HOPE Numbers Station Mystery Solved
June 22nd, 2006 mlc
Listeners of 2600’s radio program Off the Hook know that we’ve been fascinated recently by some numbers stations which appear to have been popping up on the telephone network recently. These recordings, which sound eerily similar to the numbers stations which appear on shortwave and are purported to be operated by various governments’ intelligence services, have been announced by cryptic advertisements addressed to “Mein Fraulein” and appearing in the “Missed Connections” section of Craigslist.
Inspired by these phone numbers stations, the air of mystery surrounding them, and the apparent ease which with they can be created, I decided to create one of my own. After chopping up a recording of one of the previous numbers, setting up an Asterisk server to play the numbers back in my desired order, and making the requisite post to Craigslist, I was curious to see if any of the other people curious about these numbers would be able to decode the hidden message. A serious hint was given on Off the Hook when the listening public was told who had created the number and that there was a message hidden inside with a pair of HOPE tickets to the first person to decrypt it.
Callers to the number while it was active heard a few bars of the song “Little Black Heart” then a polyphony of voices which said, “Group 215, Group 215”, followed by a series of groups of five numbers (each group repeated twice):
01200 60110 18011 02500 90310 23018 02303 00230 34038 03003 80410 31048 03803 40430 39055 05605 70450 55047 04506 00520 62051 06106 50750 71072 08007 40640 69083 08608 70900 72093 08309 10910 80100 09010 41040 94101 09010 01040 98110 11710 11151 14
The key to decoding this message is to re-write the numbers in groups of three: 012, 006, 011, 018, etc. Notice that the numbers start relatively small and tend to get larger towards the end of the message, ending in 117, 101, 115, 114.
This, combined with the hint on Off the Hook to ”drop the five“, would allow one to decrypt the message. At the beginning of the message, 0 is ‘A’, 1 is ‘B’, and so on, so the 012 is ‘M’ which gives the first letter of the message. Then, as we proceed to the next letter, we add two to the key, so that 2 is now ‘A’, 3 is now ‘B’, and the 006 is an ‘E’. Taking our cue from the ‘Group 215’ message, we now add 1 to the key, so 3 is A and 011 is ‘I’. Taking the hint to ‘drop the five’ we go back to adding two, so 5 is A and 18 is ‘N’. Proceeding in this manner, one can decrypt the entire message which reads:
MEIN FRAULEIN FOR HOPE TICKETS SEND AN EMAIL TO NUMBERSSTATION AT HUSHMAIL DOT COM
Congratulations to Usman, who was the first to solve the message and send that email, and so wins a pair of tickets to the HOPE conference.
Look for future contests whenever you see President Bush’s head flashing on the 2600 homepage. And, no, we still don’t know anything about the other phone numbers stations.
Entry Filed under: Contests
10 Comments
1. Chaulis | June 23rd, 2006 at 5:08 am
Shoot, I only got a few hours to work with it, and thought it was POW morse code. Close but no cigar on this one.
2. justin | June 23rd, 2006 at 11:36 am
i didn’t even get as far as writing the numbers down correctly. 2 sounded like 3, sounded like 6, etc…. damn you, teletubbies!
3. genericface blog » &hellip | June 23rd, 2006 at 4:31 pm
[…] Update: It appears the fourth one was a prank for a benefit charity. The solution can be found by the author. The other three are independent of this. […]
4. Arseny | June 23rd, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Is this whole number station thing an extension of Web2.0?
5. Parodius | June 23rd, 2006 at 10:37 pm
Let’s be honest here: 2600’s a business, not a charity; they had to ride on someone else’s coattails for their giveaway; they do not represent the underground; their magazine has pretty much nothing in the way of useful technical content anymore. Don’t be a sheep: think for yourself.
6. mlc | June 24th, 2006 at 1:21 am
Just for the record: neither 2600 nor the HOPE conference has ever claimed to be a charity, though we’ll consider the conference to be a raging financial success if we can manage to break even.
7. Cohen | June 26th, 2006 at 3:49 am
Well would thinking for yourself not put you in a group of self-thinkers. Thus creating a herd in itself… If you want to speak existentially then you have the freedom to chose to support 2600. I find personal satisfaction from hanging around, so don’t ruin it for those of us like me.
8. Michael Hampton | June 30th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Even after creating a nice forum for people to talk about the number stations, I sure didn’t get any free tickets. It certainly isn’t a charity.
I’ll probably be paying at the door like all the other losers who didn’t bother to buy their tickets early.
9. Brien | July 6th, 2006 at 10:44 am
IMHO, I consider 2600 a users group. That’s it. In the group you’ll find people who know more then you, and less then you. If you know something nobody else does, SHARE IT!
The only reason we’re further along then the previous generation is because they passed along their info. If you don’t pass it along your knowledge will rott and die over time.
10. Phone numbers stations my&hellip | August 5th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
[…] The group said on its web site that after Mike from Off The Hook created a “fake” numbers station to promote the HOPE Number Six conference that interest in the numbers stations faded, as people began to think they were all pranks. I can attest to that: each subsequent message generated less and less interest after that point. […]