The Secret Radio Stations Used to Communicate with Spies

[@halfasinteresting]

Topic suggestions go here vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfUdlvw6YgU44J8AnM2U_ZvRMyvh_CUM51LYSqF5nYJB9d1-w/viewform?usp=sf_link 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.

[@YeppyNope]

I thought you had a stroke

[@gjhabcvhj8280]

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

[@ashleypinner5580]

@@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!

[@DiracComb.7585]

Half as Interesting wait u can actually pronounce kurzgesagt

[@romilagarwal8868]

@@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.

[@Wendoverproductions]

I wish you were just, like, better

[@robotbob1860]

*dabs*

[@ringoldsreizins7276]

Yes

[@theeel8981]

Wendover Productions Responding to yourself I see

[@denzeltan4190]

Wendover Productions I am thanos

[@valrabellkeys9867]

RuDe

[@jamiewells22]

The greatest line ever: “sometimes the US gets confused and spies on itself.”

[@DeVolksrepubliek]

69 likes, can’t ruin it

[@juliant6129]

if skillshare would make a class on how to pronounce “kurzgesagt” that’d be great

[@ericl8743]

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

[@techhelpportal7778]

Curz-gez-at

[@bepispaul2419]

koortz-geh-sockt

[@Ryan.A.Gardiner]

kurts · guh · zaakt

[@Ryan.A.Gardiner]

Courtesy of google

[@knerdrider]

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!

[@Ryanchunt08]

THE NUMBERS MASON! WHAT DO THEY MEAN

[@jasonoesch4652]

Skldotshslashhaitwentynno And as far as I could tell, they actually did make a mistake....

[@pauvelasco06]

oh beat me to it haha

[@anthony3644]

@@jasonoesch4652 I got nne for the last three letters. Pretty sure it's supposed to be one.

[@jasonoesch4652]

@@anthony3644 yeppers.... Excel tells me the same thing

[@jasonoesch4652]

@@pauvelasco06 First!...? I guess?

[@paulmorales1607]

Last time I was this early, this was known as That Wikipedia List

[@Sam42069]

ああ theres this fantastic wikipedia article

[@brdmp7390]

The memories

[@jacksonherrera8692]

OGs right here bois

[@FoxBoi69]

the first view letters should be "sklfowsh" but i gave up after this.

[@idndyzgaming]

OGs

[@poweroffriendship2.0]

*Spy:* [turn on the radio and plays Despacito 2] *Enemy:* _I fear no man, but that thing... it scares me._

[@stormbob]

Alexa, play Despacitwo.

[@TheStrongestBaka]

This is Scout. Rainbows make me cry!

[@Hippycoolcrab]

No, im not talking to that freak. Hes not here is he?

[@gamepedia1921]

r/unexpectedtf2

[@Bmarshall3892]

Mr. Friendship I would like to have friendship

[@RolandBizjets]

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.

[@johnnyaingel5753]

WOW amazing story thank you for sharing

[@maitsepolitsei]

@@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.

[@axellor9836]

@@maitsepolitsei "capital of previously named Estonia", nobody named Estonia...

[@Lungoose]

@@axellor9836 there has too be somebody named Estonia somewhere on earth

[@axellor9836]

@@Lungoose I mean nobody mentioned it

[@o76923]

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.

[@rachel1426]

I call bullshit. Source? Can't afford fucking paper?

[@alastairbarkley6572]

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.

[@rogervanbommel1086]

@@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,

[@sundhaug92]

You might be thinking of venona, which was early cold war

[@pegeonpera]

Sometimes the US gets confused and spies on itself... 👏

[@Ripz-TnT]

What if someone walks up and ties a string to your string?!

[@kensmith5694]

@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"

[@kensmith5694]

@Fmono • 38 years ago • Updated Note the"knowingly" in my comment. There I some I do know about.

[@Lysergic_]

@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?

[@KandiKlover]

@GeogWoofy that's actually true. That's basically all 20 remaining members of the KKK now.

[@monsieurlee]

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

[@harrisonofcolorado8886]

I am already subbed to HAI.

[@virtualbudda4115]

I seriously thought that it was saying sub to pew 😂

[@ShoeTheGreyCat]

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.

[@raz0229]

Imagine, you tuning through different frequencies and then accidentally switch to one of those secret Radio-station!

