bletchley

[grey...@mail.com]

Good program on Bletchley park on BBC2 now, 20:15 (Sunday)


--
maus
.
.
...

[Don McKenzie]

On 29-Oct-12 7:17 AM, grey...@mail.com wrote:
> Good program on Bletchley park on BBC2 now, 20:15 (Sunday)

Thanks,

any doco on Bletchley Park is usually pretty good.
few and far between.

Don...

--
Don McKenzie

Web's best price on Olinuxino Linux PC:
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/olinuxino.html

The World's Cheapest Computer:
DuinoMite the PIC32 $23 Basic Computer-MicroController
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/the-maximite-computer.html
Add VGA Monitor/TV, and PS2 Keyboard, or use USB Terminal
Arduino Shield, Programmed in Basic, or C.

[greymaus]

On 2012-10-31, Don McKenzie <5...@2.5A> wrote:
> On 29-Oct-12 7:17 AM, grey...@mail.com wrote:
>> Good program on Bletchley park on BBC2 now, 20:15 (Sunday)
>
> Thanks,
>
> any doco on Bletchley Park is usually pretty good.
> few and far between.
>
> Don...
>

That one went into the making of Colussus.. or told of it.

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

My late mother in law worked at Bletchley park. Even when she was
allowed, she didn't tell me much about it apart from the good times
she had. Her friend who was also there told me her work was data entry
and very boring. I suspect it was boring because she had no idea what
the data was!

Steve

--
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com

[Nick Spalding]

Stephen Wolstenholme wrote, in
<qi1298lo4e7c2jbtc...@4ax.com>
on Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:18:05 +0000:

> On 31 Oct 2012 10:55:17 GMT, greymaus <grey...@mail.com> wrote:
>
> >On 2012-10-31, Don McKenzie <5...@2.5A> wrote:
> >> On 29-Oct-12 7:17 AM, grey...@mail.com wrote:
> >>> Good program on Bletchley park on BBC2 now, 20:15 (Sunday)
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> any doco on Bletchley Park is usually pretty good.
> >> few and far between.
> >>
> >> Don...
> >>
> >
> >That one went into the making of Colussus.. or told of it.
>
> My late mother in law worked at Bletchley park. Even when she was
> allowed, she didn't tell me much about it apart from the good times
> she had. Her friend who was also there told me her work was data entry
> and very boring. I suspect it was boring because she had no idea what
> the data was!

My last surviving aunt, now 93, worked there too. She had studied
modern languages at Cambridge and her work was concerned with
interpretation of decoded messages. After the war she became in quick
succession a Roman Catholic and a nun and was a teacher for many years.
Now living in retirement in Kent. I visited her a couple of years back,
still as bright as a button but very slow on her feet.
--
Nick Spalding

[Andrew Swallow]

On 31/10/2012 11:18, Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:
> On 31 Oct 2012 10:55:17 GMT, greymaus <grey...@mail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2012-10-31, Don McKenzie <5...@2.5A> wrote:
>>> On 29-Oct-12 7:17 AM, grey...@mail.com wrote:
>>>> Good program on Bletchley park on BBC2 now, 20:15 (Sunday)
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> any doco on Bletchley Park is usually pretty good.
>>> few and far between.
>>>
>>> Don...
>>>
>>
>> That one went into the making of Colussus.. or told of it.
>
> My late mother in law worked at Bletchley park. Even when she was
> allowed, she didn't tell me much about it apart from the good times
> she had. Her friend who was also there told me her work was data entry
> and very boring. I suspect it was boring because she had no idea what
> the data was!
>
> Steve
>

Entering page after page of 5 digit numbers is likely to be very boring.

Andrew Swallow

[greymaus]

Some of us, very much younger, are very slow :)

(Guy I know, over 90, busy still, dropped dead last week)

Nuns seem to last forever..

German was hard, according to the accounts, because of the dialects

[Steve Nelson]

On Sunday, October 28, 2012 2:17:17 PM UTC-6, grey...@mail.com wrote:
> Good program on Bletchley park on BBC2 now, 20:15 (Sunday) -- maus . . ...

I already knew Morse code and to get my speed up I used a paper tape gadget with an inked line representing 5 letter code groups. This was in the army (Mars group?) and we had about five reels of tape. I found after a while I started remembering some of the groups! No rhyme or reason that I could figure out, some of the groups just stuck in my mind.

[Stan Barr]

On Thu, 1 Nov 2012 10:37:10 -0700 (PDT), Steve Nelson <r124...@comcast.net>
wrote:

Copying 5-letter code groups for a couple of hours screws your brain :-(
I got so my brain would try to make sense of any intermittent tone -
even the birds singing in the garden!

The Israeli "spy" station - callsign 4XZ - is still sending 5-letter
morse code groups 24x7 on a dozen or so frequencies.
Some poor sods must be out there copying the stuff...

--
Cheers,
Stan Barr plan.b .at. dsl .dot. pipex .dot. com

The future was never like this!

[Michael Black]

But even forty years ago, there were machines to turn morse code into
their real characters. Some of the ham magazines had them, novel at the
time. One author speculated on using his with a morse code keyboard, so
they could really send at a high speed.

Then computers came along, making the process easier, and I'm sure newer
algorithms have come along. The real problem is the fading of the signal,
and of course if the sender cant' keep a reasonably constant speed.

I'm not sure why the Israeli station is using morse code rather than
Teletype or some more recent digital mode. But maybe it's because morse
code can be sent by hand. On the other hand, unless someone is in the
field, they'd have other methods. I can't imagine a fixed station sending
that much morse code without it being helped by a keyboard or tape.

Michael

[greymaus]

It may be entirely spurious, to make people waste time?.
Morse code, as far as I know, (which isn't much) does not need a carrier
wave, and will get through where carrierwave based forms will not.

[Dave Garland]

On 11/1/2012 2:37 PM, Michael Black wrote:

> I'm not sure why the Israeli station is using morse code rather than
> Teletype or some more recent digital mode.

Morse (CW) gets through conditions of poor reception far better than
any other mode. And only requires an ordinary shortwave receiver, not
more specialized (and suspicious) equipment.

But maybe it's because
> morse code can be sent by hand. On the other hand, unless someone is
> in the field, they'd have other methods. I can't imagine a fixed
> station sending that much morse code without it being helped by a
> keyboard or tape.

I'm sure that the station will be sending it automatically, since
that's trivial to do these days. And have the computer fill in random
code groups during the times when real communication isn't happening.
If the replies from the field are sent by radio they will likely be
automatic too, typed in by the spy and played back in a very fast
burst, to make them more difficult for the enemy to detect. That was
a pretty standard feature of spy radio gear even 50 years ago.
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/spy/r350/index.htm
shows a 1950s-era Russian set where the spy punches the text into 35mm
film, and hand-cranks it through a reader.

[Rod Speed]

"greymaus" <grey...@mail.com> wrote in message
news:slrnk95sk9.9...@gmaus.org...

> It may be entirely spurious, to make people waste time?.

> Morse code, as far as I know, (which isn't much)

That�s obvious.

> does not need a carrier wave,

It is in fact the presence and absence of the
carrier wave that�s what carrys the information.

> and will get through where carrierwave based forms will not.

That�s just plain wrong with the modern alternatives.

[Rod Speed]

Dave Garland <dave.g...@wizinfo.com> wrote

> Michael Black wrote

>> I'm not sure why the Israeli station is using morse code
>> rather than Teletype or some more recent digital mode.

> Morse (CW) gets through conditions of poor
> reception far better than any other mode.

That's only true when there is a human doing the decoding now.

> And only requires an ordinary shortwave receiver,
> not more specialized (and suspicious) equipment.

Short wave receivers are pretty suspicious now.

>> But maybe it's because morse code can be sent by hand.
>> On the other hand, unless someone is in the field, they'd
>> have other methods. I can't imagine a fixed station sending
>> that much morse code without it being helped by a keyboard or tape.

> I'm sure that the station will be sending it automatically, since
> that's trivial to do these days. And have the computer fill in random
> code groups during the times when real communication isn't happening.
> If the replies from the field are sent by radio they will likely be
> automatic too, typed in by the spy and played back in a very fast
> burst, to make them more difficult for the enemy to detect. That was
> a pretty standard feature of spy radio gear even 50 years ago.

I doubt any real spies do it like that anymore.

> http://www.cryptomuseum.com/spy/r350/index.htm
> shows a 1950s-era Russian set where the spy punches the
> text into 35mm film, and hand-cranks it through a reader.

The real world has moved on just a tad since then.

[Uncle Steve]

One reason to support the idea that at least some major network
television stations (and radio) are run at arms-length by the
intelligence community is related to the broadcast of signals to field
agents. A particular sequence of words that would otherwise seem
unremarkable might be assigned to a group of field agents who would be
activated upon receipt of the message. Contrived news copy read
on-air would seem completely innocent to anyone who was not looking
for a particular signal, and as a commonplace broadcast medium does
not require special (and suspicious) equipment.

Our putative spy might only be required to listen to nightly network
news broadcasts (or shortwave radio), or particular television
programs in order to receive pre-arranged signals. The same might be
said of newspaper publications.

Obviously, most spying does not involve rapid infiltration, blow shit
up, rapid ex-filtration, and is carried out over a period of years or
decades. Over those time scales, secure communications become a
difficult and important subject. Before the Internet, and indeed
before mass-market television and radio, numerous methods towards this
end must have been developed, most often I suppose involving retail
fronts and the like. With the advent of the Internet, and
internetworked communications, it is interesting to speculate on
advances that may have been made in this field.


Regards,

Uncle Steve

--
My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both.
They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.
- Frederick the Great, c. 1770

[Shmuel Metz]

In <alpine.LNX.2.02.1...@darkstar.example.org>, on
11/01/2012

at 03:37 PM, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> said:

>But even forty years ago, there were machines to turn morse code into
> their real characters. Some of the ham magazines had them, novel at
>the time. One author speculated on using his with a morse code
>keyboard, so they could really send at a high speed.

>Then computers came along,

You've got the sequence of events reversed. Computers came along in
the late 1940's.

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the
right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail. Reply to
domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me. Do not
reply to spam...@library.lspace.org

[Walter Bushell]

In article <slrnk95sk9.9...@gmaus.org>,

Yes, it can be sent with a spark gap transmitter.

