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by 0xFFFFFFFFF 1639 days ago
Do number stations still a thing? Here in Europe there are just some beacons that broadcast the same message daily but no other activity whatsoever.
1 comments

They're still a thing as recently as a year or two ago when I looked into it. They're "perfect" in that the receiver can't be identified from the message or its channel (other than catching him with his radio), and that the message cannot be reversed (encoded w/ a one time pad). So they're hard to replace.
One time pads aren't perfect. The same secret has to be stored on both sides and can be compromised from either side.

OTP has to be delivered preserving secrecy. Transmitting a public key only needs to preserve integrity.