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Study Finds Low Use Of Steganography On Internet

Posted by timothy on from the maybe-it's-just-not-on-ebay dept.

schnippy writes: "New Scientist reports on new study from the University of Michigan that argues that steganography (the science of obfuscating communications) is not in wide use, or at least not on the 2 million images they scanned on eBay. Earlier this year, USA Today reported that Bin Laden was using steganography to disguise his communications. Full study is available here. Wonder how long before someone sets up a distributed computing client to help search for Bin Laden's secret communications? :p" Niels Provos' research was mentioned in Slashback not long ago, and this article is based on the same research.

3 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. steganography or stegnography? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Flamebait

    i think the extinction of the dinosaurs wiped out steganography; the mysteries of how the stegasaurus learned to write with its' tail will never be known to any of us...

  2. This is naive by scorbett · · Score: 5, Flamebait
    According to the details of their study, they took images from Ebay and scanned them for steganographic content using statistical analysis. Out of the two million images they scanned from Ebay, they determined that about 17000 seemed to have steganographic content. They then used a dictionary attack to try and extract any encrypted messages that may be contained within. They failed on all 17000 images. Their report indicates one of three possible explanations for this:
    1. There is no significant use of steganography on the Internet.
    2. Nobody uses steganographic systems that we can find.
    3. All users of steganographic systems carefully choose passwords that are not susceptible to dictionary attacks. (emphasis mine)
    In response to number 3, I'd like to say, "well, duh". Anyone clever enough to transmit messages via steganography is not going to be stupid enough to potentially compromise themselves by choosing a simple password.

    But beyond that, this search is limited to one small part (Ebay) of the entire Internet. There are certainly many other places where images can be transmitted inconspicuously (certain usenet groups come to mind).

    To me, this seems like a "feel good" story designed to put people at ease. It has little actual merit.

    --
    www.scorbett.ca
  3. THAT CINCHES IT! by Snowfox · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Let's BOMB BIN LADEN BACK INTO THE STONE AGE! As if he wasn't bad enough, now he's MESSING WITH OUR PORN!