Study Finds Low Use Of Steganography On Internet

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.

Comments

Re:Face it

[discogravy]

people on slashdot think they're so clever, using that rot-26 encryption...

Re:steganography or stegnography?

[Jburkholder]

You know, I read that as stenography and wondered just how bin Laden could possibly use court reporters to hide his communications.

I learnt a new wurd tuhday!

Re:Isn't that the point?

[Jburkholder]

>...stenography ... people CAN'T spot the fact that you're using it!

but doesn't that wierd little typewriter usually tip everyone off?

I can help

[ellem]

there has been speculation that Osama Bin Laden has hidden messages in pornographic images posted and swapped on Usenet

If they posted in alt.binaries.erotica.veils or alt.binaries.erotica.bondage.camels between 1990 and 2001 I have every .jpg, .mpg, .avi, .bmp, .pcx, .mov and .html file ever posted. Also I have every .txt, .doc file from alt.stories.erotica.camel.

Re:Face it

[Jerf]

'Half of slashdot posts are encrypted evil plots for mass destruction.'

Moderators, beware! That post decrypts to "fr15t p0st!!!" It's not a funny post, it's off-topic! Don't let your points be spent carelessly!

Re:It's not just steganography, it's encryption

[clary]

I know a group of guys who were literally taking all of the porn off of the alt.binaries newsgroups to look for hidden messages, but gave up do to the volune, the low chance of actually getting a hit, etc.

Yeah, right...they were downloading porn to look for hidden messages. I can hear it now: "Hey man, I think I found a hidden message. Can you decode it for me? ...my hands are full."

Hmm...research as excuse for gaming?

[clary]

The thought occurred to me that conspirers could meet on a FPS server (Quake, Unreal, whatever), and communicate using gestures. Perhaps shooting a rocket into the third tower from the left means let's meet at the usual place. (Note that you wouldn't want to use the chat feature of the game, since that is probably coded pretty clearly in the game's client/server protocol.) This would be an extremely low-bandwidth approach, but fiendishly difficult to detect.

Well, now it is my patriotic duty to spend time checking out UT servers for potential terrorists!

Re:Hmm...research as excuse for gaming?

[Denor]

Well, now it is my patriotic duty to spend time checking out UT servers for potential terrorists!

At first I thought you were joking, but then I went and started up Counterstrike - good god, there are terrorists everywhere in that game!

Just an innocent, ordinary post

[Get Behind the Mule]

Snow White,

The owl howls at midnight.

Rumpelstiltskin