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[Michael Black]

On Thu, 1 Nov 2012, greymaus wrote:


>> I'm not sure why the Israeli station is using morse code rather than
>> Teletype or some more recent digital mode. But maybe it's because morse
>> code can be sent by hand. On the other hand, unless someone is in the
>> field, they'd have other methods. I can't imagine a fixed station sending
>> that much morse code without it being helped by a keyboard or tape.
>>
>> Michael
>
> It may be entirely spurious, to make people waste time?.
> Morse code, as far as I know, (which isn't much) does not need a carrier
> wave, and will get through where carrierwave based forms will not.
>

Maybe. I don't know if they still exist, but for a long time there were
"number stations" where someone would go on for hours (or maybe all day),
every day, speaking numbers into the microphone. That got a lot of
speculation, and maybe it was, people spending their time trying to figure
out what this out int he open code is, while the real information is being
passed by Teletype or more recently, smoe other digital method.

The ham bands in the shrotwave segment of the spectrum have expanded in
the past 30 years because few want shortwave. With satellites, that
becomes more reliable (no large variations from propagation at microwave
frequencies), and they can use equipment that means anyone can use it, no
more "Sparks" in the radio room sleeping by the radio to catch the
distress signals.

Given that, it does seem odd that anything like secret code is being pass
at this point via shortwave.

I remember the "first Gulf war", reporters on rooftops giving in their
reports, and realizing that changed things a lot. Microwaves can be kept
in such a narrow beam since the frequencies are high enough that a small
antenna still has high directionality, and then when you aim at the sky,
there's a lot less up there to be listening for signals, that now it's a
lot easier to get signals out of "enemy territory" without being caught.

In WWII, the spies had to use shortwave to contact home, and that left
them open to direction finding. And of course, a lot of secret messages
were sent to the resistance back then via regular BBC broadcasting, a
false bit of news inserted and only the specific receiver would know what
it meant.

Michael

[Michael Black]

On Thu, 1 Nov 2012, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:

> In <alpine.LNX.2.02.1...@darkstar.example.org>, on
> 11/01/2012
> at 03:37 PM, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> said:
>
>> But even forty years ago, there were machines to turn morse code into
>> their real characters. Some of the ham magazines had them, novel at
>> the time. One author speculated on using his with a morse code
>> keyboard, so they could really send at a high speed.
>
>> Then computers came along,
>
> You've got the sequence of events reversed. Computers came along in
> the late 1940's.
>

Yes, but were they used to do the mundane decodng of morse code before
they became cheap?

They had decoders, the radiomen with their headphones clamped to their
heads. We see it at the beginning of "Dr. No", a room full of Racal
receivers (and I think Goldeneye, in 1995, has another room of Racal
receivers).

They had better things to do with computers than decode morse, such as
figuring out what the encrypted messages were.

I'm sure people did play with decoding morse before small computers came
along, I mentioned that some worked on hardware decoders (the hardest part
was accounting for fading and the sender not keeping a constant speed).
But when mircroprocessors hit, it was so much cheaper.

Michael

[Patrick Scheible]

Or that's just where the Israel spies get sent if they're suspected of
being double agents.

-- Patrick

[Stan Barr]

On Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:51:19 -0500, Dave Garland
<dave.g...@wizinfo.com> wrote:
> If the replies from the field are sent by radio they will likely be
> automatic too, typed in by the spy and played back in a very fast
> burst, to make them more difficult for the enemy to detect. That was
> a pretty standard feature of spy radio gear even 50 years ago.
> http://www.cryptomuseum.com/spy/r350/index.htm
> shows a 1950s-era Russian set where the spy punches the text into 35mm
> film, and hand-cranks it through a reader.
>

See my other post...
Burst transmissions to Low Earth Orbit store-and-forward satellites
are the current method I believe. Used in Iran according to newspaper
reports. I've got a Cold War era ex-SAS high speed morse tape encoder*
and transmitter keyer, but not found the correct PRC-316 radio to go
with it yet!

* Magnetic tape and purely mechanical - moving magnets etc...

[Stan Barr]

On Thu, 1 Nov 2012 15:37:10 -0400, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:

> On Thu, 1 Nov 2012, Stan Barr wrote:
>

>> The Israeli "spy" station - callsign 4XZ - is still sending 5-letter
>> morse code groups 24x7 on a dozen or so frequencies.
>> Some poor sods must be out there copying the stuff...
>>

[snip]

>
> I'm not sure why the Israeli station is using morse code rather than
> Teletype or some more recent digital mode. But maybe it's because morse
> code can be sent by hand. On the other hand, unless someone is in the
> field, they'd have other methods.

The assumption is the messages are intended for agents in the field.
Teletype or TOR FEC would work but 2-way radio, the internet, mail etc.
all have the potential to disclose the identity of the recipient.
Only broadcast radio is completely secure. Paper and pencil cyphers
are easily destroyed after use so no incriminating evidence.
Also many of the recipients may be operating in areas where the
possession of a modern computer sysem might arouse suspicion.
The possesion of a Sony, Grundig, or whatever short-wave radio could
be explained away as being for listening to the BBC World Service or
whatever.

> I can't imagine a fixed station sending
> that much morse code without it being helped by a keyboard or tape.

It's computer sent with the same messages being repeated over and over
at different times and frequencies (sometimes for weeks) to prevent
analysis of times and frequencies giving a clue to the geographic
locataion of the recipient.

The Russians, or one of the old Soviet Bloc countries, seem to be at
it too, I've heard similar transmissions in Russian morse recently.

With the end of the Cold War these things have mostly died out, but
used to be commonplace. The British station on Cyprus - known as "The
Lincolnshire Poacher" from the music played as a tuning signal - is
closed down now, I believe.

[Stan Barr]

On Fri, 2 Nov 2012 10:41:38 -0400, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Nov 2012, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>>
>> You've got the sequence of events reversed. Computers came along in
>> the late 1940's.
>>
> Yes, but were they used to do the mundane decodng of morse code before
> they became cheap?
>

GCHQ had computer morse decoding in the mid-80s when I got application
forms for a job there* monitoring. One main requirement was the
ability to read morse at 18wpm+ - easy for me - but they had tapes to
slow it down if necessary. The Russians knew all about this decoding
and used to resort to all sorts of tricks to confuse it :-)

* My current employer at the time offered me a promotion so I never
actually applied.

[Stan Barr]

On Fri, 2 Nov 2012 10:31:47 -0400, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:
>>
> Maybe. I don't know if they still exist, but for a long time there were
> "number stations" where someone would go on for hours (or maybe all day),
> every day, speaking numbers into the microphone.

A few still around, but rare now. IIRC the British one originally used
short tape loops for the NATO alphabet which were switched by computer.
Later replaced by sound files. I've heard a few (very few) synthesised
speech ones over the years.

[Charles Richmond]

"Stan Barr" <pla...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:slrnk97202...@ID-309335.user.uni-berlin.de...
>
> [snip...] [snip...]
> [snip...]

>
> With the end of the Cold War these things have mostly died out, but
> used to be commonplace. The British station on Cyprus - known as "The
> Lincolnshire Poacher" from the music played as a tuning signal - is
> closed down now, I believe.
>

Beee - Beee - Seeeeee .... Radio Cypress!!! ;-)

--

numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

[Joe Morris]

"Michael Black" <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:

> In WWII, the spies had to use shortwave to contact home, and that left
> them open to direction finding. And of course, a lot of secret messages
> were sent to the resistance back then via regular BBC broadcasting, a
> false bit of news inserted and only the specific receiver would know what
> it meant.

In many cases there was no pretense that the content of BBC broadcasts from
England were anything but messages for the French Resistance. The fact that
the Germans knew that the were messages wasn't significant unless they
discovered the meaning, which could not be determined from only the
broadcast, Adding to the fun, the Allies salted the broadcasts with
meaningless "messages" that the Germans could not distinguish from the real
ones.

Ici Londres. Ici Londres.
[...]
Blessent mon coeur d'une langeur monotone.

was the signal that the D-Day invasion was about to begin. (This is the
basis for a couple of scenes in the movie "The Longest Day.")

Joe Morris

[Rod Speed]

Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> wrote
> Dave Garland wrote

>> Michael Black wrote

>>> I'm not sure why the Israeli station is using morse code
>>> rather than Teletype or some more recent digital mode.

>> Morse (CW) gets through conditions of poor reception far better
>> than any other mode. And only requires an ordinary shortwave
>> receiver, not more specialized (and suspicious) equipment.

>>> But maybe it's because morse code can be sent by hand.
>>> On the other hand, unless someone is in the field, they'd have
>>> other methods. I can't imagine a fixed station sending that much
>>> morse code without it being helped by a keyboard or tape.

>> I'm sure that the station will be sending it automatically, since
>> that's trivial to do these days. And have the computer fill in random
>> code groups during the times when real communication isn't happening.
>> If the replies from the field are sent by radio they will likely be
>> automatic too, typed in by the spy and played back in a very fast
>> burst, to make them more difficult for the enemy to detect. That was
>> a pretty standard feature of spy radio gear even 50 years ago.
>> http://www.cryptomuseum.com/spy/r350/index.htm
>> shows a 1950s-era Russian set where the spy punches the text into 35mm
>> film, and hand-cranks it through a reader.

> One reason to support the idea that at least some major network television
> stations (and radio) are run at arms-length by the intelligence community

Just another pathetic little drug crazed psychotic fantasy...

> is related to the broadcast of signals to field agents.

Just another pathetic little drug crazed psychotic fantasy...

They don't need to do it like that anymore.

> A particular sequence of words that would otherwise seem
> unremarkable might be assigned to a group of field agents
> who would be activated upon receipt of the message.

There are MUCH better ways to do that today.

> Contrived news copy read on-air would seem completely
> innocent to anyone who was not looking for a particular
> signal, and as a commonplace broadcast medium does
> not require special (and suspicious) equipment.

Sure, but that's just as true of a mobile/cell phone today.

> Our putative spy might only be required to listen to nightly
> network news broadcasts (or shortwave radio), or particular
> television programs in order to receive pre-arranged signals.

Gets a tad tricky getting the exact format message into that news
broadcast without anyone noticing whats going on in the TV station tho.

MUCH easier to just have the message up on a
web page that otherwise looks very innocuous etc.
You can even just do it with a comment made on
a broadcast news item by a member of the public
so there would be no suspicion when you spy
happens to browse the news service online etc.

Fucking sight easier to do that to have control
of the TV News broadcast so you can put your
own coded message on that.

> The same might be said of newspaper publications.

