number generator with a very high degree of randomness. Well the source would obviously need to be some sort of random number generator (the less "pseudo" the better), but the out-of-band delivery is what I found intriguing. In other words, if I mail you a CD/flopy of OTP-encoded data, and transmit the OTP over the radio at a pre-determined time and frequency, that seems like a pretty cool combination that would be extremely difficult to crack. The real "key" here would be the OTP transmission time/frequency, but once it was missed by any potential eavesdroppers, there would be no permanent record of the transmission. Obviously it's not something I need or would have any use for, but sometimes when I'm bored at work, I think about things like this. :-) The "number stations" sounded mysterious and eery. And to know that the number mean something (apparently very important) to someone somewhere, is intriguing. digital man Snapple "Real Fact" #142: Hawaii is the only U.S. state never to report a temperature of zero degrees F or below. .