# North Korea Resumes Coded Numbers Broadcast--newslink **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 20, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-resumes-coded-numbers-broadcast-newslink/760450 "2016-07-20T21:35:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-resumes-coded-numbers-broadcast-newslink/760450/1 "2016-07-20T21:35:37Z")
Cold War-style coded transmissions resume, after decades of silence. > **[National Post](https://nationalpost.com/category/news/)** > > Read the latest breaking news in Canada and the rest of the world. We bring all of today's top headlines and stories to your fingertips. > [@](#): > > North Korea’s state radio has recently broadcast strings of indecipherable numbers, Seoul officials said Tuesday, in a possible resumption of a Cold War-era method of sending coded messages to spies operating in South Korea. > > A female announcer at the radio station read numbers for 2 minutes on June 24 and 14 minutes on Friday, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry and National Intelligence Service. A copy of those comments provided by the ministry included phrases such as “No. 35 on Page 459” and “No. 55 on Page 913.” > > During the Cold War, Pyongyang sent such numbers via shortwave radio to give missions to agents dispatched to South Korea, according to captured North Korean spies. It later reportedly stopped such broadcasts once it could communicate with its spies overseas via the internet, and as animosities with South Korea eased following a historic inter-Korean summit meeting in 2000. Deep-cover agents, being re-activated? ---
**Author:** ![Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uosdwis_R.Dewoh)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-resumes-coded-numbers-broadcast-newslink/760450/2 "2016-07-20T22:01:07Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > Deep-cover agents, being re-activated? Perhaps, or perhaps, in that honored North Korean tradition, they’re just fucking with everybody. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-resumes-coded-numbers-broadcast-newslink/760450/3 "2016-07-21T01:14:58Z")
Are they in Korean, English, or Spanish? 'Cuz I loves me my numbers stations, and if my daughter gives back my SW maybe I can learn some Korean. ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-resumes-coded-numbers-broadcast-newslink/760450/4 "2016-07-21T03:23:47Z")
Or perhaps Strexcorp Synernists Inc. moved local Numbers Station WZZZ to North Korea from its original location in Night Vale …wonder what Fay has to say about it? ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-resumes-coded-numbers-broadcast-newslink/760450/5 "2016-07-21T13:15:03Z")
The article beat me to it… I’m surprised that anyone would still be using a numbers station. We live in an age with things like file torrents, steganography, PGP key and TOR. A numbers station is basically the least efficient and least flexible way to communicate. They might be just jerking us around, trying to spread fear and get SK to misdirect security resources. The alternative is that they have agents in place so long that they never got trained on modern web tools, and yet they still expect them to be paying attention to radio broadcasts after decades of living in the South. I know there are examples of defectors who genuinely want to go home, but I find it hard to believe a spy or provocateur would still give a damn. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-resumes-coded-numbers-broadcast-newslink/760450/6 "2016-07-21T14:31:38Z")
Could be a technology issue – the had to revert to a backup method of coded comms after their primary method (whatever it was) failed for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uosdwis_R.Dewoh)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-resumes-coded-numbers-broadcast-newslink/760450/7 "2016-07-21T15:01:12Z")
> [@Chihuahua](#): > > The article beat me to it… I’m surprised that anyone would still be using a numbers station. We live in an age with things like file torrents, steganography, PGP key and TOR. A numbers station is basically the least efficient and least flexible way to communicate. Receiving a radio signal is a passive experience that is pretty much impossible to trace. Retrieving a file from the Internet requires active involvement from the recipient and can be traced. If the spy uses TOR he can be caught if the data travels even once through a compromised node.