# The Numbers Station Message ("Mein Fraulein" from Craigslist) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 1, 2006, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059 "2006-06-01T19:59:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/1 "2006-06-01T19:59:57Z")
Has anyone else heard about this message? Someone left it (anonymously, natch) on Craigslist - the poster asked “Mein Fraulein” to call a number, which played a recorded numbers-station-esque message. You can read its [backstory](http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2006/05/31/the-212-796-0735-mystery/) here. The message reads: ```auto Group 415 Group 415 01305 60510 12079 04606 50100 930 **00** 08203 90130 94069 01207 8 **10** 80 17028 01706 90220 73038 01401 70150 15073 00402 00680 12013 12510 00540 04091 01401 30150 86022 09608 10660 02082 05507 00020 **00000** 02208 30290 08022 01200 40710 13065 02709 40190 29014 02200 80020 11083 07300 30260 190 **00** 00700 **00000** 86 86 ``` I just got a copy of David Kahn’s [The Codebreakers](http://david-kahn.com/book-david-kahn-code-codebreakers-cryptography.htm) and thought I might apply some of what I’d read to cracking this. I did not hold out much hope, but then I made one teeny tiny piece of progress: I noted that the numbers, though separated into the canonical groups of five, are really two-digit numbers broken by single zeros with a few exceptions (bolded above). The one exception (“10”) I believe to be a transposition error, and the long strings of zeros can either be “00” standing for something, or “00000” standing for a break or punctuation or an otherwise special character. If my guesses are correct, the refined message reads: ```auto 13 56 51 12 79 46 65 10 93 00 82 39 13 94 69 12 78 18 17 28 17 69 22 73 38 14 17 15 15 73 04 20 68 12 13 12 51 **XX** 54 04 91 14 13 15 86 22 96 81 66 02 82 55 70 02 **XX** 22 83 29 08 22 12 12 04 71 13 65 27 94 19 29 14 22 08 02 11 83 73 03 26 19 07 **86 86** ``` I think the last “86” pair is a signature or an end-block of some sort, since it appears without blocking zeroes in the ciphertext. That leaves 44 unique digraphs with several of the teens repeated 3, 5, and even 6 times. Translating them to mod 26 yields 21 digraphs with a frequency that doesn’t appear to lead to a solution (and would someone really go to all this trouble for a monalphabetic substitution cypher?). Also, I’m not sure what to make of the breaks (“XX” above) which divide the message into three blocks with lengths 37, 16, and 26 respectively (perhaps the fraulein’s dimensions? Egad!). Anyway, I was hoping some cryptologically savvy Dopers had heard of this, tried to crack it, and perhaps wanted to put heads together with me to solve the riddle. If there’s a key, I’m thinking it’s probably “FRAULEIN” or “MEIN FRAULEIN” since those words really stand out in the message’s presentation. Mods, if you think this is Mundane, Pointless, Societal, Humble, or BBQ, feel free to reclassify it as such. I realize this could be considered a “game” post, but I’m also confident that there’s a factual answer to the question of “what does the message say?” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/2 "2006-06-01T22:00:57Z")
At a guess, I’d say that 00 is a symbol just like any other 2-digit symbol in the message, so 00 0 00 is just that symbol repeated twice with the standard single-zero separator between them. And there seem to be enough symbols to allow for capital and lowercase letters, numerals, and punctuation (remember that not all allowed symbols are likely to show up in any given message, since you have rare letters like Q, X, and Z), so cutting it down via mod26 probably isn’t the right route. ---
**Author:** ![douglips](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@douglips](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/douglips)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/3 "2006-06-02T02:58:58Z")
Well, if it’s ASCII, it translates like this: ```auto [CR] 8 3 [FF] O . A [LF] ] [NUL] R ' [CR] ^ E [FF] N [DC2][DC1][FS][DC1] E [SYN] I & [SO][DC1][SI][SI] I [EOT][DC4] D [FF][CR][FF] 3 [NUL] 6 [EOT] [[SO][CR] [SI] V [SYN] ` Q B [STX] R 7 F [STX] [NUL][SYN] S [GS][BS][SYN][FF][FF][EOT] G [CR] A [ESC] ^ [DC3][GS][SO][SYN][BS][STX][VT] S I [ETX][SUB][DC3][BEL] V V ``` If you try to respect some of those control characters you get something different - could be a pattern in there, but I’m not researching all the esoteric characters, nor am I emulating the proper terminal, I bet: ```auto 83 O.A ] ^E N EI&I D 36[ V`QBR7F S G A S I(*ding*)VV ``` Note that if it is ASCII, then the transposed 10 might be part of the language - 108 = l (little ell). That changes that [DC2] to an ell, and the final printed output might look more like this: ```auto 83 O.A ] ^E Nl EI&I D 36[ V`QBR7F S G A S I(*ding*)VV ``` ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/4 "2006-06-02T04:24:56Z")
