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Just use some steganography software to embed a version of the DeCSS code into your pictures. I prefer the haiku version myself...

Here are two links to Steganography. The first is to a wikipedia article explaining the concept. The second is to a list of programs that you can use to actually employ these techniques (I haven't checked them all out-- it was a list I found with a quick google search). The point being is the techniques and tools exist. Its simply a matter of letting people know about them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography

http://www.jjtc.com/Security/stegtools.htm

Oops, I don't actually know all that much about steg., it was years ago that I was into it (and mostly for images) and I've forgotten a lot of it now, so I don't feel that mod was deserved ... but anyway, this looks like a fair starting point: http://www.jjtc.com/stegdoc/ ... there are quite a few different techniques, most of which are detectable though.

Actually even before that :)

using wax tablets in greece.

http://www.jjtc.com/stegdoc/sec202.html

"In ancient Greece, text was written on wax covered tablets. In one story Demeratus wanted to notify Sparta that Xerxes intended to invade Greece. To avoid capture, he scraped the wax off of the tablets and wrote a message on the underlying wood. He then covered the tablets with wax again. The tablets appeared to be blank and unused so they passed inspection by sentries without question."

Do a google search on steganography.

http://www.jjtc.com/Steganalysis/ ----------------------Good Link on Steganalysis, with some examples of information hidden in pictures.

It definitely should be possible, but I never really needed it too much. There likely are some tools to remove visible watermarks and this surely can be done in Photoshop manually if you have enough sample images.

You are right regarding the hidden watermarks, though. Corbis images have DigiMarc. DigiMark watermark in particular is retained even when you cut a part of the image as small as 100x100, but is removed when you reduce the image to 50% of the original resolution (or enlarge to 200%.

But such watermarks can probably be removed even without scanning. There are various software tools and techniques (some links and further info). Of course, it is kind of pointless, since if you use my copyrighted images, it is quite easy to prove, if necessary.

I just tried and here is a simple (but tedious) method of manually removing the DigiMarc. Open the image in any image editing programs (make sure not to pay for those that refuse to open scanned dollar bills). Cut it into many pieces (smaller than 100x100 or narrow and long). Digimark will not be read in such small images, so you can easily overwrite it with your own watermark. Do it. Embed your own watermarks in every piece. Combine the images together. Check out if it works. If it doesn't, check out parts of the image. Locate those stubborn places that still show the old mark. Repeat the procedure on them (cut and embed your watermark in each piece). After a while the image will contain your own watermark and will still look pretty much the same.

Yes, quite true, but no more than there has ever been (i.e., there are approximately as many interparticle distances now as there will be then).

Particles in liquid water cannot separate as much as particles in water vapor. Therefore, the former must have a lesser range of distances than the latter (at least on the mini-macro scale that allows for a concept of distance).

reference for the watches?

I believe it's from Applied Cryptography, by Bruce Schneier. I haven't read through AC in some time, though, and I could be wrong. There's definitely a reference to this in The Codebreakers.

This is all rather astonishing material to be coming up in a discussion of human privacy, isn't it? :-)

WW2 is so fasinating. It is in someways both the apex and nadir of humanity's stay here on Earth thus far.

An interesting description. What do you teach?

--Dan

I'm actually surprised that they didn't use steganography to uniquely identify each copy of the browser that they release to their individual, "select" developers. That way they could release the dogs of war on that poor soul.

On another note, it's sad to see something like this ruined by what is probably a small number of bad seeds. :)

As I recall, the FBI had evidence that Bin Laden was using steganography to conceal messages in photos...

While it would be a pain in the butt to convert lots of data to seperate encrypted image/sound files it would be very secure, since many people don't use or suspect it.
Info on steganography can be found here.

I don't think I am qualified to answer your question but for those interested there some links to info on steganography: Link 1 Link 2 Link 3

For those wanting more information on stego check out the following link which I found to be one of the most informative. Outguess is probably the top of the line Nix stego program I've found (FYI) and you could see its output here (Statue of Liberty pics)

Personally I think this will piss off Big Brother more than it would Corporations, since it'd be extremely hard on a system to encipher a 700mb video clip into a picture so the stego comment seems off the mark to me where Napster or SDMI is concerned Watermarking yes stego a music file... Sure and $AUTHORITY_FIGURES will believe that pr0n picture is supposed to be 500mb in file size.

As for digital watermarking... Please see this prior post on this subject.

Stenography refers to writing in shorthand. Steganography is about hiding messages. Oddly and perhaps appropriately, the latter word is not to be found in my big American Heritage Dictionary.

Yeah... but... these files aren't encrypted. they're just watermarked. if they do it right, you will (barely) notice its presence when listening, but easily tell them apart (at the binary level). if you superimposed two songs, the watermarks would (might) interfere, possibly giving you an invalid watermark? Read this for pics or this for mp3.

The process of encrypting information in another medium is called steganography.

Karma whorish links ahead:

http://www.jjtc.com/Steganography/

http://www.thur.de/ulf/stegano/

http://freshmeat.net/appind ex/1999/10/16/940080510.html

Stenganographic encoding of data into images was part of the research I was doing for my Ph.D. a few years ago. Most good techniques are not this trivial. The are typically based upon spread spectrum coding techniques, which when properly employed are very secure. An excellent starting place for research in this area is at Neil Johnson's site.

BTW, a bunch of useful Steganography info can be found at:

http://www.jjtc.com/Steganography/

A (probably incomplete) list of steganography software packages for various OSs can be found at:

http://members.iquest.net/~mrm il/stego/software.html

Instead of mailing the image/text/whatever to a specific recipent, you could use a less trackable (for both sender and reciever) way of distributing it. Putting it up on somewhere that offers free anonymous web space would be good; posting to one of the alt.binaries.* would work too. Then anyone could grab it at their whim and easily hide their identity thru various anonymizers, internet coffee shop, library, etc.