lecture - espionage by the numbers: introduction to number stations - delft university 2011

Espionage by the Numbers

An introduction to Spy Numbers Stations

by Peter Staal

How they work

Who’s behind it / cases

Q&A

Peter Staal - february 2011

Anatomy of a message

OTP

Tables

How they work



Interval/callsignHeader

- Agent-ID- Message size

5/4 Figure groupsRedundancy



Interval/callsignHeader

- Agent-ID 328 912- Message size 11 66

5/4 Figure groupsRedundancy



OTP

Tables

How they work


One-Time-Pad

One-Time-Pad

74265 34925 23426 cyphertext18593 47499 45877 OTP------------------------------ +82758 71314 68293 cleartext


One-Time-Pad

74265 34925 23426 cyphertext18593 47499 45877 OTP------------------------------ +82758 71314 68293 cleartext

Add (or substract) without carry



OTP

Tables

How they work


Tables


How they work


Q&A


Andy TowerSpokesman British Department of Trade and Industry- 1997

“These are what you suppose they are.

People shouldn’t be mystified by them.

They are not for, shall we say, public consumption”

Telegraph, January 14, 1997



Law Enforcement cases



- Erwin van Haarlem / Vaclav Jelinek – arrested 1988 by British Special Branch

- WASP-network - arrested 1998 by the FBI - FBI copied decoding software in 1995

- Cuban Five (arrested 2001)



- Ana Belen Montes (arrested/charged September 21, 2001) - a Senior US Defence Intelligence Agency analyst Affidavit: “… and received her instructions through encrypted shortwave transmissions from Cuba”



Kendall & Gwendolyn Myers - arrested and indicted June 4, 2009

Kendall Myers (agent 202): top intelligence analyst at the State Department.

Gwendolyn Myers (agent 123 / E-634).

Spied for about 30 years for Cuba.



Meet the MyersPeter Staal - february 2011


Russian Spy Ring (2010)



References in literature




- Defector / whistleblower

- Declassified documents- Let the other guy do the talking

- Former employees

- End of the Cold War- End of Soviet Union- End of East-Germany


References in literature Spycraft: Robert Wallace & H. Keith Melton

“The one-way voice link (OWVL) described a covert communications system that transmitted messages to an agent's unmodified shortwave radio using the high-frequency shortwave bands between 3 and 30 MHz at a predetermined time, date, and frequency contained in their communications plan.”


References in literature CIA, Inc.: Espionage and the Craft of Business Intelligence F. W. Rustmann, Jr.




- Defector / whistleblower

- Declassified documents

- Former employees

- End of the Cold War- End of Soviet Union- End of East-Germany


Declassified documentsPolish Ministry of Interior (MSW) II Department (Counterintelligence)


Declassified documents


Declassified documents

Speech / Morse generator Peter Staal - february 2011

Questions & Answers


lecture - espionage by the numbers: introduction to number stations - delft university 2011

News & Politics

messageotptables peter

literature peter staal

casesqapeter staal

cubapeter staal

myerspeter staal

carrypeter staal

cleartextpeter staal

timepad peter staal