Even harder with so many of them going broke now.

> Obviously, most spying does not involve rapid
> infiltration, blow shit up, rapid ex-filtration,

Very little of it even involves any personal visits etc anymore.

> and is carried out over a period of years or decades.
> Over those time scales, secure communications
> become a difficult and important subject.

Like hell it does now.

> Before the Internet, and indeed before mass-market television
> and radio, numerous methods towards this end must have
> been developed, most often I suppose involving retail fronts
> and the like. With the advent of the Internet, and internetworked
> communications, it is interesting to speculate on
> advances that may have been made in this field.

Bugger, you've worked it out...

Curtains for you, boy...

[Uncle Steve]

Sure, dead drops in the toilet at Starbucks is always an option, but
television and (less so newspapers) are viable. Consider that
supposedly friendly nations still spy on each other, and with the
magic of cable and satellite TV, forward agents only need to have a
basic television package to get their signals. The problem they have
to wrestle with is that any given station or program has only so much
bandwidth available for covert traffic, so how do they decide what is
important enough to allocate what resources? I don't know, and as a
civilian out of the loop in regards to such matters, all I can do is
speculate.

> >Contrived news copy read on-air would seem completely
> >innocent to anyone who was not looking for a particular
> >signal, and as a commonplace broadcast medium does
> >not require special (and suspicious) equipment.
>
> Sure, but that's just as true of a mobile/cell phone today.

Not a broadcast medium, although innocent-seeming chatter with Aunt
Elinor back home could theoretically be intractable to interception.
A broadcast medium is necessarily more secure. Even books might be
usable for this purpose.

> >Our putative spy might only be required to listen to nightly
> >network news broadcasts (or shortwave radio), or particular
> >television programs in order to receive pre-arranged signals.
>
> Gets a tad tricky getting the exact format message into that news
> broadcast without anyone noticing whats going on in the TV station tho.

Bullshit. What about a popular sit-com like the Simpson's or
30-Rock?

> MUCH easier to just have the message up on a
> web page that otherwise looks very innocuous etc.
> You can even just do it with a comment made on
> a broadcast news item by a member of the public
> so there would be no suspicion when you spy
> happens to browse the news service online etc.
>
> Fucking sight easier to do that to have control
> of the TV News broadcast so you can put your
> own coded message on that.

There are lots of possible schemes. What did they do before the web,
and why would any established infrastructure to that end be retired
merely because the web offers new possibilities?

> >The same might be said of newspaper publications.
>
> Even harder with so many of them going broke now.

Yes, so sad there are fewer classified advertisements in which to hide
official traffic.

> >Obviously, most spying does not involve rapid
> >infiltration, blow shit up, rapid ex-filtration,
>
> Very little of it even involves any personal visits etc anymore.

Oh, I don't doubt spies still go on "vacation", (hint hint, nudge
nudge) when there is a need, even if it's only to attend to their
retirement funds.

> >and is carried out over a period of years or decades.
> >Over those time scales, secure communications
> >become a difficult and important subject.
>
> Like hell it does now.
>
> >Before the Internet, and indeed before mass-market television
> >and radio, numerous methods towards this end must have
> >been developed, most often I suppose involving retail fronts
> >and the like. With the advent of the Internet, and internetworked
> >communications, it is interesting to speculate on
> >advances that may have been made in this field.
>
> Bugger, you've worked it out...
>
> Curtains for you, boy...

I will await the mobile execution vans presently.

[Rod Speed]

Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> wrote

I already gave you a MUCH better way of doing that today.

> but television and (less so newspapers) are viable.

But the net is MUCH more viable again and completely
untraceable if you just put the message into someone's
comment on a new item or even just in some twitter drivel.

> Consider that supposedly friendly nations still spy on each other,
> and with the magic of cable and satellite TV, forward agents only
> need to have a basic television package to get their signals.

And its MUCH more viable to get them to use the net so you
don't have to fart around taking over the news room of a TV
station so you can get your messages into the news service etc.

Which might just be why they don't bother to do it your way anymore.

> The problem they have to wrestle with is that any given
> station or program has only so much bandwidth available
> for covert traffic, so how do they decide what is important
> enough to allocate what resources?

Don't even need to bother when the net is used instead.

You're completely off with the fucking fairys, as always.

> I don't know,

That's always been obvious.

> and as a civilian out of the loop in regards
> to such matters, all I can do is speculate.

And keep making a VERY spectacular fool of yourself
when you cant even manage to get the basics right.

>>> Contrived news copy read on-air would seem completely
>>> innocent to anyone who was not looking for a particular
>>> signal, and as a commonplace broadcast medium does
>>> not require special (and suspicious) equipment.

>> Sure, but that's just as true of a mobile/cell phone today.

> Not a broadcast medium,

That's just plain wrong with the net when used from that phone.

> although innocent-seeming chatter with Aunt Elinor back
> home could theoretically be intractable to interception.

And with twitter when read on that phone in spades.

> A broadcast medium is necessarily more secure.

That's just plain wrong, particularly with
how you get the messages broadcast.

> Even books might be usable for this purpose.

But the net is vastly more viable.

>>> Our putative spy might only be required to listen to nightly
>>> network news broadcasts (or shortwave radio), or particular
>>> television programs in order to receive pre-arranged signals.

>> Gets a tad tricky getting the exact format message into that news
>> broadcast without anyone noticing whats going on in the TV station tho.

> Bullshit.

Fact.

> What about a popular sit-com like the Simpson's or 30-Rock?

Have fun explaining how you get even just one
scriptwriter absolutely guaranteed to be involved.

>> MUCH easier to just have the message up on a
>> web page that otherwise looks very innocuous etc.
>> You can even just do it with a comment made on
>> a broadcast news item by a member of the public
>> so there would be no suspicion when you spy
>> happens to browse the news service online etc.

>> Fucking sight easier to do that than to have

>> control of the TV News broadcast so you can
>> put your own coded message on that.

> There are lots of possible schemes.

And yours is completely stupid now.

> What did they do before the web,

What was done in wartime when the law allowed the system
to have some say on what was broadcast is nothing like the
situation after the war had ended and before the web.

> and why would any established infrastructure to that end
> be retired merely because the web offers new possibilities?

Because the web is a fucking sight easier way to get messages
out and is completely and utterly secure. Broadcasting isnt.

>>> The same might be said of newspaper publications.

>> Even harder with so many of them going broke now.

> Yes, so sad there are fewer classified advertisements
> in which to hide official traffic.

MUCH more viable to use the web instead.

Even ebay is a hell of a lot more viable than classified ads.

>>> Obviously, most spying does not involve rapid
>>> infiltration, blow shit up, rapid ex-filtration,

>> Very little of it even involves any personal visits etc anymore.

> Oh, I don't doubt spies still go on "vacation", (hint hint, nudge
> nudge) when there is a need, even if it's only to attend to their
> retirement funds.

Completely off with the fucking fairys, as always.

>>> and is carried out over a period of years or decades.
>>> Over those time scales, secure communications
>>> become a difficult and important subject.

>> Like hell it does now.

>>> Before the Internet, and indeed before mass-market television
>>> and radio, numerous methods towards this end must have
>>> been developed, most often I suppose involving retail fronts
>>> and the like. With the advent of the Internet, and internetworked
>>> communications, it is interesting to speculate on
>>> advances that may have been made in this field.

>> Bugger, you've worked it out...

>> Curtains for you, boy...

> I will await the mobile execution vans presently.

We don't bother with vans anymore.
We just kill you via your drug supply now.
So many of you stupid druggys end up
killing yourselves that there isnt even
an unexpected death anymore.

[Peter Flass]

On 11/2/2012 9:10 PM, Uncle Steve wrote:
>
> Sure, dead drops in the toilet at Starbucks is always an option, but
> television and (less so newspapers) are viable. Consider that
> supposedly friendly nations still spy on each other, and with the
> magic of cable and satellite TV, forward agents only need to have a
> basic television package to get their signals. The problem they have
> to wrestle with is that any given station or program has only so much
> bandwidth available for covert traffic, so how do they decide what is
> important enough to allocate what resources? I don't know, and as a
> civilian out of the loop in regards to such matters, all I can do is
> speculate.

For all we know, infomercials are sponsored by spy agencies and carry
coded messages among the product pitches. They're regularly scheduled
and *never* preempted. The network or TV station wouldn't have to know
anything about it.

--
Pete

[Uncle Steve]

Yeah, the net is so much more secure what with all of the traffic
analysis and snooping by every three-letter-agency big enough to
cobble together a roomfull of rack-mounted blades.

> >Consider that supposedly friendly nations still spy on each other,
> >and with the magic of cable and satellite TV, forward agents only
> >need to have a basic television package to get their signals.
>
> And its MUCH more viable to get them to use the net so you
> don't have to fart around taking over the news room of a TV
> station so you can get your messages into the news service etc.
>
> Which might just be why they don't bother to do it your way anymore.

Who said anything about "taking over a newsroom"? Those idiot talking
heads don't have to do anything other than read their shitty little
teleprompters. Do you really insist that they have to be "in" on any
scheme intended to pass covert messages? Such messages don't have to
be obviously unique like "Kwazy Wabbit" or similar. Utterly mundane
constructions accompanied by a reasonably uncommon name are more than
sufficient.

Since you have worked in the television industry and the intelligence
community for decades before retiring, recently you must be the expert
on these matters, so I guess we ought to consider you an authority on
covert channels in broadcast media.

> >The problem they have to wrestle with is that any given
> >station or program has only so much bandwidth available
> >for covert traffic, so how do they decide what is important
> >enough to allocate what resources?
>
> Don't even need to bother when the net is used instead.
>
> You're completely off with the fucking fairys, as always.

I hope there's a private interest blowing their cash in paying you to
write your idiot drivel. The public shouldn't have to foot the bill
for such a moron like you.

> >I don't know,
>
> That's always been obvious.
>
> >and as a civilian out of the loop in regards
> >to such matters, all I can do is speculate.
>
> And keep making a VERY spectacular fool of yourself
> when you cant even manage to get the basics right.

Do you ever speak out of just one side of your mouth at any given time
to let the other side take a rest? Or are you blessed with two
completely independent faces?

