number stations continued...

In the BBC's Here and Now programme, broadcast on 21st April, 1997 the late reporter John Walters not only interviewed the founders of ENIGMA but also spoke with Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB station chief. Not only was Gordievsky able to clearly state that Number Stations were indeed intended for use by agents but also explained the sort of content expected. Surprisingly part of the contents, Gordievsky stated, were private messages from close family, adding another dimension to the life of a 'spy'.

A British Court case to prove the use of number stations in the world of espionage was that of GCHQ Linguistic Specialist Geoffrey Prime.

At 1630 on 26th June 1982 Geoffrey Prime, a former GCHQ Linguistic Specialist confessed to Detective Chief Superintendent Cole of his spying activities. The evidence produced was a Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder that droned a coded number message in German when played back as well as a powerful radio receiver of East German origin. His briefcase had a false bottom and contained a list of frequencies and schedules annotated with the ident he used to recognise the radio traffic intended for him, as well as a quantity of one-time pads for his use in decoding his messages.

When questioned about the numbers transmission that was recorded Mr Prime explained that it was his hobby, listening to the radio and twiddling the tuning knob. Mr Prime's trial lasted little more than two hours; he had pleaded guilty to the charges against him for which he received 38 years imprisonment.

During investigations one of Mr Prime's former neighbours had mentioned that he was fed-up with hearing German numerals being read out on a Saturday night from the flat above where Mr Prime lived and that his wife had mentioned that she, "reckoned that bloke upstairs is a spy."

One-time pads consist of pages of number groups [or, possibly letter groups] to allow the decoding of received messages. The pads are made of flammable material to allow their immediate destruction by the user, should it be necessary. They are small in size to allow them to be hidden. To be found with such a damning item when operating as a spy in a hostile country would, no doubt, seal the fate of the holder.

Such is shown in another case of 1988, that of Erwin van Haarlem, an art dealer who was discovered at his receiver actually writing down a message sent in Morse. A search of his 3rd floor, Friern Barnet [London] flat produced not only chemicals for the processing of invisible inks and lists of dead letter boxes but also one time pads hidden in hollowed out bars of soap. Another issue was the complaint made by the local Neighbourhood Watch coordinator about the interference to her TV picture that corresponded to Morse characters. This occurred regularly at 9.20pm.
After van Haarlem's trial various newspapers proclaimed, 'Court told of 200 coded messages from Prague' to 'Morse code Spy caught in the act'. Perhaps the most accurate was the strapline 'GCHQ had detected incoming signals from the Prague area for a long time.'

Details of One Time Pads, their construction and use, can be found in two splendid and accepted works on cryptography; David Kahn's 'The Code Breakers' and Simon Singh's 'The Code Book.' The One Time Pad was once referred to as the ' Holy Grail of Encryption' thanks to its virtually unbreakable nature.

Messages are generally structured to identify the intended recipient, to provide a decode key and group count. A serial number may also be included as well.

Consider E11, a regular station whose upper sideband transmissions can be found to a particular schedule printed in the ENIGMA 2000 newsletter.

At the time of writing this station can be heard on a Tuesday at 0830z on 8544kHz using upper sideband.
Usually a female voice can be heard repeating 182 oblique 00 [182/00] for five minutes, after which time the transmission ceases with 'out'. The use of the term 'oblique' led to E11 being christened with the early name of Oblique for obvious reasons
One would assume that 182 was the recipient id or decode key [dk]. The oblique, /, speaks for itself whilst the 00 is obviously the group count [gc].
However, on 15th June this scheduled transmission rewarded the listeners with a message, shown in the newsletter as:

E11 8544kHz 0830z 15/06[184/30 7 x5 7 x5 36548 95679 65390 36348 70578 etc]

The frequency, time and date are obvious. Note that the regular designation of 182/00 has changed to 184/30. We believe that the 182 denotes a training or test message. The 00 was obviously a group count for a null message. Note that the message header now reads 184/30, given that the above message actually consisted of 30 groups when received as illustrated above confirms that the figures are the group count, gc.

Note that the figure 7 was repeated 5 times the cycle sent twice. That could be a decode key, dk or perhaps a serial number for the message, who really knows?