[@stormysamreen7062]

4:29 *_*Top 10 Rappers Eminem Was Too Afraid To Diss*_*

[@RMoribayashi]

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.

[@alastairbarkley6572]

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.

[@unimornnbr1]

How do we know that you are not a spy 🤔

[@1224chrisng]

70 likes nice

[@AdiposeExpress]

@@1224chrisng I see 69, though when I reload it will probably populate to 70.

[@1224chrisng]

@@AdiposeExpress thats the joke

[@nightlightabcd]

We know criminal Trump and his associates are and defended and protected by Republican conspirators in and out of the US government!

[@unimornnbr1]

@@1224chrisng thx

[@prateekwadhavkar275]

Me: *Hears the word encryption* There's defnitely going to be a Dashlane commercial. It just has to happen.

[@TophOpossum]

@4:38 That's too many numbers for "Be Sure to Drink Your Ovaltine." Guess I'll never know.

[@heinzschmidt7472]

it means "skldotshslashhaitwentynne"

[@playgroundchooser]

🤣🤣🤣 A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch!

[@christie2271]

@@playgroundchooser "A Christmas Story" is one of my all time favorite Christmas movies! I love that you guys used references from it!

[@exio3099]

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.

[@wetasspaddington]

For once I actually knew about the the topic before HAI/Wendover told me about it.

[@galliman123]

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

[@epapa737]

It's the little things in life I'm a aviator so I'm "aww shit here we go again"

[@Thunderchicken69]

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.

[@realShadowKat]

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.

[@joshwatkins7133]

I find it funny that one of the few videos not to have subtitles on your channel is one about communication

[@ricardogutierrez4768]

For a video about encryption Im surprised a VPN didn't sponsor this

[@kierancalder8573]

While Nord VPN and Dashlane were beating each other up in the corner, Skillshare snuck in and grabbed the sponsor

[@khaliphileskosana4536]

00:16 i cant take it anymore

[@TripleEye_Josh]

Today I learned I could never be a spy, if only because I don't want to do math.

[@kensmith5694]

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.

[@nae_on]

bro, that's like, super simple maths that you learn in primary school. You can just use a calculator if you're that lazy

[@wesleyrichards6045]

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.

[@estroncio64]

HAI: "Shortwave radio" Reviewbrah: "Now this looks like a job for me"

[@UD503J]

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".

[@-4subscriberswithahammerad521]

Tf2 spy wants to know your location*

[@hibois6371]

Ahh,i see you are a man of culture aswell

[@AccessDenied20078]

Baguette

[@harrisonofcolorado8886]

I like the TF2 spy as well.

[@Pidpie]

**snort** **snort**

[@rigatonithetiger9986]

[GENTLEMEN INTENSIFIES]

[@alastairbarkley6572]

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.

[@thezozodemon9786]

The NUMBERS Mason, what do they MEAN

[@cracked21]

The NUMBERS mason what do they MEAN, where are they BRODCASTED from??

[@SaraBearRawr0312]

@@polokan Its a CoD Black Ops reference

[@polokan]

@@SaraBearRawr0312 well I knew it was a reference to something but I still thought that he wanted to know the meaning

[@masonsilvers6789]

Me (my names mason): hm?

[@pug2858]

Kravchenko..., steiner...,dragovich... All must die.

[@sadface]

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.

[@McIsaiah]

Imma need Dustin, Steve, Robin, and Erica to crack that code at the end

[@Nikolinho161]

I really just wasted 10 minutes figuring out what the numbers mean only to realise its the affiliate link for skillshare....

[@rustomkanishka]

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

[@6z0]

Idk about you, but my spy’s use squarespace, skillshare, and brilliant to communicate...

[@Mr061099]

You need a dedicated shortwave radio, a normal radio won't be enough

[@falpsdsqglthnsac]

0:16 THEY LIVE *WHAT*

[@jameslemont8121]

SUUUUS

[@the8thgemmer467]

Wow I live in Cyprus. The British used to transmit the BBC too. Also, you can often get Egyptian channels in the radio.

[@oneiione]

i was obsessed with these when i was around 14 lol good times

[@DarkGT]

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.

[@RacingChannel32]

Dog: woof Cat: meow Roblox: Oof Hai: Skillshare Hotel: Trivago

[@AbsolXGuardian]

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.

