The AM Forum

On National Public Radio I head a intersting story about something called "The Conet Project".
It seems this gentleman from London recorded various voices, musical tones and other oddities off the air, and then complied the collection onto a set of CDs.

Being one always intersted in the "spooky" side of goverment, I had to order a copy for myself.
Its pretty cool listening, good background music, but you have to be a radio fan to appreciate it, don't bother playing it for the YL unless she is a Cold War fan.

You don't have to order the CD as you can download and listen to many of the audio clips from the www.archive.org site. See www.archive.org/details/ird059

73 Bruce W1UJR

From the website:
What are these messages? Well, no one has ever come forward to prove that these stations are linked to spy networks, but almost everyone who has ever studied the signals believes that they are. But why would a spy network like the CIA or the KGB or Israel's Mossad or Osama BinLaden's Al-Qaeda--with all their money and resources--bother transmitting messages through something like shortwave radio, a cheap technology that would allow anyone in the world to listen in?

Knowing that the tracks on The Conet Project are actual messages sent from a government or group to a spy, and knowing that those messages might contain orders that, at one time, probably instructed that spy to go kill someone or dig up dirt on a politician or just stay where they are, makes for a rather enticing listen, to say the least. But the meaning behind these messages will remain a mystery because there is just no way to ever come across a one-time pad key (they are destroyed after use), and though it is fun to speculate about these sounds, that speculation gets tiring after a while for all but the most die-hard listeners.

Shortwave radio has never received the credit it deserves for shaping electronic music. Most early electronic musicians--especially those in Europe, where shortwave radio is more common than in the US--will tell you that their early musical education came from trying to sift through shortwave bands to pick up pirate stations all over the Atlantic. No doubt the act of sifting through walls of static to pick up a faint but hip signal can be seen as the inspiration for at least some of electronic music's obsession with distortion, aberration, and noise. A lot of electronic music, in fact, can be read as an elaborate attempt to give shape and purpose to random noise: to turn static into a signal.

(http://www.hauntedink.com/25/conet.jpg)

I wonder if any one has been able to link these transmissions to events that happen in the world or some sort of corelation.

There are probably too many of them occurring on a daily basis to link any one of them to any specific event. But I might be wrong. In any event it is an interesting angle to look at. For example if we somehow had a recording of all the numbers messages for several weeks prior to an event like 911 would it be possible to link any one or more of them to the calamity ?  Is there any charachteristic that would give a clue that a particular message was somehow linked to the event ?  Of course would really be awesome if someone were to actually decipher a message. What would they find out ? Would it reveal the mystery of "spy" numbers once and for all ? Would  that person ever get a chance to tell anyone else about it ?? Sounds like a great lead in for a TV show.

John, you actually maybe on to something.  Of all those transmissions maybe just one could be the key message where as the others are just a ruse to disguise the real message.

The first rule of using a non covert channel is to make sure that the enemy can't deduce anything from from the traffic analysis. ie Always send the same amount of traffic regardless of if there is anything to actually send. 


www.spynumbers.com  might be worth a look if your interested.
                                                                                  Ian

Anna Montes, the DIA employee who was spying for Castro, had a sheaf of one-time pads, a list of frequencies and schedules, and a shortwave radio in her apartment when arrested. 

Complete story at http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Montes_1.htm

Taken from the criminal complaint at FindLaw.com, bold text mine.
Complete complaint at http://news.corporate.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/montes/usmontesaff901.pdf


"Communication From the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS) to MONTES via
Shortwave Radio

11. Based on my knowledge and familiarity with the methodology of the Cuban intelligence
service, I am aware that the CuIS often communicates with clandestine CuIS agents operating
outside Cuba by broadcasting encrypted messages at certain high frequencies. Under this method,
the CuIS broadcasts on a particular frequency a series of numbers. The clandestine agent,
monitoring the message on a shortwave radio, keys in the numbers onto a computer and then uses
a diskette containing a decryption program to convert the seemingly random series of numbers into
Spanish-language text. "

"17. During this same search, the agents also observed a Sony shortwave radio stored in a
previously opened box on the floor of the bedroom. The agents turned on the radio to confirm that
it was operable. Also found was an earpiece that could be utilized with this shortwave radio,
allowing the radio to be listened to more privately."

"The message then describes how the person reading the message should "write the information you
send to us and the numbers of the radio messages which you receive." The message later refers to
going "to a new line when you get to the group 10 of the numbers that you receive via radio," and
still later gives as an "example" a series of groups of numbers: "22333 44444 77645 77647 90909
13425 76490 78399 7865498534." After some further instruction, the message states: "Here the
program deciphers the message and it retrieves the text onto the screen, asking you if the text is okay
or not." Near the conclusion of the message, there is the statement "In this shipment you will receive
the following disks: . . . 2) Disk "R1" to decipher our mailings and radio."

Dunno about youze guyz,

But I recall not too long in the past listening around on "shortwave" and hearing loud and plain as day a station broadcasting some voice that repeats series of nothing but numbers over and over and over and over...

Anyone else recall hearing this??

            _-_-WBear2GCR

THat's what we're discussing, and they're still around.

Its called a contest.....