The voice station E11 also has a Morse station equivalent, M03. A recent occurrence on 8544kHz led to the changing of the voice content to Morse. That occurred on 6th April 2004 and was intercepted by an ENIGMA 2000 monitor who we refer to as AnonUK. This change was noted in the newsletter as:

M03 8544kHz 0830z 06/04[189/67]AnonUK

If anyone had doubted the existence of M03 as the Morse sister station of E11 the header of 189/67, with its 67 group message, proved the link. The final proof, if it was ever necessary, was found a week later by PLondon:

M03 8544kHz 0830z 13/04[182/00]PLondon

M03 was sending the same header for a null message as E11 would. Interestingly the ending for M03 took the form as shown in this abbreviated message form:

182 / 00 182 / 00 182 / 00 182 / 00 182 / 00 = = 0 0 0

The zeros were not only sent double spaced but were actually a cut numeral; in this case, sent as a T.

Another Morse station, M10, illustrates station headers and further procedures adequately:

M10 messages start with an intro that is sent slowly at around 8 words per minute. The actual message is sent much faster. If, within the entire sending more than one message for different recipients exists, as each message ident comes up the sending reverts to a slower speed.
The full example below was copied by the author whilst he was on holiday on the Isle of Wight and often wonders what the hotel chambermaid thought of the slip of paper with the message copied down in biro!

M10 6763kHz 0410z 27/04/03 [ICW]
444 200 18 946 31 [Header repeated for five minutes].

200 200 200 99 99 18 18 ==

94294 94294 31350 31350 82233 82233 95872 95872 22988 22988
42544 42544 00696 00696 79984 79984 39544 39544 87850 87850
61550 61550 33789 33789 62953 62953 24812 24812 01972 01972
64783 64783 25121 25121 74046 74046 ==
99 99 18 18

946 946 946 78 78 31 31 = =

84503 84503 49328 49328 00154 00154 43915 43915 03915 03915
08034 08034 89644 89644 38003 38003 31305 31305 13528 13528
22485 22485 49715 49715 21248 21248 72794 72794 73169 73169
80764 80764 00411 00411 29756 29756 84552 84552 19018 19018
31003 31003 19138 19138 60858 60858 05331 05331 75156 75156
43101 43101 67596 67596 67529 67529 nnnnn nnnnn nnnnn nnnnn
56654 56654 ==
78 78 31 31 0 0 0
ended 0425z 27/04/03

The entire message is in a two message format. 444 is the call up and is an unusual one, 222 or 555 being the more common. 200 denotes the recipient [Agent 200!] who is about to receive an eighteen group message. Then it alerts recipient, or agent, 946 that he will receive a 31 message. After repetition of the call-up 444 200 18 946 31 for five minutes the header changes to an intro:

200 200 200 99 99 18 18 ==

Gone is any reference to agent 946 but what has appeared after 200 is the figure 99 repeated once. That is the decode key that informs agent 200 how to decode his 18 group message. Still at a slow speed a long break is sent. This alerts agent 200 to be ready for his 18 groups of 5 figures, each repeated once, and sent at a rapid speed. At the end of the fast sending of 18 x2 groups the long break occurs at slow speed and the dk and gc is repeated again.
At that point agent 946 should pick up his pencil and be ready to copy his groups as his intro arrives in exactly the same form as that for agent 200 with a few changes:

946 946 946 78 78 31 31 = =

No reference to agent 200 - this time it's for 946 who will use a dk 99 for his gc of 31.
Much as for agent 200 the long break informs agent 946 that his 31 groups are going to be rattled off very smartly. At the end of the 31 x2 groups the sending slows with the transmission of the long break and the dk and gc again sent. This time there is no other traffic to be sent and the ending is announced by 0 0 0, each double spaced and much like that seen in M03 sent as a cut numeral, again 'T'. [In fact all zeroes in both M03 and M10 are sent as 'T'].

M08a is a number transmission sent from Bauta, Cuba that uses cut numerals thoughout. They are;

For 0 to 9: T A N D U W R I G M

Its Voice sisters V02 and V02a send in Spanish and start the transmissions with 'Attencion Attencion' followed by groups of five numerals in Spanish. The trade mark of these stations is the poor sending quality; a hum on the audio, sometimes a mix with M08a or Radio Havana - or on a really good day, all three occur.

The Voice station V02 has been charted as being heard in Great Britain as follows:

Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
0100z 13436 6768

0200z 3292 12180 12180 5417 5763
12180 12215
12215

0300z 7555 5800 10126* 4479 4479* 11565
6855 10446 10446*
10446

0400z 3292 10446 9223* 11565 3292
4479* 5762

0500z 8097 4028 5883

0600z 4028 8095

8010 9153
9323
0700z 9063 6782
1000z 4035
*used by or mixed with M08a

This mention of the Cuban number stations brings us firmly to the latest, to date, and perhaps the best link to number stations by spies, the case of Ana Belen Montes.

continued..