> >>>Contrived news copy read on-air would seem completely
> >>>innocent to anyone who was not looking for a particular
> >>>signal, and as a commonplace broadcast medium does
> >>>not require special (and suspicious) equipment.
>
> >>Sure, but that's just as true of a mobile/cell phone today.
>
> >Not a broadcast medium,
>
> That's just plain wrong with the net when used from that phone.
>
> >although innocent-seeming chatter with Aunt Elinor back
> >home could theoretically be intractable to interception.
>
> And with twitter when read on that phone in spades.
>
> >A broadcast medium is necessarily more secure.
>
> That's just plain wrong, particularly with
> how you get the messages broadcast.

You've already decided what you're going to "believe" and this is
only a practical application of your idiotic reality filter. If
reality was traffic lights and road signs, you'd be dead in a ditch
somewhere in no time, your car a total wreck. Nobody would care
except you'd probably take out a bus-load of kids when you lost
control.

> >Even books might be usable for this purpose.
>
> But the net is vastly more viable.

But what about stainless steel cutlery? Unique markings could be
encoded on the handles! Except they'd have to be made in the USA,
otherwise the Sikhs would get at our codes!

Moron.

> >>>Our putative spy might only be required to listen to nightly
> >>>network news broadcasts (or shortwave radio), or particular
> >>>television programs in order to receive pre-arranged signals.
>
> >>Gets a tad tricky getting the exact format message into that news
> >>broadcast without anyone noticing whats going on in the TV station tho.
>
> >Bullshit.
>
> Fact.
>
> >What about a popular sit-com like the Simpson's or 30-Rock?
>
> Have fun explaining how you get even just one
> scriptwriter absolutely guaranteed to be involved.

I don't have to "explain" how a writing team is suborned or
infiltrated. You have to show that it is impossible. Drug addictions
and blackmail, anyone?

> >>MUCH easier to just have the message up on a
> >>web page that otherwise looks very innocuous etc.
> >>You can even just do it with a comment made on
> >>a broadcast news item by a member of the public
> >>so there would be no suspicion when you spy
> >>happens to browse the news service online etc.
>
> >>Fucking sight easier to do that than to have
> >>control of the TV News broadcast so you can
> >>put your own coded message on that.
>
> >There are lots of possible schemes.
>
> And yours is completely stupid now.

You're just insecure at the idea that people might get ideas that you
don't approve of.

> >What did they do before the web,
>
> What was done in wartime when the law allowed the system
> to have some say on what was broadcast is nothing like the
> situation after the war had ended and before the web.

You've got NOTHING but unsupported claims and ad homenim. I like
these subjects because assholes like you cannot discuss them in any
way rationally. You'd be afraid of advancing a cogent argument lest
it lead to further reasoned discussion. So you make blanked denials
without the slightest hint of a fact in support of them, and attack
the writer. If you had your "Internet Kill Switch" you'd censor what
I write without a second thought. Clearly the filthy book-burners
have evolved with the Internet's growth in popularity.

> >and why would any established infrastructure to that end
> >be retired merely because the web offers new possibilities?
>
> Because the web is a fucking sight easier way to get messages
> out and is completely and utterly secure. Broadcasting isnt.

Yeah, kill the conversation. Remember kiddies: KILL KILL KILL.

> >>>The same might be said of newspaper publications.
>
> >>Even harder with so many of them going broke now.
>
> >Yes, so sad there are fewer classified advertisements
> >in which to hide official traffic.
>
> MUCH more viable to use the web instead.
>
> Even ebay is a hell of a lot more viable than classified ads.

Except for those pesky IP addresses.

> >>>Obviously, most spying does not involve rapid
> >>>infiltration, blow shit up, rapid ex-filtration,
>
> >>Very little of it even involves any personal visits etc anymore.
>
> >Oh, I don't doubt spies still go on "vacation", (hint hint, nudge
> >nudge) when there is a need, even if it's only to attend to their
> >retirement funds.
>
> Completely off with the fucking fairys, as always.

KILL!

> >>>and is carried out over a period of years or decades.
> >>>Over those time scales, secure communications
> >>>become a difficult and important subject.
>
> >>Like hell it does now.
>
> >>>Before the Internet, and indeed before mass-market television
> >>>and radio, numerous methods towards this end must have
> >>>been developed, most often I suppose involving retail fronts
> >>>and the like. With the advent of the Internet, and internetworked
> >>>communications, it is interesting to speculate on
> >>>advances that may have been made in this field.
>
> >>Bugger, you've worked it out...
>
> >>Curtains for you, boy...
>
> >I will await the mobile execution vans presently.
>
> We don't bother with vans anymore.
> We just kill you via your drug supply now.
> So many of you stupid druggys end up
> killing yourselves that there isnt even
> an unexpected death anymore.

So now I'm a drug addict. Are you sure that isn't YOUR problem?

[plonk]

[Uncle Steve]

True enough, and late-night television is cheaper than prime-time.
The problem is bandwidth. Even with a 7/24 TV station utterly
committed to sending covert traffic, there is a limited amount of
information they can ride on their programming without it becoming
tractable to intercept some of it. While the vast majority of the
public are going to be oblivious to this sort of thing, people in the
know will be looking so any use of broadcast media to this end must be
subtle, which limits the available bandwidth. Advertising companies
would be a good attack vector, as much as television program
production companies, columnists, writers, etc.

I suppose the need in this regard depends on how much spying and
espionage relies on these corner-cases of covert communications. One
of the primary objectives of network television is to induce people to
buy the products made by television advertisers, whose products are
increasingly featured within the television programs themselves.
There's only so much traffic that can ride on top of that primary
purpose before it is affected by a third-party agenda and people start
taking notice. Such covert messaging should be rare to be effective.

[Michael Black]

And since they repeat so often, who's going to pay enough attention to
notice if something has changed?

For that matter, if something did change, it could be chalked up to the
company trying for better returns. I gather direct mail campaigns go
through a few iterations, hoping to find just the right tone to get the
best response. So if John Sebastian suddenly said something different on
that Time-Life music collection, nobody would suspect it's a message aimed
at agents out there.

Michael

[Uncle Steve]

On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 04:17:50PM +0100, Morten Reistad wrote:
> In article <k72vco$8hb$1...@dont-email.me>,

> What is wrong about dumping some regular steganographic messages
> on Usenet, just making them look like some kook in a newagroup?
>
> Or, embed messages in some of the porn that takes up about a fifth
> of the total internet bandwidth?
>
> You can even combine these.
>
> The decoding/encoding device doesn't have to be obvious. It can be
> an mp3 player, smartphone, remote control, and of course a pc or
> lots of ofter devices.
>
> There are still two unused bits in the GPS frames, they would give
> a few hunded bps of broadcast bandwidth.
>
> -- mrr
>
> who regularly use three layers of encryption with separate key
> management. First the WiFi WPA2/PSK layer, then a vpn with tls/aes,
> then ssh with another tls/aes layer.
>
> I wonder if some TLA is using their farms of servers to find these
> usenet postings inside of all that.

Internet based schemes presuppose a somewhat computer-literate
recipient. Before the Internet and BBS systems, such persons would be
rare. As little as one generation ago, reliance on covert
communications would be limited to television, radio, and print
publications. I suspect investments in this regard by the
intelligence community would not be thrown away just because the
Internet allows new channels.

Special radios designed to receive directional satellite broadcasts
may have been used, but what happens when someone accidentally leaves
the receiver in a taxi cab with their purse? A reliance on widely
available entrenched communications infrastructure is a zero point of
failure unless someone talks, and so-called official secret acts would
impose harsh penalties. Not to mention that anyone blabbing to the
media would be endangering their countrymen if we hypothesize a
journalist and publication with the balls to publish anything at all
on a subject like this, and why would they?

[blec]

"Uncle Steve" <stev...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:eddc47859e...@gmail.com...

Just as secure as your TV broadcasting stupidity.

>> >Consider that supposedly friendly nations still spy on each other,
>> >and with the magic of cable and satellite TV, forward agents only
>> >need to have a basic television package to get their signals.
>>
>> And its MUCH more viable to get them to use the net so you
>> don't have to fart around taking over the news room of a TV
>> station so you can get your messages into the news service etc.
>>
>> Which might just be why they don't bother to do it your way anymore.

> Who said anything about "taking over a newsroom"? Those idiot talking
> heads don't have to do anything other than read their shitty little
> teleprompters.

You still have to get your shit into those.

> Do you really insist that they have to be "in" on
> any scheme intended to pass covert messages?

Having fun thrashing that straw man ?

> Such messages don't have to be obviously unique like "Kwazy
> Wabbit" or similar. Utterly mundane constructions accompanied
> by a reasonably uncommon name are more than sufficient.

Still difficult to get that onto the teleprompter.

> Since you have worked in the television industry and the intelligence
> community for decades before retiring, recently you must be the expert
> on these matters, so I guess we ought to consider you an authority on
> covert channels in broadcast media.

You'll end up completely blind if you don't watch out, child.

>> >The problem they have to wrestle with is that any given
>> >station or program has only so much bandwidth available
>> >for covert traffic, so how do they decide what is important
>> >enough to allocate what resources?
>>
>> Don't even need to bother when the net is used instead.
>>
>> You're completely off with the fucking fairys, as always.

> I hope there's a private interest blowing their cash in paying you to
> write your idiot drivel. The public shouldn't have to foot the bill
> for such a moron like you.

You'll end up completely blind if you don't watch out, child.

>> >I don't know,
>>
>> That's always been obvious.
>>
>> >and as a civilian out of the loop in regards
>> >to such matters, all I can do is speculate.
>>
>> And keep making a VERY spectacular fool of yourself
>> when you cant even manage to get the basics right.

> Do you ever speak out of just one side of your mouth at any given time
> to let the other side take a rest? Or are you blessed with two
> completely independent faces?

You never ever could bullshit your way out of a wet paper bag, child.

>> >>>Contrived news copy read on-air would seem completely
>> >>>innocent to anyone who was not looking for a particular
>> >>>signal, and as a commonplace broadcast medium does
>> >>>not require special (and suspicious) equipment.
>>
>> >>Sure, but that's just as true of a mobile/cell phone today.
>>
>> >Not a broadcast medium,
>>
>> That's just plain wrong with the net when used from that phone.
>>
>> >although innocent-seeming chatter with Aunt Elinor back
>> >home could theoretically be intractable to interception.
>>
>> And with twitter when read on that phone in spades.
>>
>> >A broadcast medium is necessarily more secure.
>>
>> That's just plain wrong, particularly with
>> how you get the messages broadcast.

