[SFDXA] Attention SWLers - Spy Radio - Old-school spy tech - From Kim Komando

[Bill]

  Old-school spy tech

This is one of the coolest things I’ve learned recently: Foreign 
intelligence agencies /still/ use good ol’ radio to share top secrets. 
Even with all the powerful tech at their fingertips, radio use in 
espionage has actually gone /up/ in popularity since the 2010s. Pretty wild.

Russia in particular loves this technique. Why? Intelligence agencies 
don't trust the internet. Makes sense.


    A brief history of spy radio

Foreign agencies have been using shortwave radio frequencies to 
broadcast coded messages for decades 
<https://click.convertkit-mail.com/68u2p86qq5t8hkmo8gvc9uz8850kku9/p8heh9hz6677z8ur/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZWNvbm9taXN0LmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5LXF1YXJ0ZXJseS8yMDI0LzA3LzAxL3NvbWV0aW1lcy10aGUtb2xkLXdheXMtb2YtZXNwaW9uYWdlLWFyZS10aGUtYmVzdA==>.

Starting in the mid-1960s, if you tuned your radio to shortwave 
frequencies between 5.422 and 16.084 megahertz (MHz), you might hear 
music … or you might hear a woman’s voice with an English accent reading 
number combinations.

The U.K.'s MI6 intelligence agency and other spy networks used these 
“number stations” until at least 2008 to talk to operatives in the 
field. Whoa.


    Old tech, new tricks

This tactic is still very much alive and well. In 2020, the FBI 
discovered messages being sent to Russian deep-cover officers living in 
Massachusetts. Just this past March, researchers caught Russia's foreign 
intelligence agency, SVR, broadcasting a test transmission in French.

So what's the advantage of old-school radio? Even encrypted phones can 
be hacked. It’s also easier than ever to plant spyware on an 
internet-connected device.


    Number stations aren't so easily cracked

In each broadcast, the sender and receiver use what's called a "one-time 
pad" to encrypt and decrypt the message. It's basically a matching list 
of random numbers, no fancy spy gear required.

Of course, anyone listening could pick up on /other/ patterns and blow 
up an agency's spot. For example, a broadcast pattern could reveal how 
many agents there are and when or where they're active.

When the FBI discovered the 2020 broadcasts, they realized the messages 
corresponded to the specific /rooms/ active operatives were in!


    Maybe try a homing pigeon instead

The moral of the story: Sometimes old stuff is more reliable than the 
new. Even in today's AI-powered digital and internet age, spies trust radio!

If you /really/ want to geek out and slide into the underground world of 
secret radio messages, check out Priyom 
<https://click.convertkit-mail.com/68u2p86qq5t8hkmo8gvc9uz8850kku9/x0hph6hw2277wktg/aHR0cHM6Ly9wcml5b20ub3JnLw==>, 
a group of international radio enthusiasts who track number stations 
around the world. They have chatrooms to swap stories, and their website 
follows intelligence, military, and diplomatic communication via 
shortwave radio. Happy listening!

https://priyom.org/

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