radio cryptography

swears

preppy-kei
Yeah, somebody released a compilation CD of these signals a couple of years ago...
There's probably an old thread about it on here.
 

nomos

Administrator
These recordings are amazing. I used to thoroughly creep myself out listening to these not-quite-human voices reading out strings of numbers in the dark at night. Be sure to download the booklet as well.

Shortwave listeners have long understood these transmissions to be coded messages sent by spy agencies to agents in the field who carried a decryption key ('one time pad') with them. The story is that the UK government would never acknowledge that they knew what these transmissions were, yet when Irdial discs began selling this collection, they were essentially shut down for exposing national secrets. That's when the collection was released into the public domain. Irdial is up and running with the collection for sale again, but at a hefty price.

Some links:
http://www.irdial.com/conet.htm
http://www.spynumbers.com/
http://home.freeuk.net/spook007/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station
http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page30.html

I think Wilco or another band was somehow sued for sampling one of the recordings.
 
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boomnoise

♫
yeah it was wilco. the eponymous 'yankee hotel foxtrot' was sampled from the cornet project if i recall.

in an ideal world, after the analogue switch off, the fm will only pump out pirate radio and number stations. :D
 

nomos

Administrator
^^ and the old analogue universal time signal with the refined zombie woman reciting the time. that one used to give me chills when i was little.
binggg... bongg... bongg... bongg.. at the tone...
 

martin

----
How does that work, with Irdial sueing that guy? How can they legally claim copyright on commonly available 'secret governmental' recordings, sent in by various tape archivists?

Soviet scramblers were pretty ace on shortwave.
 

swears

preppy-kei
How does that work, with Irdial sueing that guy? How can they legally claim copyright on commonly available 'secret governmental' recordings, sent in by various tape archivists?

Soviet scramblers were pretty ace on shortwave.


Yeah, it's a bit odd. Something to do with Irdial owning the original recording, not kept as a record by anyone else. Also them having the idea of comercially releasing them first.
 

nomos

Administrator
How does that work, with Irdial sueing that guy? How can they legally claim copyright on commonly available 'secret governmental' recordings, sent in by various tape archivists?

it got weirder too. i'm sure i read that originally the british government sued irdial, taking the position "we have nothing to do with those recordings AND you're breaching national security by distributing them. stop now." i think that's how they ended up going online as mp3s with irdial's blessing before the label regrouped and decided they somehow owned them. could be mistaken though.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
I heard the Irdial guy was working on a follow up compilation of secret spy messages encoded in ice-cream van jingles.
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
I've wanted to make tunes based on these samples. the reason that i have not is that i believe that many others would have done the same already, it's such an obvious thing to do. Can anybody point me to examples of this?
 
I've wanted to make tunes based on these samples. the reason that i have not is that i believe that many others would have done the same already, it's such an obvious thing to do. Can anybody point me to examples of this?
I'm sure there are quite a few. Boards Of Canada did one, 'Gyroscope' I think. It was rubbish obviously.
 
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