Easily the coolest piece of gear featured on this channel.
A bit of a preview of the next video, but I'm so in awe that this was a thing that I had to share it with y'all early. 🤯
Comments (48)
You are, presumably, all over the Conet Project! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conet_Project
The coin is a magic trick called Scotch and Soda and available at magic shops all over. A favorite of mine from 50 years ago when my father brought one home.
looking forward to this one!
There's even a YouTube channel that streams a buzzer station! I love all that stuff
Seeing this video reminded me of 4chan going on a stego obsession and uploading books and zip archives into images decades ago! Wasn't a boring, stuffy, overtechnical explanation of it but also covered the complexity of how it works as well, so is something I can share with some of my less techy friends to show how cool this shit is, without putting them to sleep!
Here after watching this video. Benn you are incredible at explaining things!!
So the obvious follow-up question is: how does one make this at home? 🤔
So... we should all be smacking our old quarters in wedding rings to make sure theres no secret compartments? 😅
Looking forward to this one Ben.
that's awesome! can't wait to see the full video
The CIA got an agent inside to sprinkle super depilatory powder in Castro's shoes. The objective was a less hirsute Castro - who would loose respect over his hairlessness. It didn't work.
Hey Benn - My dad had that exact 'coin trick' thing when we were kids. I think it dates back to WWII or the 1950s. It was a magician's trick (or street magic) and would turn one coin into another coin (dime to penny? I don't remember the details). Anyway - exact same construction as the one you have so thought I'd mention it. My brother still has this thing if you need a photo of it for your research.
I always thought these things were obsolete, given the internet. But this technology does not rely on you sending information. You just have to overcome the logistics problem of moving pieces of code around.
So it's not the next Gen akai products that you can poop on and peeve off the interwebs again :p
Hey Benn, if you haven't seen this already I think it'll interest you https://youtu.be/nuinbjV8rSk?
Come on guys lets keep spamming channel5 and Benn for a collab
Ahhhh, the fun of one time pads. That is the only method of encryption that's quite literally unbreakable … IF you strictly follow the right procedure and NEVER EVER EVER reuse a pad.
This tech/technique is used a few times in the Lady Sherlock book series! Flipping cool!
These number stations were operating in Farsi/Persian during the Iran US war a few months ago. It wasn't clear whether they were operated by Mosad to send messages to operatives inside Iran or by Iranian intelligence sending messages to operatives outside ...
Very cool bit of nostalgia and ingenuity! I guess it might date me but I learned about number stations watching LOST. (Doesn't seem that long ago!)
These things are so cool
What would a Ben Jordan numbers station sound like and what time signature would it be in?
Hmmmm.. microdot definitely meant something different in my friend group. IYKYK Excited to learn about this alternative use case!
🫠
Just reading about this in a book, eerily timed
The coolest piece of gear you showed was using bird springs to encode data. Genuinely blew my mind.
I had a game called Microdot as a kid in the 1970s https://timetradingpostvortex.co.uk/microdot--by-parker-1970-8378-p.asp
I still have it!
Can't wait!!! Cold war tech is fascinating.
I've been fascinated by numbers stations for years. Can't wait to hear more
In before Benn completes his metamorphosis into Batman
I’ve been fascinated by the number station concept. We had some amateur radio enthousiast in our village who introduced me to them as a kid.
You have an encyrpted mesage inside that that quarter. You need the cypher key to message was the page of the crypto keys. The Soviets used what is called a "one time pad" cipher because after using a page of the crypto keys that page would be discarded and the next message would use a different page of the crypto keys. This prevents using any statistical method that uses word or letter counts. If you happened to decrypt one message that contributes nothing to your decryption of the next. You needed the sheet of codes on the corresponding code list. A one time pad is impossible to crack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad
That's what I thought it was at first, but I bet it worked both ways. (the info in the video is relayed from the collector who is an old man with an unhealthy lifelong obsession for Soviet spy tech).
I don't have much time for it in life, but I do love this-week-in-number-station-news youtube.
Awesome Benn, thank you!
🪙🔬📜📡🌐 ☝️lemme just inconspicuously smack this coin and fold out my big ass microscope in this coffee shop so I can low key decode some message from the ionosphere real quick 🧐
The Cold War was weird af. You joke, but I’m sure something not far from that has happened.
Man! What amazing minds went into creating awe-inspiring inventions... but we still haven't figured out how to not have war. What a weird species. Can't wait for the video, though! Thanks, Benn!
Wonder if one of those stations is what I heard playing around on the local radio last night
Yes please.
Did the quarter feel totally normal? Like... if you suspected it might be different could you tell? I understand it was a replica but still curious. Looks like a fascinating video!!
Heck yeah this is fascinating
Niceeee
Cool and creepy!
It’s kind of amazing the amount of very clever mind power that went into that stuff. Analog spy craft is kind of the best wormhole, and makes for great films too.
Ben and Gear is back baby!
Very cool. Excited for the full video!