As a part of our release of the Quadruple CD set 'The Conet Project', we are issuing a set of difficult cryptographic challenges in an attempt to try and further unravel the mystery of Numbers Stations.

What
Numbers Stations send  encrypted text transmissions over shortwave. No one knows for sure what ciphers are used to encrypt the various transmissions, though it is widely believed that 'one time pad' systems are the cipher of choice in the Numbers operations. If deployed correctly, OTP ciphertext is uncrackable, no matter how much time or processor power is applied to the problem.

Why
If we can decipher any single Numbers Station transmission, we will instantly have an insight into who is behind the particular station, and where it originates from. We may also be able to glean information on where the recipient is located. No one (at least no civilian) has ever managed to decrypt a Numbers Station message. It is clear however, that the NSA has decrypted these transmissions in the past; see the Venona Project. The Numbers Station Crack Challenge is inspired by the RSA Laboratories Secret Key challenges which are designed to demonstrate the weakness of short key lengths in commercial cryptography applications.

How
With the advances in networking that are available to everyone, an unprecedented amount of processor power can be rallied to crack mathematical problems. Previously, only Governments that could afford Cray Supercomputers has access to this type of computational power, and in the case of Cray the American Government forbade the export of such machines, effectively making them unavailable to the rest of the world. Now with client based network cracking, almost any brute force cryptanalytic attack can be mounted with a more than reasonable chance of quick success. Spectacular cracks have already been successfully mounted on problems that seemed insurmountable only a few years ago. This can be done, the problem is, how can it be done? You are free to use any methods that you can devise, using whatever you have at your disposal. The competition is open to individuals and groups. Any solution to one of the five challenges must be accompanied by a complete description of how the crack was done (a mathematical proof) together with any software that was written to get the job done. This is needed because we do not have the original plaintext at our disposal to check against any submitted solution.

Where
The Numbers Station Crack Challenge comes in five parts. Each part is a cyphertext transcribed directly off air from a recent transmission from one of of five different and currently active Numbers Stations. The stations are:

1. E3    (The Lincolnshire Poacher)
2. E5    (CIA Counting Station)
3. E22 (New Station!)
4. E10 (Phonetic Alphabet Station)
5. G2   (The Swedish Rhapsody)

Who
This competition is open to everyone. We prefer our email to be PGP encrypted.
Challenge HQ can be reached at irdial [at] irdial [dot] com.
Here is our PGP Public Key:

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Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.2 for non-commercial use 

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=mIFD
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----