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Listening in on the secret state: numbers stations and the aurality of secrecy

监听秘密状态：数字电台和秘密的可信度

基本信息

批准号：
ES/R006059/1
负责人：
Oliver Kearns
金额：
$ 20.53万
依托单位：
University of Bristol
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2018
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2018 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FR006059%2F1
关键词：
Listening secret state numbers stations

项目摘要

This research project examines so-called numbers stations: shortwave radio broadcasts designed to send coded messages to state spies abroad. Numbers stations can appear on shortwave frequencies without warning, announcing themselves with a musical tone, followed by a ream of seemingly random numbers and words read out by an automated voice, often accompanied by indecipherable noises, before disappearing as suddenly as they came. Despite existing for decades worldwide, there has been next to no research on these broadcasts.The project will examine numbers stations as an example of a covert state practice that crosses over into the public sphere, that leaves traces in its wake, in the form of broadcasts that can be picked up on a radio by anyone. There is a growing literature on the ways in which state secrecy does not simply remove things from the public sphere by covering them up, but can itself become part of the public sphere. Acts of keeping things secret can leave a public mark: from an official's refusal to confirm or deny a story, to the black ink of a redacted sentence. These marks reflect the use of secrecy to project state power, but can also have political effects in excess of state intentions - redactions in a torture investigation can imply unsavoury practices that the state would rather hide.In the past, traces of secrecy have been understood primarily as speech acts or as material visible phenomena: the fences surrounding a military base, or the carefully chosen words of a politician. By contrast, this research will investigate secrecy that operates through sound, both vocal and non-vocal. Numbers station broadcasts are sounds that produce secrecy as something aural in the public sphere. These radio frequencies allow states to carry out secret practices, while the sonic qualities of the broadcasts - from their robotic voices, to radio silence and static - ascribe characteristics to that secrecy, just as the words or redactions of a government can imply different things about their attempts to hide things. These sounds can represent secrecy, moreover, in ways that exceed state intentions. This process is also shaped by how sounds are accessed; state secrecy is shaped not just by numbers station broadcasts, but by the act of 'tapping into' these stations. As traces of state practices, these broadcasts also manifest the state as a covert actor, heard but not seen, and encourage particular understandings of the state that carry political consequences.Numbers stations offer a unique opportunity to explore how state secrecy exists aurally, in ways that go beyond visual understandings of secrecy as that which hides or makes invisible. These broadcasts open up space for considering the conceptual links between sound and secrecy: the ways in which sound is both a novel resource for states to practice secrecy, and a material that broadens our ideas of how secrecy exists in, and impacts on, the public sphere.This project will therefore document how numbers station broadcasts reproduce the state and secrecy in public, and will use this analysis to rethink state secrecy in terms of sound. To complete these objectives, this project will first examine the known history and geography of numbers stations, and what this tells us about states' covert operations; second, carry out field recordings of radio frequencies used by numbers stations, to analyse how these broadcasts and their interception reproduce state secrecy in public space; and third, analyse recordings of these broadcasts on internet archives, to understand how sonic secrecy implicitly shapes the meaning attached to states' covert activities. Out of this, the project will produce academic and magazine writings on how state secrecy shapes public life, and a website that makes the research findings accessible to the public and relates the research to current debates around state secrecy and covert practices.

这项研究项目考察了所谓的数字电台：旨在向海外国家间谍发送编码信息的短波无线电广播。数字站可以在没有警告的情况下出现在短波频率上，用音乐宣布自己，然后是一长串看似随机的数字和由自动语音读出的单词，通常伴随着难以辨认的噪音，然后突然消失。尽管在全球范围内存在了几十年，但几乎没有人对这些广播进行研究。该项目将研究数字电台，将其作为一个秘密国家做法的例子，这种做法跨越到公共领域，在其之后留下痕迹，任何人都可以通过无线电收听到的广播。有越来越多的文献表明，国家机密并不是简单地通过掩盖来将事物从公共领域中移除，而是它本身可以成为公共领域的一部分。保守秘密的行为可能会留下公开的印记：从官员拒绝证实或否认故事，到编辑后的句子的黑色墨水。这些标志反映了利用保密来投射国家权力，但也可能产生超出国家意图的政治影响--酷刑调查中的密文可能暗示国家宁愿隐藏的令人不快的做法。在过去，保密的痕迹主要被理解为言语行为或物质可见现象：军事基地周围的栅栏，或政客精心挑选的言辞。相比之下，这项研究将调查通过声音操作的秘密，包括有声和非有声。数字电台广播是在公共领域产生保密性的有声广播。这些无线电频率允许各州进行秘密活动，而广播的音质--从机械声音，到无线电静音和静态--将这种保密性归因于这些特点，就像政府的言辞或密文可能暗示着他们试图隐瞒事情的不同方面一样。此外，这些声音可能代表着秘密，其方式超出了国家的意图。这一过程也受到声音获取方式的影响；国家保密不仅受到电台广播数量的影响，还受到“窃听”这些电台的行为的影响。作为国家实践的痕迹，这些广播还将国家表现为一个秘密的参与者，听到了但没有看到，并鼓励对国家的特殊理解，这带来了政治后果。数字电台提供了一个独特的机会，探索国家秘密是如何在听觉上存在的，其方式超越了对秘密的视觉理解，即隐藏或隐藏的秘密。这些广播为思考声音和秘密之间的概念联系打开了空间：声音既是国家实践秘密的新资源，也是拓宽我们关于秘密如何存在于公共领域并对公共领域产生影响的材料。因此，这个项目将记录数字电台广播如何在公共场合再现国家和秘密，并将利用这一分析从声音的角度重新思考国家秘密。为了实现这些目标，该项目将首先研究数字电台的已知历史和地理位置，以及这告诉我们关于国家秘密行动的情况；其次，对数字电台使用的无线电频率进行实地录音，分析这些广播及其拦截如何在公共空间再现国家机密；第三，分析互联网档案中这些广播的录音，以了解声音保密如何隐含地塑造国家秘密活动的含义。在此基础上，该项目将撰写关于国家保密如何塑造公共生活的学术和杂志文章，并建立一个网站，使公众能够接触到研究结果，并将研究与当前围绕国家保密和秘密做法的辩论联系起来。