Another one just got linked on Slashdot. Assuming the same type of code (but not necessarily the same key) we have an original cypertext of: ```auto Group 617 06107 80020 21085 00601 30690 06079 01201 50240 07006 01601 70690 95000 01702 40050 14024 00908 70220 67089 07401 00820 10086 07801 30240 04016 02707 30130 15006 09306 9 **112** 0 20084 00000 00210 03070 03107 60490 65023 02706 70000 07016 01201 7 ``` and a revised ciphertext (incorporating **Chronos’** sensible double-ought concept) of ```auto 61 78 02 21 85 06 13 69 06 79 12 15 24 07 06 16 17 69 95 00 17 24 05 14 24 09 87 22 67 89 74 10 82 10 86 78 13 24 04 16 27 73 13 15 06 93 69 **112** 20 84 00 00 21 03 70 31 76 49 65 23 27 67 00 07 16 12 17 ``` And this time, there’s a 3-digit number again - pointing out that these are trigraphs for the most part, that just happen to have leading zeroes. This implies, to me, that the author knew that 3-digit numbers were a possibility (and the maximum length) and that each other two-digit number is padded with a zero. This is the only way to divide it that seems to make sense to me, and it implies that the “transposition error” I identified above is really a “108” and not an error. :smack: I should know better than to assume an error on the part of someone willing to go to all this trouble. It’s late, and this story just broke on Slashdot, so I’ll bang on it some more tomorrow. Holler if you think of something! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2006, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/5 "2006-06-02T22:23:19Z")
On reading more of the backstory, I think that the idea that “MEIN FRAULINE” is a key is almost certainly wrong. If this message is meant as any sort of communication to an individual, it’d have to be a recognition trigger: Whomever was intended to receive the message knew to scan the personal ads for one addressed to “Mein frauline” (how else would e know which of the many phone numbers on the classified page to call?). If there is a specific intended recipient for the message, and that recipient has advance knowledge to look for a particular trigger, then that recipient probably also already knows the key, if any, and the key could be anything (not necessarily human-memorable). The biggest question I have is why this message was transmitted at all. Were it a few decades earlier, I could well accept that this might be some sort of clandestine communication, whether by national spies or corporate groups. But in the modern era, it seems to me that there are much easier and more secure ways to transmit data: Encrypt it using a secure public-private key encryption scheme like PGP, then e-mail it. Or if anonymity of the recipient is desired, put it directly on a publicly-viewable webpage. If anonymity of the sender is desired, use steganography techniques to embed it in, say, an image, and post it to a Geocities-hosted website. That way, it’d be much harder for anyone to stumble upon it accidentally, and even if they did, it’d be much harder to trace: The method used here required payment to both Craiglist and the VoIP company, leaving a financial trail which could be followed, but Geocities is free. The only other possibility I can think of is that this is posted as a sort of game, a challenge to would-be cryptographers on the Internet to try to decode it. But the starter of such a game could hardly count on anyone calling the phone number and asking about it online, so the person who first noted it would almost certainly have to be in on it, if not the instigator emself. So that might be a more productive line of enquiry. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/6 "2007-07-23T23:50:52Z")
I thought I would bump this, since I just came across the topic of the mein fraulein codes, and I was wondering if there was some connection to something I’ve noticed on craigslist: long strings of 5 letter groups like this: owpre yxudc nyknl rtalm qvthp yjspk aefeg zvzov ucefb ovskb cmadk pzgat gsrfw exzma fclkv My first thought (since I’ve seen these more in the “adult sections”[I m no looking, they are just funny to read]) was that this is some way for prostitutes to solicit clients, but all of my googling for some “craigslist code” and other such terms elicits no related results (just MEIN FRAULEIN stuff). ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/7 "2007-07-24T00:08:57Z")
Since it hasn’t been mentioned yet, a link to [Project Evil](http://projectevil.org/?p=2) may be in order. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/8 "2007-07-24T00:24:47Z")
