🕵🏻‍♂️ Spies still use this ancient tech

I hope your Sunday is as peaceful or productive as you want it to be, {{first_name | friend}}. Back in the dial-up days, one tech pioneer thought world domination started with mail-order CDs. And not a few. It’s estimated they mailed out over 50% of the world’s CDs at one point. 

Guess who: A) Yahoo, B) AOL, C) Microsoft or D) Netscape. Find the answer spinning at the end. And there’s a new section in the newsletter titled “Click. Listen. Watch.” Check out the reel of me rapping in the ’90s! 

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This is one of the coolest things I’ve learned recently: Foreign intelligence agencies still use good ol’ radio to share top secrets. Even with all the powerful tech at their fingertips, radio use in espionage has actually gone up in popularity since the 2010s. Pretty wild.

Russia in particular loves this technique. Why? Intelligence agencies don’t trust the internet. Makes sense.

Foreign agencies have been using shortwave radio frequencies to broadcast coded messages for decades. 

Starting in the mid-1960s, if you tuned your radio to shortwave frequencies between 5.422 and 16.084 megahertz (MHz), you might hear music … or you might hear a woman’s voice with an English accent reading number combinations. 

The U.K.’s MI6 intelligence agency and other spy networks used these “number stations” until at least 2008 to talk to operatives in the field. Whoa.

This tactic is still very much alive and well. In 2020, the FBI discovered messages being sent to Russian deep-cover officers living in Massachusetts. Last year, researchers caught Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, SVR, broadcasting a test transmission in French. 

But it’s not just Russia. Taiwan is active now. The “Star Star” station (V13) broadcasts coded messages to agents in mainland China, complete with flute music intros.

So, what’s the advantage? Even encrypted phones can be hacked. It’s also easier than ever to plant spyware on a device.

In each broadcast, the sender and receiver use what’s called a “one-time pad” to encrypt and decrypt the message. It’s basically a matching list of random numbers, no fancy spy gear required.

Of course, anyone listening could pick up on other patterns and blow up an agency’s spot. For example, a broadcast pattern could reveal how many agents there are and when or where they’re active.

When the FBI discovered the 2020 broadcasts, they realized the messages corresponded to the specific rooms active operatives were in!

Russia still has a shortwave station nicknamed “The Pip” that sends out nonstop beeps, with the occasional voice cutting in. It’s a perfect example of how old-school spy tactics never really go out of style. 

Even with satellites, encrypted apps and AI everywhere, number stations are still going strong. They’re simple, anonymous and nearly impossible to trace.

If you’re loving this story and want to geek out, check out Priyom, a group of international radio enthusiasts who track number stations around the world. They have chat rooms to swap stories, and their website follows intelligence, military and diplomatic communication via shortwave radio. 

This deep dive is now over, over.

😂 The FBI is raiding an alleged spy’s apartment when they discover a hard drive labeled “KGB.” One of the agents holds it up and asks, “Why wouldn’t he just write 1TB?” (Oh, geek humor … Sometimes, it’s harder to get than a ground-floor hotel room in Moscow for a Russian operative!)

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman compares it to a PhD in your pocket. Hotels use AI to spy on you, a creepy Instagram update, and three smart travel tech hacks. I also talk to Adrian from Arizona who got fined after leaving a bad review. Don’t miss it!

Listen on Komando.com →

🎭 Clone calls incoming: Scammers just need three seconds of your voice, and boom, you’re “calling” someone to demand urgent wire transfers. AI-generated voice phishing (“vishing”) is scaling fast, with attackers using Vall-E and ElevenLabs to sound uncannily real. Those unknown numbers calling? Don’t yap the usual, “Stop calling me, you dumb SOB.” 

Crypto in your 401(k) now: Trump just signed an executive order letting your 401(k) party with crypto, private equity and other high-risk “alternative” investments (paywall link), finally dragging retirement savings into the 21st century. The SEC, Labor Department and Treasury now have marching orders to un-gatekeep alt-assets. That’s $9 trillion of nest eggs now potentially YOLOing into Bitcoin.

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😱 Instagram’s embarrassing new feature: You can now see which Reels (videos) your friends are liking. Just tap the Reels icon, then the Friends tab, and bam, their profile pics show up on whatever they hearted. Scared? Me, too. To turn it off, go to Settings > Who can see your content > Activity in Friends tab > No one.

Fake pics, real charges: A student was hit with a $9K damage bill after her NYC Airbnb host claimed she cracked furniture and peed the bed. But the “proof”? AI-edited photos. Airbnb initially sided with the host, then backpedaled fast after a newspaper got involved. Full refund issued, host slapped with a warning. PSA: Take inside and outside videos of any rental property.

✝️ This gave me chills: Scientists just analyzed the Shroud of Turin under high-powered UV light and found serum halos around the bloodstains. This is proof the body wasn’t washed before burial, exactly how Jesus would’ve been prepared according to Jewish tradition. This could be the most compelling evidence yet that Christians were right all along. See the photos and full story here.

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⚡ 3-second gadget genius: Tired of your phone autocorrecting a name? When your spelling pops up above the keyboard, tap it. Your phone learns it and stops “fixing” it. 

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Phew, a lot happened in the studio this week. Keep the tech smarts going with me by your side.

GPT-5 is here, and it’s insane. On the show, I talked to awesome callers, broke down Zuck’s secret Hawaiian compound, and got into how hotels are using AI to spy on you.
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I can rap. Not kidding. Shout-out to my video editor Jovanna. She turned my 1990s Komputer Tutor VHS infomercial into a fly beat.
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The answer: B) AOL. That’s right, at its peak, America Online was responsible for mailing out over 50% of the world’s CDs. Not music. Not movies. Just pure, dial-up-fueled ambition. At one point, they were reportedly producing nearly 1 million discs a day.

For the youngins: Back in the dial-up days, an AOL CD was your golden ticket to the internet. You’d pop it in, install the software, and boom, email, chat rooms and the web, all in one place (with free trial hours to boot). It was the OG all-in-one bundle. Oh, how far we’ve clicked.

🍳 Wow, all this nostalgia is bacon me crazy. So much cereal-ously good stuff! I’m off to make some puncakes. (Yea, that was so dumb, you laughed!)

This is the #1 tech newsletter in the United States, and I’ll never mail you a CD. You’re welcome. 

Tomorrow, I’m cracking open scams that knock on your actual front door. Not a drill, these fraudsters show up smiling, dressed like bankers, and leave with your card (and $20K).

😇 Until then, recharge your batteries, update your mindset and boot up for a brand-new week of possibilities. — Kim

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