> You've already decided what you're going to "believe" and this is
> only a practical application of your idiotic reality filter. If
> reality was traffic lights and road signs, you'd be dead in a ditch
> somewhere in no time, your car a total wreck. Nobody would care
> except you'd probably take out a bus-load of kids when you lost
> control.

You never ever could bullshit your way out of a wet paper bag, child.

>> >Even books might be usable for this purpose.
>>
>> But the net is vastly more viable.

> But what about stainless steel cutlery? Unique markings could be
> encoded on the handles! Except they'd have to be made in the USA,
> otherwise the Sikhs would get at our codes!

You never ever could bullshit your way out of a wet paper bag, child.

> Moron.

Your sig is sposed to be last, with a line with just -- on it in front of
it, child.

>> >>>Our putative spy might only be required to listen to nightly
>> >>>network news broadcasts (or shortwave radio), or particular
>> >>>television programs in order to receive pre-arranged signals.
>>
>> >>Gets a tad tricky getting the exact format message into that news
>> >>broadcast without anyone noticing whats going on in the TV station tho.
>>
>> >Bullshit.
>>
>> Fact.
>>
>> >What about a popular sit-com like the Simpson's or 30-Rock?
>>
>> Have fun explaining how you get even just one
>> scriptwriter absolutely guaranteed to be involved.

> I don't have to "explain" how a writing team is suborned or infiltrated.
> You have to show that it is impossible. Drug addictions

You'd be the expert on that, child.

> and blackmail, anyone?

And just how do you ensure that those you get addicted
don't blow themselves away, child ?

>> >>MUCH easier to just have the message up on a
>> >>web page that otherwise looks very innocuous etc.
>> >>You can even just do it with a comment made on
>> >>a broadcast news item by a member of the public
>> >>so there would be no suspicion when you spy
>> >>happens to browse the news service online etc.
>>
>> >>Fucking sight easier to do that than to have
>> >>control of the TV News broadcast so you can
>> >>put your own coded message on that.
>>
>> >There are lots of possible schemes.
>>
>> And yours is completely stupid now.

> You're just insecure at the idea that people
> might get ideas that you don't approve of.

Any 2 year old could leave that for dead, child.

>> >What did they do before the web,
>>
>> What was done in wartime when the law allowed the system
>> to have some say on what was broadcast is nothing like the
>> situation after the war had ended and before the web.

> You've got NOTHING but unsupported claims and ad homenim.

Corse you never ever do anything like that yourself, eh child ?

<reams of your puerile shit any 2 year old could leave for dead flushed
where it belongs>

>> >and why would any established infrastructure to that end
>> >be retired merely because the web offers new possibilities?
>>
>> Because the web is a fucking sight easier way to get messages
>> out and is completely and utterly secure. Broadcasting isnt.
>
> Yeah, kill the conversation. Remember kiddies: KILL KILL KILL.
>
>> >>>The same might be said of newspaper publications.
>>
>> >>Even harder with so many of them going broke now.
>>
>> >Yes, so sad there are fewer classified advertisements
>> >in which to hide official traffic.
>>
>> MUCH more viable to use the web instead.
>>
>> Even ebay is a hell of a lot more viable than classified ads.
>
> Except for those pesky IP addresses.

Completely trivial to fake, stupid.

Always have been, child.

> Are you sure that isn't YOUR problem?

Yep.

> [plonk]

Fat lot of good that will ever do you, child.

[blec]

"Uncle Steve" <stev...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:e51c32f825...@gmail.com...

Nope.

> Before the Internet and BBS systems, such persons would be rare.

And now they arent.

The only real problem would be with your real dinosaur spies like Barb
who would likely burst a blood vessel or sumfin if you made them read
facebook to get their messages from the goons back home in the dungeons.

> As little as one generation ago, reliance on covert communications
> would be limited to television, radio, and print publications.

And now the real world has moved on just a tad.

> I suspect investments in this regard by the intelligence community
> would not be thrown away just because the Internet allows new channels.

And that's why no one is actually stupid enough to let
you have any say what so ever on any policy at all, ever.

That and your drug habit.

> Special radios designed to receive directional satellite broadcasts
> may have been used, but what happens when someone accidentally
> leaves the receiver in a taxi cab with their purse?

That's why mobile/cellphones make a hell of a lot more sense now.

> A reliance on widely available entrenched communications
> infrastructure is a zero point of failure unless someone talks,
> and so-called official secret acts would impose harsh penalties.

That last hasn't stopped them, stupid.

> Not to mention that anyone blabbing to the
> media would be endangering their countrymen

That last hasn't stopped them, stupid.

> if we hypothesize a journalist and publication with the balls to
> publish anything at all on a subject like this, and why would they?

Because of the notoriety they get, stupid. Have a look at Manning sometime.

[Uncle Steve]

On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 06:44:09PM +0100, Morten Reistad wrote:
> In article <5511f19dd3...@gmail.com>,
>
> We don't have to even inform the makers of television content. They
> can keep churning out their game shows, talk hosts, reality series,
> slanted news coverage, and infomersials. And ads.
>
> The levels of bandwidth used in broadcast media are so staggeringly
> much higher than what would be useful for clandestine communications,
> that hiding it gives you thousands of alternatives.
>
> Even a super-compressed TV station uses about 2 megabits of sustained
> traffic. That is when you regularly see the pixelation effects.
> A lousy over-compressed radio uses 128 kilobits, but that is so low
> people will balk at the music and quality of the adverts; so feeds
> below 192 kilobits are rare.

I was primarily considering coding schemes that don't require anything
more complicated than the human ear and pre-arranged code-phrases. In
the eighties and nineties, any decoding machine would be large enough
to be discovered in a determined search of a premises by potentially
unfriendly authorities.

> This newsgroup has a sustained bandwith use of 15 baud; 6 if we
> drop the quotes. I would assert that having access to communications
> assets of a few scores of baud, sustained, would be more than
> enough for a pretty big spy network.

Messages would necessarily be short and infrequent in this scenario,
and you're correct. A few thousand American agents living in Canada
could be sent instructions with a few bits an hour embedded in the
carrier medium. We're not talking about paragraphs and paragraphs of
data, although they might need a significantly larger channel for
information returning from the field but that is a separate problem
entirely.

> The total telegram and telex capacity between the US and the UK
> during WW2 never exceeded 5000 baud. They coordinated the biggest
> war in history through that, in addition to doing business as
> usual.

Convoys crossing the Atlantic must have carried quite a bit of traffic
as well, but that isn't real-time. Is it possible they used radio?
We always hear of the Brits cracking Enigma, but wouldn't the Allies
have had or wanted a similar capability? The disclosure of wartime
records was always something of a war of omission; they don't really
like to talk about any of it. I suspect a lot of espionage *analysis*
involves extracting as much as possible from small bits of
information, which is the province of experts. The layperson is at a
disadvantage in the discussion of such matters primarily because the
day-to-day context of intelligence operations is as good as another
world to them. A show like "Person of Interest" distorts the reality
in the service of its entertainment narrative, and obviously the
writers won't themselves be trained in matters of spycraft. All they
can do is write stories that will entertain their target audience in
the hopes they will sit there for the advertisements.

> One thing that cable tv and internet companies have to contend
> with is that commercial contracts by "the system" absolutely
> and totally forbids any form of recoding of content. This means
> that the bitstream from the advertiser goes directly from the
> show encoder to the consumer box unaltered. It can be framed, e.g.
> in ATM or IP, but content bits are holy.

If the advertising company is in the loop, they can add your
hypothetical encoding during the editing process. They already use
nonlinear editing software so adding the steganography software to the
pipeline is trivial. My approach requires the copy-writers fashioning
the text the actors speak; yours only requires suborning the editing
staff.

> So, let us assume 100 baud, about 7 times what this newsgroup
> consumes. That is 4 bits out of ca 80000 for every
> TV frame. This is about one order of magnitude less than the
> unassigned bits in the current video encryption standards. Or
> four bit changes per frame. You can hide this very well inside
> a rigged dct encoder, subtly changing hues in a small part of the
> picture.

You've also got the audio stream to work with, closed captioning
streams, etc. The only trouble is that you need equipment to decode
the stream and extract your naughty bits. Mind you, HDTV converter
boxes that allow people to watch digital TV on their old analog sets
are fairly inexpensive. I suppose our hypothetical spies can be
assumed to have been supplied with that equipment in advance or might
order one from a web-retail front, but that is beginning to introduce
multiple points of failure.

> And that bit stream reaches the other end totally intact. This
> encoding has actually fostered a whole service industry that
> operate such encoders. You only need a few, select people in
> such an industry; and you are set.
>
> The US telephone network has done something like this since the
> inception of digital signals. One in 8 least significant bits
> from a 8kHz 8-bit signal is "stolen" to provide a 1 kilobit
> framing and signalling channel. This is audible, and is a large
> part of the "uLaw hiss" that all leftopondians are so familiar
> with.
>
> that is a 1:64 "bit theft" without any attempt at concealment.
> Running 100 bps in a tv signal is a 1:8000 "bit theft",and it
> can be concealed very well.
>
> Even the operators of the encoders does not have to know anything,
> this can me coded in the software of the encoders.

Throw in digital satellite radio as well as an alternate transport.
However your scheme doesn't work for pre-digital technologies. NTSC
(known in some broadcast circles as Never The Same Color) loses badly
as a carrier of digital information. All the broadcasters and cable
operators would have to have carefully calibrated equipment from the
tape decks through the amplifiers and transmitters all the way to the
cable head ends. The quality of the signal from tape to the cable
subscriber would need to be really good to encode much information,
but as you say, low bit rates are all that's required and I don't know
enough about analog signaling to quantify the constraints.

There's another theoretically interesting approach. Today's TV's go
all blue-screen when confronted with a non-assigned channel, but way
back in the Nineteen Eighties and earlier a weak or absent signal
produced random "snow" for a picture and the audio amplifier went nuts
trying to amplify the noise floor of the circuit. A crypto stream
resembles nothing so much as noise, so at least in so far as the
civilian population is concerned, a transmitter broadcasting on a
non-assigned channel is probably going to look exactly the same as if
there were no signal. Not going to fool the FCC or the military
because they're going to detect the radio energy if it's not carried
within a shielded cable, so limited utility if we're discussing
cross-border TV transmissions, cable broadcasts, or satellite
television.

