[Spooks] broadcast methods

[J. Random Entity]

> I've never believe the Craig's List messages or messages
> on /. are more than pranks.

"Trust but verify" ;)  In the absence of verification, you've got a
strong point.  At least with shortwave we can look at historical
precedence for a small percentage of the stations and say that they
were acknowledged to be used for clandestine operations of various
sorts - but there's still a lot out there that's unexplained about
them.

> Attracting attention to the
> messages would be undesirable if they were the real
> deal.

Yes and no.  As long as the message itself remains uncrackable, it
doesn't matter how many people are in posession of it as long as only
the intended recipient can successfully decrypt it.  Again, it may be
useful to generate some false activity around it in order to obfuscate
that recipient's identity.

> Ok, here's my conspiracy theory of the day.
> How spam could be used like a numbers broadcast.

And you're dead right.  There are any number of channels that could be
exploited to move coded messages in plain sight; the question only
remains as to the effectiveness of each one.  Allow me to pose this
question, though: what happens if your recipient's ISP or third-party
software nails the spam on receipt, thus preventing the recipient from
ever seeing it?  Granted, you'd probably take this into account in the
design process, but there're always considerations in establishing
secure comms channels.

- skroo.