Number Stations continued...

Miss Ana Belen Montes was the American Defence Intelligence Agency's Cuba analyst. Her arrest took place on 21st September 2001 prompted by the events of '9/11', the FBI having maintained surveillance on her movements previously.

Instructions were sent to her by radio and received on a portable Sony Receiver. She had no one time pads to be discovered; taking their place was a Toshiba laptop computer 405CS programmed to decode the number groups she had received. As mentioned previously technology progressed within the field of espionage causing the redundancy of the One Time Pad where Mis Montes was concerned.

Forensic examination by the FBI of the hard disk drive of Miss Montes' laptop revealed a coded message and decoded plain text from a Cuban transmission, sent on 7887kHz 6th February 1999.

The encrypted message was, in part, 'Attencion, Attencion 30107 24624…' The transmission was recognised as being a 150 group message format used by the Cuban Intelligence Service and has the ENIGMA designation V02a, as described above.

The contents of this damning message to Miss Montes contained instruction concerning two computer disks; Disk S1 to cipher information to be sent, and Disk R1 to decipher information received via radio or disk. The disks were passed to Miss Montes by members of the Cuban Diplomatic Mission to the UN. They were declared persona non grata and expelled from the US shortly after Miss Montes' arrest.

Miss Montes, who subsequently received 25 years gaol, made her return messages to Cuba via the public paging system.
A previous spy case involving a Cuban group 'La Red Avispa' also used similar methods, including communications from V02a. Whilst the link to number stations is obvious in the story, the proof lies within the FBI affidavit against Miss Montes, which was placed on the internet.

It is not just Voice and Morse that apparently transfers number style messages. A polytone system, XP, has been followed for at least eight years and a program has been written to allow the conversion of tone to numeral.

Such a message reads [after the log details]:

XP 12088kHz 0640z 28/05/04 ID360 dk/gc 00413/00229
360 360 360 1 360 360 360 1 360 360 360 1 360 360 360 1
360 360 360 1 360 360 360 1 360 360 360 1 360 360 360 1
360 360 360 1

R>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> _________00413 00229 84634 46497 38868
27970 09918 92475 81505 91098 97219 56006 31709 87511 27371
57294 43003 84419 05528 72822 33302 24423 03831 39448 14533
62253 68619 65611 86203 54875 24362 01845 24900 31762 80300
25403 63013 46560 88614 01850 11176 96357 82948 03350 17771
40421 77575 40993 95016 77340 22196 86219 26851 36410 86494
23925 18701 17487 85506 26839 79142 58103 87033 44196 33875
64170 29541 28740 05837 81572 11890 40149 98633 20487 29017
66223 21682 85680 95955 60935 08170 38134 84191 77027 82683
30767 13991 29487 99738 47002 65498 17983 27593 37378 46500
94856 67937 59775 69358 59885 84867 65660 17418 35258 49990
06903 34236 91948 00405 68573 56724 69730 31384 29817 46933
19348 81814 93803 26952 97897 60622 67659 70535 55101 27980
94139 33606 49779 15977 07366 96858 74116 18106 38357 25835
45619 92395 05639 30370 75226 55149 22274 88777 27839 11035
38604 75945 77655 15088 29191 52299 24589 32602 40573 44217
49597 72346 94727 15651 62605 33335 05779 58417 33504 55040
70757 36049 46440 53419 22621 68340 37480 35739 95504 73330
04663 24306 92581 96321 53581 37505 00677 76178 52134 80278
66005 45062 60051 82862 33049 94045 80168 41930 80469 00191
80867 41297 06669 30299 75147 70130 18140 59486 70784 54764
66683 61316 72422 65828 36795 41444 53510 40221 81722 98722
01423 63354 64680 00431 07136 46889 57252 42037 49257 75819
49381 88992 20737 36405 75517 97105 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

In addition to the Number Stations ENIGMA 2000 also has an interest in the unexplained noises, the flotsam of the airwaves. The entire gamut of ENIGMA 2000's interest can be found in the ENIGMA Control List which, like the ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter and sound samples can be downloaded from the ENIGMA 2000 group site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/enigma2000 which it is necessary to join prior to download.

We started with mention of encrypted messages from WW2, they were sent in four letter groups and perhaps it is correct that we conclude with a mention of the E25 'Arab Man' station. It occurs around 1230z on 9450kHz and was discovered by an ENIGMA 2000 monitor in Russia. However its location means that it is only occasionally audible in Great Britain whilst a monitor on the island of Crete often reports this station.
One such report being:

9450 KHz AM [27/07]
1243UTC Carrier
1244UTC Music intro.
1246UTC Music stops, arab OM starts calling "222" several times.
1247UTC "Message" x3

9150 3141 9010 3541 9801
9121 5273 7257 9037 8208
8398 9273 9170 9010

1248UTC "Repeat" x3
1250UTC "End of message, end of transmission".
Again the 3rd and last group are the same. Also, there is no "6".

Incidentally, the Enigma message listed at the beginning of this piece reads, "Der Fuhrer ist tod. Der Kamp geht weiter, Donitz".

©P Beaumont 8th August 2004

Interested in Number stations? Then why not join the ENIGMA 2000 group on Yahoo - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/enigma2000/

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