Therefore, pre-digital schemes would almost invariably had to rely on
stacking the content with a covert signal. Before 1900, what then?
Newspaper, and perhaps books. An interesting thought. We tend to
forget that anything happened if it didn't happen in the last month,
let alone before we were born. Espionage has been around forever,
and I think I've read of early ciphers used by officials in ancient
Rome, so long before we got the magic of HDTV people have clearly been
working on clandestine communications.

English obviously is great for this sort of thing because words can
and do have multiple meanings. If "owl" is a codeword among your
spies to mean "explode" then the phrase "I saw the barn owl last
night" has an innocuous meaning to an uninformed listener, and an
obvious meaning to members of the group. Everyone's probably heard
about the infamous Masonic handshake, but a handshake among electronic
peripherals is a rigidly defined protocol sequence. They probably
mean an exchange of a conversational nature which would sound
innocuous to the layperson as in the previous example. You can
elaborate on these substitutions schemes arbitrarily. Low bit rates
can be achieved in a text by fooling around with the punctuation
according to a predetermined standard, and much more. With a little
trouble, text can be aligned on page boundaries so it may be taken out
of the context of the narrative if you know what you're looking for.

> >I suppose the need in this regard depends on how much spying and
> >espionage relies on these corner-cases of covert communications. One
> >of the primary objectives of network television is to induce people to
> >buy the products made by television advertisers, whose products are
> >increasingly featured within the television programs themselves.
> >There's only so much traffic that can ride on top of that primary
> >purpose before it is affected by a third-party agenda and people start
> >taking notice. Such covert messaging should be rare to be effective.
>

> You can run the show perfectly intact, ads and all. You just introduce
> some subtle "data loss" in the compression, and it can be so subtle
> that you would notice tens of other compression effects before noticing
> this one. Perfect for TV.
>
> And then you would have to find it, decode it and decrypt it.

That's a game for the big agencies. Non affiliated individuals won't
have the faintest idea of where to start. How do you look for
something that probably isn't there most of the time? Impossible.

[blec]

"Uncle Steve" <stev...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:6ffe35b895...@gmail.com...

> On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 06:44:09PM +0100, Morten Reistad wrote:
>> In article <5511f19dd3...@gmail.com>,
>>
>> We don't have to even inform the makers of television content. They
>> can keep churning out their game shows, talk hosts, reality series,
>> slanted news coverage, and infomersials. And ads.
>>
>> The levels of bandwidth used in broadcast media are so staggeringly
>> much higher than what would be useful for clandestine communications,
>> that hiding it gives you thousands of alternatives.
>>
>> Even a super-compressed TV station uses about 2 megabits of sustained
>> traffic. That is when you regularly see the pixelation effects.
>> A lousy over-compressed radio uses 128 kilobits, but that is so low
>> people will balk at the music and quality of the adverts; so feeds
>> below 192 kilobits are rare.

> I was primarily considering coding schemes that don't require anything
> more complicated than the human ear and pre-arranged code-phrases.

And facebook works a hell of a lot better there than TV broadcasting.

> In the eighties and nineties, any decoding machine would be large enough
> to be discovered in a determined search of a premises by potentially
> unfriendly authorities.

And you don't need anything more than a decent phone now with facebook.

>> This newsgroup has a sustained bandwith use of 15 baud; 6 if we
>> drop the quotes. I would assert that having access to communications
>> assets of a few scores of baud, sustained, would be more than
>> enough for a pretty big spy network.
>
> Messages would necessarily be short and infrequent in this scenario,
> and you're correct. A few thousand American agents living in Canada
> could be sent instructions with a few bits an hour embedded in the
> carrier medium.

But facebook or twitter is a hell of a lot more viable and much
easier to automate at the receiving end too.

> We're not talking about paragraphs and paragraphs of data,

Just what are those hordes of yank spooks in canuckland
actually supposed to be sending back to yankeeland in
your pathetic little drug crazed psychotic fantasyland ?

The PIN numbers for the canuck CF-100s ?

Cant be the PIN numbers of the canuck nukes, they aint got any.

[Peter Flass]

On 11/3/2012 1:44 PM, Morten Reistad wrote:
> In article <5511f19dd3...@gmail.com>,

> Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 07:39:35AM -0400, Peter Flass wrote:
>>> On 11/2/2012 9:10 PM, Uncle Steve wrote:
>>>>
>>> For all we know, infomercials are sponsored by spy agencies and carry
>>> coded messages among the product pitches. They're regularly scheduled
>>> and *never* preempted. The network or TV station wouldn't have to know
>>> anything about it.
>>
>> True enough, and late-night television is cheaper than prime-time.
>> The problem is bandwidth. Even with a 7/24 TV station utterly
>> committed to sending covert traffic, there is a limited amount of
>> information they can ride on their programming without it becoming
>> tractable to intercept some of it. While the vast majority of the
>> public are going to be oblivious to this sort of thing, people in the
>> know will be looking so any use of broadcast media to this end must be
>> subtle, which limits the available bandwidth. Advertising companies
>> would be a good attack vector, as much as television program
>> production companies, columnists, writers, etc.
>

> We don't have to even inform the makers of television content. They
> can keep churning out their game shows, talk hosts, reality series,
> slanted news coverage, and infomersials. And ads.
>
> The levels of bandwidth used in broadcast media are so staggeringly
> much higher than what would be useful for clandestine communications,
> that hiding it gives you thousands of alternatives.
>
> Even a super-compressed TV station uses about 2 megabits of sustained
> traffic. That is when you regularly see the pixelation effects.
> A lousy over-compressed radio uses 128 kilobits, but that is so low
> people will balk at the music and quality of the adverts; so feeds
> below 192 kilobits are rare.

That's a thought, but it opens you up to discovery by some bright
engineer who wonders "what this little dohickey here does." The
advantage of the infomercials is that they're shot by the advertiser,
probably usually by a small-time operator, and delivered to the network
for broadcast. Whatever TLA could shoot it themselves or thru a front
and there's less chance of a leak.

--
Pete

[Shmuel Metz]

In <alpine.LNX.2.02.1...@darkstar.example.org>, on
11/02/2012

at 10:41 AM, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> said:

>Yes, but were they used to do the mundane decodng of morse code
>before they became cheap?

I don't know about Morse Code, but Neiman Marcus was selling a
Honeywell DDP 316 as a kitchen computer.

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the
right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail. Reply to
domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me. Do not
reply to spam...@library.lspace.org

[Peter Flass]

On 11/3/2012 3:49 PM, Uncle Steve wrote:
>
> Messages would necessarily be short and infrequent in this scenario,
> and you're correct. A few thousand American agents living in Canada
> could be sent instructions with a few bits an hour embedded in the
> carrier medium. We're not talking about paragraphs and paragraphs of
> data, although they might need a significantly larger channel for
> information returning from the field but that is a separate problem
> entirely.

All the message might have to say would be "go to drop A at the
prearranged time tomorrow to pick up a message." That might need as
little as the mention of a particular name or zip code. What would
American agents in Canada be looking for, secret hockey plays?

--
Pete

[Uncle Steve]

They would be laying the groundwork for an invasion to steal our oil
and natural gas. Major General (retired) Richard Rohmer wrote of your
dastardly American plot many years ago in a book called "Ultimatum",
although in it he merely suggested that there would be economic
sanctions and not a full out invasion.

[blec]

"Uncle Steve" <stev...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:3a08113797...@gmail.com...

> On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 07:36:26PM -0400, Peter Flass wrote:
>> On 11/3/2012 3:49 PM, Uncle Steve wrote:
>> >
>> >Messages would necessarily be short and infrequent in this scenario,
>> >and you're correct. A few thousand American agents living in Canada
>> >could be sent instructions with a few bits an hour embedded in the
>> >carrier medium. We're not talking about paragraphs and paragraphs of
>> >data, although they might need a significantly larger channel for
>> >information returning from the field but that is a separate problem
>> >entirely.
>>
>> All the message might have to say would be "go to drop A at the
>> prearranged time tomorrow to pick up a message." That might need as
>> little as the mention of a particular name or zip code. What would
>> American agents in Canada be looking for, secret hockey plays?

> They would be laying the groundwork for
> an invasion to steal our oil and natural gas.

Completely off with the fucking fairys, as always.

No need for any yankee spies to be in your pathetic
excuse for a country to do anything like that.

Let alone any need for any stupid mechanism for using TV
broadcasts to get any of the info back to yankeeland in spades.

> Major General (retired) Richard Rohmer wrote of your dastardly
> American plot many years ago in a book called "Ultimatum",

There's a reason he was retired, stupid.

> although in it he merely suggested that there would
> be economic sanctions and not a full out invasion.

Completely off with the fucking fairys, almost as bad as you.

[grey...@mail.com]

On 2012-11-04, Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 07:36:26PM -0400, Peter Flass wrote:
>> On 11/3/2012 3:49 PM, Uncle Steve wrote:
>> >
>> >Messages would necessarily be short and infrequent in this scenario,
>> >and you're correct. A few thousand American agents living in Canada
>> >could be sent instructions with a few bits an hour embedded in the
>> >carrier medium. We're not talking about paragraphs and paragraphs of
>> >data, although they might need a significantly larger channel for
>> >information returning from the field but that is a separate problem
>> >entirely.
>>
>> All the message might have to say would be "go to drop A at the
>> prearranged time tomorrow to pick up a message." That might need as
>> little as the mention of a particular name or zip code. What would
>> American agents in Canada be looking for, secret hockey plays?
>
> They would be laying the groundwork for an invasion to steal our oil
> and natural gas. Major General (retired) Richard Rohmer wrote of your
> dastardly American plot many years ago in a book called "Ultimatum",
> although in it he merely suggested that there would be economic
> sanctions and not a full out invasion.
>

I remember years ago, the ice-breaker/oil-tanker Manhatten did an
exploratory voyage through (roughly) the old North-West passage, and
there were a few chilly moments when it was noticed that they had
not asked for permission.


--
maus
.
.
...

[Michael Black]

That wasn't so much spying (though it gave them a chance to look things
over) as an incursion into Canadian territory. And as I recall, there was
some debate about whether it's Canadian territory or not, so Canada has
made some effort to ensure it is.

Apparently the passage is now much more available, less ice to block the
way.

Michael

[Stan Barr]

On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 15:49:36 -0400, Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Convoys crossing the Atlantic must have carried quite a bit of traffic
> as well, but that isn't real-time. Is it possible they used radio?
> We always hear of the Brits cracking Enigma, but wouldn't the Allies
> have had or wanted a similar capability?

