Slashback: Subterfuge, Rejoinder, Caution

A desire for information on Code Red and full disclosure, steganography, old game music, and an interesting bit on software patents are the reason you're reading tonight's Slashback.

Good things come in hidden pictures. Intrepid strongman Dug Song writes, in reaction to the "fairly thin" piece earlier today on Steganographic anlysis:

"The only cutting edge, practical work being done today in steganalysis and steganography is by Niels Provos, who gave a talk at HAL2001, and is also presenting at the USENIX security symposium tomorrow:

• http://www.citi.umich.edu/u/provos/papers/detecting/
• http://www.citi.umich.edu/u/provos/stego/

He's been developing several interesting tools to do steganalysis during the course of his universal stego engine development: (http://www.outguess.org/) including stegbreak (which can detect images produced by all popular stego tools -- except outguess), crawl (which he's used to download 2 million jpeg's from eBay to analyze), discern (his distributed computing platform), etc."

Hushing up is not such a good answer sometimes ... Reader Brian McWilliams <brian@pc-radio.com< notes regarding the thread on Slashdot about the costs of full disclosure, "you might want to add an update linking to this story Newsbytes did a couple days ago about the Richard Smith posting. Contains responses from eEye & full disclosure advocates, as well as some more ammo from Smith."

Smith doesn't take kindly to being blamed for damages caused by security holes he publically aired.

So you want to patent "bacon and eggs"? I guess that's OK then. You recently read about the McAffee patent on a seemingly overbroad stretch of computing transactions. Well, it's raised quite a few eyebrows among people interested in a fair computing marketplace. geoa points to this article in which "Neil McAllister in The Gate takes too long to say we shouldn't let another monopoly in the playpen."

It was soooo old ... For everyone enjoying the recent upswing in retro computing interest, Silicon Avatar writes with another tidbit: "Although not necessarily new news, I found a link today when someone mentioned Roland MT-32 to me. Starting with Space Quest IV, Sierra games were written to use either the Adlib soundcard or the Roland MT-32 'soundcard.' Quest Studios seems to have repository of MANY of those songs, including the 'lounge tape' I once had but lost!"

Put that in your souped up underclocked emulator and smoke it.

Comments

Re:JPEGs

[sulli]

Yeah, and I'm sure he downloaded them just to see if they used steganography...

code red costs

[Anonymous Coward]

On Wednesday, Computer Economics, an information technology cost research firm, put the total economic pricetag of the Code Red worm at more than $2 billion, based on an estimate that 760,000 computers worldwide were infected.

So, let me see, that makes it about $2600 per computer - I never knew that McAfee Virus Shield had gone up in price so much.

Does Newsbytes have no fucking editor or what?

Terrorists using ebay to communicate in secret...

[doug363]

Recently, there has been rumors about terrorist using steganography to hide their communication and secret plans. ...[snip]...So far we have analyzed 2 Million images obtained from ebay auctions. So far not a single hidden message could be found.

Hehe. Some people really have too much time/computing power to waste :).

<tounge-in-cheek>
I think it's a good thing that they haven't found anything yet, but not because I'm concerned about terrorists communicating over the Internet. Imagine some of the comments in the mainstream media: "Terrorists use Internet to send hidden messages to children!!" and "Popular Internet site taken over by terrorists!!". This would fit in nicely with senators learning about the dangers in things like file-sharing programs. Terrorists/pornographers/that sleazy guy across the road could be using Gnutella to communicate to other shady characters this very minute!
</tounge-in-cheek>

Someone had to say it...

[jgrumbles]

Porn isn't just for masturbation anymore, you can collaborate with fellow terrorists while fulfilling your sexual needs.

Re:Hiding communication

[Anonymous Coward]

You're thinking of spirographography.

It was soooo old..

[PopeAlien]

Why when I was a kid we did'nt have these fancy laptop computers and tiny digital memory cards.. Nosir, we had punchcards, and we liked 'em.. If you wanted to type up a business proposal you had to punch it up on paper cards using a hydraulic press operated by connecting cables on a patch bay ..

And if you ever wanted to read one of those proposals you had to spread the cards out on your big-ol conference table-top and get way up on ladders to be able to read it all.. Yep.. Then some smart sumbitch invented the pneumatic chair which could get you up there to read the punchcards without the ladder.. yep. those were the days..

I think I'm gonna go down in the basment and bang on my altair..

Re:JPEGs

[ozbird]

Yeah, and I'm sure he downloaded them just to see if they used steganography...

So when he was complaining about the "hidden bits" in the photos, he was talking about steganography? Silly me...

Back in those DOS days...

[mystery_bowler]

Speaking of old MIDI stuff always made me wonder: Just how did Creative Labs become the de facto standard of sound cards back in the days of DOS gaming? Maybe I don't remember clearly, but it's not as if there was a huge gaming population back then (back then, yeah way back in the early 90's...cripes I feel old). Was music more of less an afterthought back then? Seems you'd want to make the gameplay independent of the music (not like movies, where the score plays an integral part in the emotion of the moment) just because there would be a good possibility the user wouldn't have a compatible sound card or perhaps not even a sound card at all.

Perhaps like all things in PC gaming, the sound card only became a necessity because of Leisure Suit Larry and Wolfenstein 3D. You've either got to have it to hear sleazy softporn sounds or the screaming deaths of Nazis.

First music comment

[Anonymous Coward]

King's Quest V and VI are the best Sierra games. In fact, the best puzzle-adventure games. I'm listening to the opening music of V now and fondly remembering such zany adventures as the Ants (led by King Antony), the Yeti, and the memorable performance of Graham's line "Can I help you in any way?" which I am still quoting to thi day.

Hiding communication

[HobNob]

Holy crap. Is it also called steganography when you hide communications by presenting them as yellow text on a blue and red spiral background?

Edward Tufte would not be impressed.

-- Bob

Re:Hiding communication

[sporktoast]

Is it also called steganography when you hide communications by presenting them as yellow text on a blue and red spiral background?

No. That's called Wired Magazine. Though, these days, it is a bit of a stretch to call what they're hiding "information".

Hohohoh

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehe, here is the best bit from the above. Heh.

Difficult to find enough machines:

• Started client on about 100 machines at University of Michigan without asking for persmission.
• Received a warning about losing my computer privilages the next day.

JPEGs

[sheetsda]

which he's used to download 2 million jpeg's

2 million jpegs? He's got my collection beat.