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Encryption

The Numbers Stations Analyzed, Discussed 224

Posted by Zonk from the creepy-to-listen-to dept.
GMontag wrote to mention a Washington Post article about the always-intriguing 'number' radio broadcasts. The numbers stations, as they are known, are 'hiding in plain sight' spycraft. Random digits broadcast at little-used frequencies are known to be intelligence agencies broadcasting their secrets in encrypted form. The Post article gives a nice run-down on the truth behind the transmissions, and touches a bit on the odd community that has grown fascinated by them. From the article: "On 6840 kHz, you may hear a voice reading groups of letters. That's a station nicknamed 'E10,' thought to be Israel's Mossad intelligence. Chris Smolinski runs SpyNumbers.com and the 'Spooks' e-mail list, where 'number stations' hobbyists log hundreds of shortwave messages transmitted every month. 'It's like a puzzle. They're mystery stations,' explained Smolinski, who has tracked the spy broadcasts for 30 years." This article made me recall a great All Things Considered story from a few years back about Akin Fernandez's 'Numbers' CD, a CD compilation of some of the most interesting strings of randomly read numbers reaching out across the airwaves.
Math

Professor Comes Up With a Way to Divide by Zero 1090

Posted by samzenpus from the it-seems-so-obvious-now dept.
54mc writes "The BBC reports that Dr. James Anderson, of the University of Reading, has finally conquered the problem of dividing by zero. His new number, which he calls "nullity" solves the 1200 year old problem that niether Newton nor Pythagoras could solve, the problem of zero to the zero power. Story features video (Real Player only) of Dr. Anderson explaining the "simple" concept."

Comment Re:90% accuracy? Not bad. (Score 1) 267

by mcrandello (#15449271) Attached to: Web Users Angered by Anti-Spam 'Captcha'
Please someone contact them about putting out a firefox plugin. The spammers already have these things figured out (man in the middle attacks described further down in the comments) and I just want to get into my bank account and forums without having to take my glasses off, get about an inch away from the monitor and then have to try two or three times before getting one that's legible. Thankfully I got image-zoom on here so I haven't had to do the first two steps in a while. It's only a matter of time before they start using flash for these things though and then it's back to practically felching the monitor just to read the stupid things.

As an aside I handn't logged in yet to post and the person in the next cube over tells me the captchkacinno thing for this particular comment was "accuracy". Funny.

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I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

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