I think you mean the Axis...
Indeed they did. Royal Navy codes were broken on a number of occasions.
Enigma decrypts gave the game away though.
Merchant ships were barred from transmitting unless under attack or
actually sinking. They usually received orders from the convoy leader
via flag or flashing light.

Incidentally the Atlantic Convoy control room still exists under
Liverpool and is open to visitors.
http://www.liverpoolwarmuseum.co.uk/history/
should you be in the area...

> The disclosure of wartime
> records was always something of a war of omission; they don't really
> like to talk about any of it. I suspect a lot of espionage *analysis*
> involves extracting as much as possible from small bits of
> information, which is the province of experts. The layperson is at a
> disadvantage in the discussion of such matters primarily because the
> day-to-day context of intelligence operations is as good as another
> world to them. A show like "Person of Interest" distorts the reality
> in the service of its entertainment narrative, and obviously the
> writers won't themselves be trained in matters of spycraft. All they
> can do is write stories that will entertain their target audience in
> the hopes they will sit there for the advertisements.
>

Absolutely. I research these things a bit because of my involvement
in radio and have a fairly extensive library, but there's still a lot
of stuff that remains classified. Two books - both called "GCHQ" - by
Nigel West and Richard J. Aldrich are very useful. The official MI6
history is quite informative on espionage matters in general.

--
Cheers,
Stan Barr plan.b .at. dsl .dot. pipex .dot. com

The future was never like this!

[Michael Black]

On Sun, 4 Nov 2012, Stan Barr wrote:

> Absolutely. I research these things a bit because of my involvement
> in radio and have a fairly extensive library, but there's still a lot
> of stuff that remains classified. Two books - both called "GCHQ" - by
> Nigel West and Richard J. Aldrich are very useful. The official MI6
> history is quite informative on espionage matters in general.
>

Did you read R.V. Jones' "Most Secret War"? I read it a decade or two
back, I remember it as being quite interesting, not just about what was
gathered, but aobut the very process of intelligence gathering. I seem to
recall he even specifically mentioned radio amateurs.

Michael

[Stan Barr]

On 4 Nov 2012 16:19:01 GMT, Stan Barr <pla...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
> The official MI6
> history is quite informative on espionage matters in general.
>

I meant MI5...

[Uncle Steve]

Many years ago I started to read a book call "Secret War", by a Felix
Mumble about some of his experiences in Europe during the Second World
War. Unfortunately I did not have much of the mindset at the time to
properly understand or appreciate his tales. It disappeared from the
UofT Robarts Library stacks, and was deleted from their electronic
catalogue. I had heard of it by reading of its references in the
endnotes of a paper published in (I think) The Journal of Conflict
Studies, by David A. Perry. Haven't had the time since to hunt it
down again, but it's still on my reading list.

[Patrick Scheible]

Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 07:36:26PM -0400, Peter Flass wrote:
>> On 11/3/2012 3:49 PM, Uncle Steve wrote:
>> >
>> >Messages would necessarily be short and infrequent in this scenario,
>> >and you're correct. A few thousand American agents living in Canada
>> >could be sent instructions with a few bits an hour embedded in the
>> >carrier medium. We're not talking about paragraphs and paragraphs of
>> >data, although they might need a significantly larger channel for
>> >information returning from the field but that is a separate problem
>> >entirely.
>>
>> All the message might have to say would be "go to drop A at the
>> prearranged time tomorrow to pick up a message." That might need as
>> little as the mention of a particular name or zip code. What would
>> American agents in Canada be looking for, secret hockey plays?
>
> They would be laying the groundwork for an invasion to steal our oil
> and natural gas. Major General (retired) Richard Rohmer wrote of your
> dastardly American plot many years ago in a book called "Ultimatum",
> although in it he merely suggested that there would be economic
> sanctions and not a full out invasion.

Why would we invade or sanction Canada for their oil and gas? They
already are happy to sell it to us.

-- Patrick

[grey...@mail.com]

On 2012-11-04, Stan Barr <pla...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 15:49:36 -0400, Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Convoys crossing the Atlantic must have carried quite a bit of traffic
>> as well, but that isn't real-time. Is it possible they used radio?
>> We always hear of the Brits cracking Enigma, but wouldn't the Allies
>> have had or wanted a similar capability?
>
> I think you mean the Axis...
> Indeed they did. Royal Navy codes were broken on a number of occasions.
> Enigma decrypts gave the game away though.
> Merchant ships were barred from transmitting unless under attack or
> actually sinking. They usually received orders from the convoy leader
> via flag or flashing light.
>

[I am _not_ an expert in radio, but]

AFAIK, in the early 1940s usual receiving sets detected several
frequencies (doh!), but channeled them through one for use..
So, a radio set could be detected by scanning for that
frequency, and therefor indicate where a ship was.

(I remember announcements in old magazines (National Geographic)
etc, and newspapers warning about using ordinary radio receivers
aboard ship.)

[Shmuel Metz]

In <eddc47859e...@gmail.com>, on 11/03/2012

at 12:42 PM, Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> said:

>Do you ever speak out of just one side of your mouth at any given
>time to let the other side take a rest? Or are you blessed with
>two completely independent faces?

It's not the mouths that s/h/it is speaking out of.

>You'd be afraid of advancing a cogent argument

S/h/it wouldn't know how.

[Charlie Gibbs]

In article <3a08113797...@gmail.com>, stev...@gmail.com

(Uncle Steve) writes:

> On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 07:36:26PM -0400, Peter Flass wrote:
>
>> On 11/3/2012 3:49 PM, Uncle Steve wrote:
>>
>>> Messages would necessarily be short and infrequent in this scenario,
>>> and you're correct. A few thousand American agents living in Canada
>>> could be sent instructions with a few bits an hour embedded in the
>>> carrier medium. We're not talking about paragraphs and paragraphs
>>> of data, although they might need a significantly larger channel for
>>> information returning from the field but that is a separate problem
>>> entirely.
>>
>> All the message might have to say would be "go to drop A at the
>> prearranged time tomorrow to pick up a message." That might need as
>> little as the mention of a particular name or zip code. What would
>> American agents in Canada be looking for, secret hockey plays?
>
> They would be laying the groundwork for an invasion to steal our oil
> and natural gas. Major General (retired) Richard Rohmer wrote of your
> dastardly American plot many years ago in a book called "Ultimatum",
> although in it he merely suggested that there would be economic
> sanctions and not a full out invasion.

It's not that big a thing. The real concern is China. And since
the federal government is now negotiating a sell-out at the highest
levels through official channels, it's a non-issue.

Maybe China and the U.S. can fight it out on our soil.

--
/~\ cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

[Dave Garland]

On 11/4/2012 1:29 PM, Patrick Scheible wrote:

> Why would we invade or sanction Canada for their oil and gas? They
> already are happy to sell it to us.

That's so we can sell ours to someone else. The US is one of the top
10 oil-exporting countries, and exports just about as much as Canada.
Remember that, the next time someone tries to tell you about the
need to import oil.

[Dave Garland]

The normal "superhetrodyne" receiver contains one (or more) local
oscillators that are used in converting the radio signal down to
audio. These oscillators do radiate signals (typically at 455KHz)
that can be picked up by sensitive receivers designed for that
purpose. Or by your airplane's electronic (that's the concern behind
restricting the use of electronics by passengers). That's how the
British could have vans that detected unlicensed radios (apparently
these days they still look for unlicensed TVs, but no longer audio
radios).

But I kind of doubt that a shipboard receiver would generate enough
signal to be detectable over any great distance. Maybe by a nearby
U-boat or airplane, though.

[Rod Speed]

<grey...@mail.com> wrote in message
news:slrnk9dgda.2...@gmaus.org...

> On 2012-11-04, Stan Barr <pla...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 15:49:36 -0400, Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Convoys crossing the Atlantic must have carried quite a bit of traffic
>>> as well, but that isn't real-time. Is it possible they used radio?
>>> We always hear of the Brits cracking Enigma, but wouldn't the Allies
>>> have had or wanted a similar capability?
>>
>> I think you mean the Axis...
>> Indeed they did. Royal Navy codes were broken on a number of occasions.
>> Enigma decrypts gave the game away though.
>> Merchant ships were barred from transmitting unless under attack or
>> actually sinking. They usually received orders from the convoy leader
>> via flag or flashing light.

> [I am _not_ an expert in radio, but]

That's obvious.

> AFAIK, in the early 1940s usual receiving sets detected several
> frequencies (doh!), but channeled them through one for use..
> So, a radio set could be detected by scanning for that
> frequency, and therefor indicate where a ship was.

God knows what this about, its very comprehensively garbled.

> (I remember announcements in old magazines (National Geographic)
> etc, and newspapers warning about using ordinary radio receivers
> aboard ship.)

Even sillier.

[Rod Speed]

"Dave Garland" <dave.g...@wizinfo.com> wrote in message
news:k76moj$nr7$1...@dont-email.me...

Nope, that's the IF frequency, the local oscillator doesn't radiate at that
freq.

> that can be picked up by sensitive receivers designed for that purpose.
> Or by your airplane's electronic (that's the concern behind restricting
> the use of electronics by passengers).

Nope, it isnt radios that are restricted.

> That's how the British could have vans that detected unlicensed radios
> (apparently these days they still look for unlicensed TVs, but no longer
> audio radios).

But they do look for video radios.

> But I kind of doubt that a shipboard receiver would generate enough signal
> to be detectable over any great distance.

Corse it doesn't.

> Maybe by a nearby U-boat

Nope, not when they are under water they cant.

> or airplane, though.

Another dud, they would be way outside plane range and
radar works a hell of a lot better from a plane than farting
about trying to DF on the LO of a radio on the ship.

The whole story is completely and utterly mangled.

[Andy Leighton]

Hmmm the US is one of the top oil-producing countries. However it
is still a net importer of oil - and a very large net importer too.

--
Andy Leighton => an...@azaal.plus.com
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_

[Uncle Steve]

A harsh winter among other problems will precipitate a crisis.
Especially now that global cooling is causing severe weather
fluctuations.


Regards,

Uncle Steve

--

Sad news, my lo-al fr-ends. My doctor has diagnosed can-er of the
funny-bone. Chemother-py has failed, and so it was removed last night
in a difficult op-ration. I am now on an organ-donor waiting list,
which now is my last hope to regain a sense of h-mor. I urge you,
especially if you are com-dian, to sign your organ-donor card. If you
are hit by a bus tomorrow, the h-mor you save may be your own.

