For our April program, Nick Gessler will give a talk on the Cuban Numbers Stations.  The talk will include a short introduction to cryptology, its history from cipher disks to one-time-pads and the enigmatic "numbers stations."  Nick will bring some examples of cryptographs from his own collection, dating from the late 1600s to the present and then will move the spotlight to the strange transmissions picked up internationally and cataloged by hundreds of listeners.  These are the "numbers stations," used by clandestine organizations throughout the world, lists of "random" numbers and "random" sounds which encode instructions from espionage handlers to their agents in foreign lands.  Nick will finally focus on Cuban spies and Cuban "numbers stations" which you can hear most every evening on your shortwave receivers.

Nick Gessler received his Ph.D. in computational Anthropology from UCLA developing “Artificial Culture,” simulating interacting individuals in societies.  He continues this research, focusing on the role of networks of trust, secrecy and deception in human cultural evolution at Duke University in the Information Science & Information Studies Program.  Bridging these interests, he offers one course in theory building:  “Espionage, Cryptology and Psychological Operations” and one in multiagent modeling:  “Artificial Life, Artificial Culture and Evolutionary Computation.”  During breaks, he hunts and collects meteorites.

Bill Richards, a former DFMA member, died Sunday night 18 March 2012.  Bill is survived by Teresa Richards his wife of 30 years and his two children Robert Theodore Richards (aged 23) and Natalie Ann Richards (aged 20) all of Durham County.  Bill was the brother-in-law of Dave Love, N4UBH and Paul Van Doren, KE4OXN.  The cause of death was a sudden heart attack that occurred at home.

Bill was a U.S. Army Veteran who served during the Vietnam Era as an electronic warfare/intelligence  specialist.  Later in life, Bill became an amateur radio operator and eventually advanced to the extra class operator license.  Bill's interests in amateur radio included lighthouses and lightships on the air and IOTA.

Bill's professional pursuits and life long passion were photography and graphics.  In recent years Bill had been employed by UNC as a digital archivist.

Bill's final wishes were that he be cremated and his ashes scattered near his beach house on Top Sail Island.  Bill had suffered from diabetes mellitus and the family has asked that donations be made to the American Diabetes Association in lieu of flowers.