[@denzeltan4190]

(maths exam tomorrow) (new half as interesting video) Me: *YEEEEEEEETTTT*

[@hughbowden5696]

Well good luck with the exam anyway

[@RockingStar1011]

Same here, but with ASP .Net

[@khalilmarianito9769]

You have school? Is it not spring break for you guys yet?

[@RockingStar1011]

@@khalilmarianito9769 I'm in my final semester of college & it's the finals.

[@denzeltan4190]

oh bro, where i'm from there's no such thing as spring break. I'm from Indonesia btw@@khalilmarianito9769

[@patrickwall8517]

The British station he played the identifier and spoke about at the beginning was called the Lincolnshire Poacher.

[@corbinpeacock8722]

If you don't talk about the conett project I'm going to be mad. Edit: I'm mad.

[@derekbrou]

that's what I was hoping for too!

[@ToriKo_]

imamoose007 what’s that?

[@Pacmannion]

@@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.

[@derekbrou]

@@ToriKo_ some of it is super creepy too

[@MahlenMorris]

@@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.

[@charlotteice5704]

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.

[@953trauts]

Was watching something else but naturally this is more important

[@timboegel]

Stuart Nixon other content is just not half as interesting

[@953trauts]

Tim Bögel 🙌😜

[@EktoHunter]

I love this channel, you guys have amazing Infographics and Topics!

[@abhiinair]

Wow I'm so early today! 😁 Lol "Spy things!!" 😂😂😂

[@matthewlebo1841]

That British station started with the tune to The Irish Volunteer if you were wondering.

[@peterw4910]

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.

[@davidb9036]

I had a Wendover video to watch yesterday and a HAI today. Sir you spoil me.

[@duwb0]

Come on man! You had one job! Good job anyway, love your videos! Keep up the great work.

[@LividImp]

No, he had nne job.

[@duwb0]

@@LividImp XD That's great

[@taiundoo8435]

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

[@bruhchan4743]

0:16 they live WHERE? 😳😳

[@applesyrupgaming]

among us!

[@CheesedoffBlog]

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 😂

[@distortionmusic]

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.

[@alexdavidson4604]

Nice hidden message there, Half as Interesting

[@NOLIMIT_KJ]

sometimes the US gets confused and spies on itself... ok.

[@ErikHare]

I grew up very close to one of these stations off 152nd St in Miami, at the old blimp base.

[@heinzschmidt7472]

The transcripted code means: "skldotshslashhaitwentynne" WTF

[@chillxrc]

Thanks

[@harrisonwalker3787]

That’s the link for the skill share promo with one misspelling.

[@luked8449]

i think it's supposed to say: skl dot sh slash hai twenty nine, or skl.sh/hai29

[@sachinramanathan7870]

@@luked8449 21

[@nik_evdokimov]

@@luked8449 one, not nine

[@alexm566]

Satellite signals are also untraceable if you can get a receiver where you are. Subs use them to receive messages and letters.

[@noe5250]

SKL DOT SH SLASH HAI TWENTY ONE If anyone was wondering what the code meant

[@JoMiMi_h]

NNE*

[@joshuaalexander4595]

The message should have been 'SKILLSHARE' and that would have been a perfect transition to the sponsor.

[@albear972]

4:30 reminded me of that awesome song by Kraftwerk, Numbers.

[@JDeWittDIY]

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.

[@v4nnyz]

Thank you for this holy shit I LOVE numbers stations and there's finally some new content on them!

[@ShoelessJP]

Never clicked on a video so fast. Number stations are cool.

[@pizza7741]

Tellin it like it is at 0:20, mad props

[@maximumdigital-9252]

The code at the end says “thanks for watching”. Very cool 👍🏻 😉

[@alexc8992]

Ross D How long did that take to decode?

[@seb4356]

I came to SKLDOTSHSLASHHAITWENTYONE its his refferal code...

[@seb4356]

Pyth110 op is wrong, its his referral link

[@Huz7Edits]

Spies: sent a radio signal Some old grandpa: *JOHNNY WHAT DOES THIS MEAN. HUH? I CANT HEAR YOU. WHAT DOES THE NUCLEAR CODE 303 MEAN? JOHNNY*

[@fqidz]

Drink milk everytime you hear 'spies'

[@TheNightquaker]

I'd prefer my breakfast to stay inside me for a bit longer, thank you very much.

[@kierancalder8573]

I'd pop!