[blec]

"Uncle Steve" <stev...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:7fbace4f7b...@gmail.com...

> On Sun, Nov 04, 2012 at 11:29:35AM -0800, Patrick Scheible wrote:
>> Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 07:36:26PM -0400, Peter Flass wrote:
>> >> On 11/3/2012 3:49 PM, Uncle Steve wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >Messages would necessarily be short and infrequent in this scenario,
>> >> >and you're correct. A few thousand American agents living in Canada
>> >> >could be sent instructions with a few bits an hour embedded in the
>> >> >carrier medium. We're not talking about paragraphs and paragraphs of
>> >> >data, although they might need a significantly larger channel for
>> >> >information returning from the field but that is a separate problem
>> >> >entirely.
>> >>
>> >> All the message might have to say would be "go to drop A at the
>> >> prearranged time tomorrow to pick up a message." That might need as
>> >> little as the mention of a particular name or zip code. What would
>> >> American agents in Canada be looking for, secret hockey plays?
>> >
>> > They would be laying the groundwork for an invasion to steal our oil
>> > and natural gas. Major General (retired) Richard Rohmer wrote of your
>> > dastardly American plot many years ago in a book called "Ultimatum",
>> > although in it he merely suggested that there would be economic
>> > sanctions and not a full out invasion.
>>
>> Why would we invade or sanction Canada for their oil and gas? They
>> already are happy to sell it to us.

> A harsh winter among other problems will precipitate a crisis.

Bullshit it will. And even if it does, the US can just buy more oil and gas
from Canada, stupid.

> Especially now that global cooling is causing severe weather fluctuations.

[Uncle Steve]

On Sun, Nov 04, 2012 at 02:09:40AM -0500, Shmuel Metz wrote:
> In <eddc47859e...@gmail.com>, on 11/03/2012
> at 12:42 PM, Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> said:
>
> >Do you ever speak out of just one side of your mouth at any given
> >time to let the other side take a rest? Or are you blessed with
> >two completely independent faces?
>
> It's not the mouths that s/h/it is speaking out of.
>
> >You'd be afraid of advancing a cogent argument
>
> S/h/it wouldn't know how.

It does seem that way. Perhaps I might be more persistent if I were
more interested in the field of abnormal psychology.

[Uncle Steve]

Imagine China coming to the rescue in Canada if the US really invaded.
Much hilarity would ensue. Oh the embarrassment.

[Stan Barr]

Yep, got it.
I think you are referring the the Volunteer Interceptors who monitored the
more obscure German transmissions in their own time and submitted logs daily
and supplied a lot of data for Bletchley. They were assigned specific
bands to monitor as often as possible.
I recall one gentleman was elderly and bedridden but had his receiver
by the bed and sent his logs daily to do his bit for the war effort.
None of them officially knew what happened to what they copied, but
I'm sure they could make an educated guess :-)
They were originally recruited to look fer illegal German
transmissions in Britain, but there weren't any so they moved to other
things.

[grey...@mail.com]

On 2012-11-04, Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 04, 2012 at 11:41:54AM -0800, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> In article <3a08113797...@gmail.com>, stev...@gmail.com
>> (Uncle Steve) writes:
>>
>> > On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 07:36:26PM -0400, Peter Flass wrote:
>> >
>> >> On 11/3/2012 3:49 PM, Uncle Steve wrote:
>>
>> Maybe China and the U.S. can fight it out on our soil.
>
> Imagine China coming to the rescue in Canada if the US really invaded.
> Much hilarity would ensue. Oh the embarrassment.

With the numbers of ethnic Chinese in Vancouver (reportedly), they
wouldn't have to fly many in.

[Stan Barr]

A good summary. Two points, The BBC no longer use detector vans, they
have a database of all addresses and just compare that with their list
of current licenses and go visit those who haven't got one :-)
Detection of radio receivers is indeed possible but you have to be so
close you could see the convoy anyway. In the Cold War era a couple
of Russian spy sets were detected by flying over London with a
sensitive receiving set.

[Charlie Gibbs]

In article <slrnk9f57r.2...@gmaus.org>, grey...@mail.com

But they will anyway. The latest agreement in the works bends the
immigration rules so that after taking over our mines, China can
bring in their own workers that aren't subject to pesky limitations
like minimum wages or workplace safety regulations. Can you say
"coolies"?

[Charlie Gibbs]

In article <86pq3tu...@zipcon.net>, k...@zipcon.net

(Patrick Scheible) writes:

> Why would we invade or sanction Canada for their oil and gas?
> They already are happy to sell it to us.

Get in line and be prepared to bid. We're too busy selling out
to China.

[ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk]

In article <alpine.LNX.2.02.1...@darkstar.example.org>,

et...@ncf.ca (Michael Black) wrote:

> I seem to
> recall he even specifically mentioned radio amateurs.

See Y service. They were recruited to listen to German traffic and
record the morse. This was translated and or decrypted by others. There
was also a specific section set up to record non morse transmissions
which were used for Fish.

Ken Young

[Patrick Scheible]

There are lots of ethnic Chinese in Vancouver, but most of them are not
particularly interested in helping the current government of China.

-- Patrick

[Andrew Swallow]

On 05/11/2012 16:48, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> In article <slrnk9f57r.2...@gmaus.org>, grey...@mail.com
> (greymausg) writes:
>
>> On 2012-11-04, Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, Nov 04, 2012 at 11:41:54AM -0800, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>>
>>>> In article <3a08113797...@gmail.com>, stev...@gmail.com
>>>> (Uncle Steve) writes:
>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 07:36:26PM -0400, Peter Flass wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 11/3/2012 3:49 PM, Uncle Steve wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Maybe China and the U.S. can fight it out on our soil.
>>>
>>> Imagine China coming to the rescue in Canada if the US really
>>> invaded. Much hilarity would ensue. Oh the embarrassment.
>>
>> With the numbers of ethnic Chinese in Vancouver (reportedly), they
>> wouldn't have to fly many in.
>
> But they will anyway. The latest agreement in the works bends the
> immigration rules so that after taking over our mines, China can
> bring in their own workers that aren't subject to pesky limitations
> like minimum wages or workplace safety regulations. Can you say
> "coolies"?
>

Let me see if I understand this correctly.
A group of men is being taken to Canada by a Chinese Government
organisation.
They use explosives.
The men have all had military training.
The are of about military age.
They work under discipline. Although the officers are called managers
and sergeants are called what translates as supervisors or gang boss.
Unlike mining villages there are no/few wives and children.
Their camp has similar security to a military base.
In the mornings the Chinese workers at the African mines belonging to
that organisation perform a group exercise that looks like a military drill.

"Coolies" is not my suspicion.
Stick to local workers.

Andrew Swallow

[Walter Banks]

It is a lot more complex that we are just willing to sell oil and gas south.
It is reaching the point where two issues may start to come into play
pricing and environmental damage. It is now becoming possible
to ship oil sands petroleum to Asia and China would like to get
into a bidding war with the US. The US may need to start paying
Canada the real costs of oil and gas.

This is not about the Keystone pipeline which does little to supply
the US with energy. The keystone pipeline is mostly an in and out
using low cost American investment, labour and technology for
processing crude oil.

The environment damage is starting to become a real issue
especially around the oil sands.

As oil exploration goes to the arctic a lot of care and a very large
amount of money will be needed not to make the arctic a wasteland.

In my poor starving student days I worked in the arctic for a
summer and stopped at a 1100 year old inuit camp. The garbage
was still recognizable. This environment cannot tolerate much
environmental damage.

On the the other hand finding a way to capture the generated
greenhouse gasses from a 100,000 years of long freeze as the
arctic melts warms up with global warming.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <3a08113797...@gmail.com>,

Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> wrote:

> They would be laying the groundwork for an invasion to steal our oil
> and natural gas. Major General (retired) Richard Rohmer wrote of your
> dastardly American plot many years ago in a book called "Ultimatum",
> although in it he merely suggested that there would be economic
> sanctions and not a full out invasion.
>
>

> Regards,
>
> Uncle Steve

Belike, the US will be after the water even more.

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[Peter Flass]

Lyndon Larouche's NAWAPA proposal from the 50s.

--
Pete

[Walter Bushell]

In article <k7c1f9$ma4$2...@dont-email.me>,

Who is sometimes referred to as The Roach. That insults roaches.

[Stan Dandy Liver]

On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 16:42:10 -0000, Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 04:25:18PM +1100, Rod Speed wrote:

> [the usual]
[a reply]
>
> [plonk]
>
>
Finally, you've got there!



--
[dash dash space newline 4line sig]

Money/Life question

[Stan Dandy Liver]

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 14:21:50 -0000, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:

> On Sun, 4 Nov 2012, grey...@mail.com wrote:

>
>> On 2012-11-04, Uncle Steve <stev...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Sat, Nov 03, 2012 at 07:36:26PM -0400, Peter Flass wrote:
>>>> On 11/3/2012 3:49 PM, Uncle Steve wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Messages would necessarily be short and infrequent in this scenario,
>>>>> and you're correct. A few thousand American agents living in Canada
>>>>> could be sent instructions with a few bits an hour embedded in the
>>>>> carrier medium. We're not talking about paragraphs and paragraphs of
>>>>> data, although they might need a significantly larger channel for
>>>>> information returning from the field but that is a separate problem
>>>>> entirely.
>>>>
>>>> All the message might have to say would be "go to drop A at the
>>>> prearranged time tomorrow to pick up a message." That might need as
>>>> little as the mention of a particular name or zip code. What would
>>>> American agents in Canada be looking for, secret hockey plays?
>>>

>>> They would be laying the groundwork for an invasion to steal our oil
>>> and natural gas. Major General (retired) Richard Rohmer wrote of your
>>> dastardly American plot many years ago in a book called "Ultimatum",
>>> although in it he merely suggested that there would be economic
>>> sanctions and not a full out invasion.
>>>
>>

>> I remember years ago, the ice-breaker/oil-tanker Manhatten did an
>> exploratory voyage through (roughly) the old North-West passage, and
>> there were a few chilly moments when it was noticed that they had
>> not asked for permission.
>>
> That wasn't so much spying (though it gave them a chance to look things
> over) as an incursion into Canadian territory. And as I recall, there
> was some debate about whether it's Canadian territory or not, so Canada
> has made some effort to ensure it is.
>
> Apparently the passage is now much more available, less ice to block the
> way.
>
> Michael
>
Global ice-retreat at least.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

(it's too late to go that way this year)