|
” … The reason this dusty method is still ideal for espionage is that, even if you locate a spy station’s transmitter, you have no idea who’s tuning in across the hemisphere. Unlike telephone or Internet connections, receiving a radio signal leaves no fingerprint, no traceable phone connection, no IP address, and no other hint as to where the recipient might be. The omnipresence of these “numbers stations” has engendered a community of eavesdroppers who pinpoint the stations and even take their own stab at unraveling the messages—guys like 43-year-old Baltimore-area computer engineer Chris Smolinski. When he is not running his appropriately named Black Cat Systems software firm, he’s managing the Spooks list, an online gathering of several hundred amateur spy-radio buffs from around the world, all carefully scanning the short-wave bands and logging the daily bursts of numbers that fill the ether.”
|
