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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.

5 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. Secrecy is important... by Wind_Walker · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    The last World War was won because of many factors, one that figured very heavily was encryption and secrecy. The fact that the Germans leaked a bit of information through Enigma (always starting with the same introduction to a message, for example) enabled the Allies to have a large strategic advantage which they used fairly effectively throughout the war.

    We need to use this to OUR advantage to make sure that we, the citizens of the world, keep control instead of the Corporations and Governments.

  2. Goatse.cx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    So that's what that image is for, it contains Bin Laden's secret messages! And here we thought it was trolls...

  3. I'm using it extensively. by ers81239 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Anything with a sufficiently low signal to noise ratio could be considered steganography. For example, slashdot is a huge steganographic source. I hear that some people hide news for nerds among all the links to goat se* and first posts.

    I've been putting my secret communiques on slashdot for years. They get modded down as offtopic and are quickly hidden from the every prying eyes of my enemies. I just email my cohorts the message ID's and they go look them up.

    MUHAHAHAA!

    --
    there are 2 kinds of people. those who divide people into 2 kinds, and those who don't.
  4. Obfuscation 101 by Slashdot+Cruiser · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    One weekend, we were planning on hitting the mall, but Katz is on probation and can't go. We try to talk him into it, but he doesn't even want to say "mall" or "young boys" over the phone because he thinks they might be tapping his phone.

    So what we do is come up with a plan to obfuscate our communications. In place of "mall", we use "Columbine". In place of "young boys", we use "geeks".

    Now Katz can communicate with us about our plans to hit the mall without letting on what we're really talking about.

    Example:
    "Hey, I was thinking it might be a good idea to revisit Columbine and gets the opinions of several geeks today."

    Means:
    "Hey, let's go the mall and chat up some young boys."

    We were all surprised at how well this worked. In fact, Katz is so pleased he now sends us messages publicly in his articles. Everyone thinks he is writing pseudo-insightful social commentary but he's really just making plans for the weekend.

    So now you know. And knowing is half the battle. The other half involves lots of bullets, heavy artillery, and bleeding.

    --

    Got a full tank of hot grits and a penis bird in the glove box.
  5. Re:Turd report: 9/26/2001 by Slashdolt · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Very clever. If I understand this clever use of steganography correctly, you plan to meet your cohorts in a bar. "Tomorrow's turds" probably refers children. I'm not sure what the score 0 diarrhea reference means, but I have several coworkers working on it right now. "I also had pasta for dinner" means that you were in Italy last night. "Solid turds" is most probably a reference to "No complete ideas have yet been formed."

    You stinking terrorist!