Come to think of it, **Chronos** are you the Chronos mentioned here? > [@](#): > > Example, the following post appeared on June 2nd, by someone named Chronos: > > “But the starter of such a game could hardly count on anyone calling the phone number and asking about it online, so the person who first noted it would almost certainly have to be in on it, if not the instigator himself. So that might be a more productive line of enquiry.” > > This couldn’t have been more correct. However, the community seemed to ignore this wisdom. We received only one reply back to our original email asking us where and how we found the message. We sent a lame reply to this, something to the effect of ‘My friend found it and sent me a link because he knows I’m into this stuff.’ No further questions were asked. Wow, am I an idiot. It is a quote from this thread. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Secret\_Volcano\_Lair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Secret\_Volcano\_Lair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Secret_Volcano_Lair)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/9 "2007-07-24T00:57:58Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] The biggest question I have is why this message was transmitted at all. Were it a few decades earlier, I could well accept that this might be some sort of clandestine communication, whether by national spies or corporate groups. But in the modern era, it seems to me that there are much easier and more secure ways to transmit data… [/QUOTE] Numbers stations are still very commonly used today to transmit coded messages. There’s no need for it to be “more secure” because it’s already a perfectly secure way to send a message. Nobody knows it’s sender, or it’s recipient, and it’s impossible for anyone other than them to decode it because only they have the one-time pad used to decode them. I’ve listened to several live numbers station broadcasts this year. There’s one believed to be from Israel that’s on almost constantly, with several different broadcasts on different frequencies at the same time. There probably are other ways that coded messages are sent, but numbers stations most certainly still in use. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/10 "2007-07-24T01:46:33Z")
[QUOTE=Secret Volcano Lair] Nobody knows it’s sender, or it’s recipient, and it’s impossible for anyone other than them to decode it because only they have the one-time pad used to decode them. [/quote] The problem with the message described in the OP is that it is not a number station. It’s a classified ad involving a phone number. Phone numbers can be tracked back to an entity who either sent the message or is associated with the message sender. There may also be records of who called, leading to the possibility of identifying the recipient of the messasge. It would have been more understandable for a clandestine agency to broadcast the message over the radio than to have the recipient call a phone number. ---
**Author:** ![Secret\_Volcano\_Lair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Secret\_Volcano\_Lair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Secret_Volcano_Lair)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/11 "2007-07-24T02:07:04Z")
[QUOTE=wevets] The problem with the message described in the OP is that it is not a number station. It’s a classified ad involving a phone number. Phone numbers can be tracked back to an entity who either sent the message or is associated with the message sender. There may also be records of who called, leading to the possibility of identifying the recipient of the messasge. It would have been more understandable for a clandestine agency to broadcast the message over the radio than to have the recipient call a phone number. [/QUOTE] But “Mein Fraulein” isn’t a “real” secret message anyway, it was all an elaborate prank (see the Project Evil link). ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/12 "2007-07-24T04:22:20Z")
[QUOTE=Secret Volcano Lair] But “Mein Fraulein” isn’t a “real” secret message anyway, it was all an elaborate prank (see the Project Evil link). [/QUOTE] I thought your post above sounded like it was talking about radio messages - not phone messages. > [@Secret Volcano Lair](#): > > I’ve listened to several live numbers station broadcasts this year. ---
**Author:** ![Secret\_Volcano\_Lair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Secret\_Volcano\_Lair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Secret_Volcano_Lair)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/13 "2007-07-24T05:55:00Z")
Sorry, I misunderstood what **Chronos** was talking about, I didn’t realize he was just talking about sending a message over the phone. ---
**Author:** ![awldune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@awldune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/awldune)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/14 "2007-07-24T15:34:29Z")
[QUOTE=CynicalGabe] I thought I would bump this, since I just came across the topic of the mein fraulein codes, and I was wondering if there was some connection to something I’ve noticed on craigslist: long strings of 5 letter groups like this: owpre yxudc nyknl rtalm qvthp yjspk aefeg zvzov ucefb ovskb cmadk pzgat gsrfw exzma fclkv My first thought (since I’ve seen these more in the “adult sections”[I m no looking, they are just funny to read]) was that this is some way for prostitutes to solicit clients, but all of my googling for some “craigslist code” and other such terms elicits no related results (just MEIN FRAULEIN stuff). [/QUOTE] Pretty sure these are random strings to defeat anti-spam efforts. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/15 "2007-07-24T15:39:36Z")