[@shiyuan1738]

Legend has it that this was used because Skillshare said it was a good idea.

[@ahadmerchant7510]

If anyone is interested, the code at the literally translates to "skldotshsslashhaitwentyone" The first link in the description. Waste of five minutes hahaha

[@hitanshshah7162]

I did that too !

[@peritdincer5880]

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?

[@borisxanovavich4466]

Last time I was woken up by a video this early, two things were happening: 1. My parents having sex 2. That Wikipedia List

[@joonasfi]

Is your mom a moaner?

[@madingwang7778]

wtf

[@chopperboi89]

I'm surprised you'd use the inactive and classic "Lincolnshire Poacher" and not something still active, like "HM01" AKA "Cuban Numbers Lady."

[@jerry3790]

3:12 I really thought that was gonna say subscribe.

[@harrisonofcolorado8886]

Sub to HAI

[@jerry3790]

Harrison La time traveler I know but subscribe is basically the same length

[@kuromad]

Interesting... but its security is also its flaw. It is a one way communication so the sender cannot know if the receiver is compromised. And that is relatively easy as those pads can surely be found on a person or hideout. Even adding a third 'row' of numbers that is memorized, is something that can be cracked given enough time. And because the sender isn't aware, he will continue to broadcast.

[@stylesrj]

There's probably an even deeper layer of code in that. For example, it's great if you figure out that the sender told the agent "Paris" but you don't know if they mean the city, a restaurant, a person or even a weapon. Hell it could also be used to lure out enemy agents and determine if the listener is compromised.

[@Olszymanski]

Amogus reference?!!?! 0:15

[@evernevers5390]

this was made before it was popular

[@Olszymanski]

@@evernevers5390 among us is 2 years old. This vid is 1 year old

[@holnrew]

Even knowing how they work I get creeped out by numbers stations

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

In Soviet Russia, spies watch you

[@elizabethpantano7381]

0:31 I was skiing in Colorado over my spring break, and I heard someone speaking with a very hard Russian accent. Later I saw him speaking Russian near the back of the building. He said “Nyet, Nyet Absolut” I know what nyet means (no) but not what absolut means. I’m assuming he was talking about the how he wanted the vodka or saying “No, no absolutely not” or something similar

[@techfin6145]

Yes, I'm sad, I de-coded the final message to get: SKLDOTSHSLASHHAITWENTYNNE

[@bw-leftturnracing7779]

Same.

[@seraphina985]

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

[@jimmyjames008]

Skill.Share/HAI29

[@Pow3llMorgan]

There are also stations broadcasting coded messages in other formats like polyphonic.

[@jameslemont8121]

among us

[@gabriel-dx9hw]

Ok this is so cool that it’s in plain sight but unbreakable

[@kensmith5694]

It is only "almost unbreakable". Those sheets of random numbers have lead to some issues. There were cases where the "one time" numbers had to be reused because the spy remained in place much longer than expected. Sometimes just knowing that a message was sent was enough information. During WW2, even when the code was not broken hearing the transmission allowed folks to get valuable information. If the message was usually short and then one day was long, you can expect that there was something extra to say.

[@gabriel-dx9hw]

Ken Smith definitely didn’t consider these factors! Can for sure see how the length of message etc can be a dead giveaway, so definitely not a foolproof system, but it’s still pretty cool

[@kensmith5694]

@@gabriel-dx9hw I also didn't mention the fact that in WW2 the direction to the transmitter also often gave away where the U-boat was. They radioed home at their local midnight. If you know when and the angle, you have a good estimate of where.

[@bluzshadez]

I just remembered the John Cusack & Malin Akerman movie, NUMBERS.

[@pleasedontwatchthese9593]

One time pad can be weaken by a side channel attacks like messages length. So be sure to add padding

[@jimbrewer7328]

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

[@newmono7341]

1:28 Reminds me of something from Cicada 3301

[@elton1981]

1:28 the song is 'The Lincolnshire Poacher'

[@benjaminyu8545]

A spooky but badass method

[@flyingcod14]

Lincolnshire Poacher, Swedish Rhapsody, Russian Man, all Cold War relics.

[@Hexomanya]

For anyone wondering the message at 4:38 says "skl.sh/hai21" or "skldotshslashhaitwentyone" (The o from 1 should be an n if you do it correct)

[@spazmaster6731]

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.

[@vesperone3905]

Mine will never be decrypted