[QUOTE=awldune] Pretty sure these are random strings to defeat anti-spam efforts. [/QUOTE] Placed there by the user or by CL? ---
**Author:** ![awldune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@awldune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/awldune)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/16 "2007-07-24T15:50:22Z")
[QUOTE=CynicalGabe] Placed there by the user or by CL? [/QUOTE] By the “user”, who made the post programatically. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/17 "2007-07-24T16:29:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Numbers stations are still very commonly used today to transmit coded messages. There’s no need for it to be “more secure” because it’s already a perfectly secure way to send a message. Nobody knows it’s sender, or it’s recipient, and it’s impossible for anyone other than them to decode it because only they have the one-time pad used to decode them. Almost. It’s impossible to determine the recipient (beyond possibly narrowing it down to a very large radius), and it’s impossible to crack a properly-used one-time pad. But a radio station still needs a transmitter, and someone with enough resources to bring to bear on the problem could track down the location of that transmitter, which would likely lead to other clues to find the sender’s identity. As for the bit from Project Evil, while that’s clearly a quote from this thread (aside from the substitution of “himself” for “emself”), I’d like to make it clear that I myself have no connection with these Project Evil folks. I’d also like to point out that this board isn’t easily searchable for non-members (threads don’t show up on Google unless they’re linked to from elsewhere, for instance), so either the Project Evil folks put a heck of a lot of effort into finding discussions about this thing, or they were already familiar with the Straight Dope, and possibly willing to pony over the money to be able to search (if they weren’t already members). ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/18 "2007-07-24T17:19:40Z")
The reason you use number stations or pencil and paper one-time-pads instead of PGP and such can be threefold: 1. Whomever you’re communicating with is an idiot or a group of idiots and there’s a lot less fuck ups that can be done with a pencil and paper OTP then with establishing proper communication channels over the Internet or using special equipment. The sheer amount of resources that you have to pour into making something that’s guaranteed to work pretty much guarantees it’s going to be behind the technological times. Not everybody who uses cryptography is qualified to do so. Often times you have to settle. 007 doesn’t exist, or if something like him does, there’s not that many of them. On average you are guaranteed some mistakes by anybody involved. A lot of pretty fool-proof OTP methods are secure if anybody with the intelligence of a chimp or above follows a short routine, probably involving burning all the paper afterwards. Blowing up laptops every time you send a message will get expensive. 1. Whomever you’re communication with is in touch with you only through this channel and it was established a really long time ago. Transmitting “Get yourself a laptop, install PGP and here’s my public key. Generate a key, code the public key, post it here online. Then check back there online.” could work but that’s fucking too many points of failure. 2. It works. Changing things introduces a chance it won’t. Especially if communicating with multiple people who cannot communicate with each other, how are you going to tell them to switch methods and send you public keys without risking everything? ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/19 "2007-07-24T17:22:09Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] and someone with enough resources to bring to bear on the problem could track down the location of that transmitter, which would likely lead to other clues to find the sender’s identity. [/QUOTE] All they would need is a direction-finder, a car (assuming they are in the same country as the transmitter) and a knowledge of basic trig. ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2007, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059/20 "2007-07-24T20:06:12Z")
[QUOTE=CynicalGabe] All they would need is a direction-finder, a car (assuming they are in the same country as the transmitter) and a knowledge of basic trig. [/QUOTE] How exactly do you track down short wave transmissions? If I remember correctly, knowing basic trig and triangulating is going to pinpoint it for you within a few hundred miles. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-numbers-station-message-mein-fraulein-from-craigslist/359059.md?page=2)