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First Steganographic Image Found In The Wild
Niels Provos writes: "After months of searching for steganographic content on eBay and
elsewhere -- downloading millions of images, we were finally able to
find an image with a stegangraphic message hidden in it. Stegdetect and Stegbreak made short process with it. It took less
than a second to compute the secret key necessary to extract the
hidden message. Two commands at the prompt, and we found the hidden
message to be an image of B-52 scrapyard. Right off Terraserver."
What about the Evil Bert picture? We didn't seem to have the flood of Anthrax here in the U.S. until after that poster came out.
Hidden message?
Hidden like a fox!
It was shown on ABC news during a discussion of, guess what, steganography. The key was "abc". The person who created it said that it had a message hidden in it. An image "in the wild" would be one that was found at images. that wasn't known beforehand to have steganographic content.
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what exactly is the purpose of this. After perusing the site i'm not exactly sure what the purpose of this is. at first i thought it was related to terrorist hiding information in images on the internet. can someone shed some light of this situation.
It says "host cannot be reached, click OK to continue"
:)
yay. It only took me 10s w/Netscape to find the message
downloading millions of images? you think they would want to find something better than a pic off of terraserver with that kind of investment.
If voting could really change things, it would be illegal.
...now we're going to need federal registration to download images off the web... all for the greater cause of fighting terrorism, of course!
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
it was fabricated and discussed on national television. it's a bit of a stretch to claim it was "found in the wild".
This is a self-referential sig
I can see now that the government will try very hard to ban pictures or picture reading devices so no one puts copywrited quotes in pictures. Quick someone shut-down picture serch engines for distributing encrypted work!
...the theory that no-one's using this technique!
images.
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If I told you that one of the images on my website had stegagnographic content, would that count as "in the wild"?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
This wasn't on EBay. This was a published demonstration of how steganography works.
But if you look at the Slashdot image: http://images.slashdot.org/title.gif you'll see cmdrtaco and cowboyneal with pasty white bodies on the well tanned French Riviera.
The linked page says that the steg. image found "in the wild" was intentionally done as a demo of steganography and publicized on TV.
Someone please take this article out. It's an embarassment.
That it was the planted image from ABC. This is not what I would call a real detection of "in the wild" Show me an image that wasn't part of a media company stunt, or other reporter activity on the very technology of stenaography. Any of the supposed bin-laden images? How about a simple script-kiddie or cracker/thief communication?
In the wild denotes actual use by thrid parties.. A virus in the wild means it's out there looking to do damage and infect, This image is the equilivant of a hello world program on a how to program website.
It's not in the wild, It's an example placed by ABC news.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"of course we needed to visit all these pr0n sites! that's where 70% of all the images on the web are!"
- This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along, move along..
...a sure fire way to crash your webserver.
What I would like to see is a truly wild image culled from the net. Unfortunately, it probably would be kiddie porn.....
Still, the test is interesting.
... will be the ones in the DECSS gallery.
It took them months to get someone to put a secret message in a file so they could decode it? If they had just asked me I would have done it in a couple of minutes.
Now wait for Terraserver to e-mail you about your violation of the DMCA.
Heh heh heh.
Do you like German cars?
Good stego should be undetectable -- first off, the hidden message should be encrypted, and therefore nearly indistinguishable from any other set of random numbers. Also, the message needs to be several orders of magnitude smaller than the carrier image -- if you want to hide a 1K message, you ideally want a ~1M image to put it in. Isolating 1K of signal out of 1M of noise would be very computationally difficult.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
it were a real, honest-to-goodness, in the wild picture, would it really be that exciting? I mean, the picture is available to the public anyways, so what _would_ be the big deal??
-Jon
but I'm kinda bothered by this sort of thing, not in the way some might think. I don't have any problem at all with the research being conducted (actually I support it, good stuff!), but I hate that gobs of bandwidth are wasted by this sort of thing.
I mean, how much bandwidth is taken from companies with large numbes of images on their sites (EBay for example) as a results of stuff like this? It's not exactly something you can say adheres to purely ethical use of their bandwidth.
There's got be lots of projects out there attempting this stuff, especially given recent press coverage on the topic. Who's picking up the tab for the network usage?
Perhaps a permission-based scheme would be better, or better yet a volunteer-supported test server pool dedicated to hosting images. That way, people could test out steganography techniques by posting their images to the pool for the community at large to take a crack at. Thoughts? Flames? Oranges?
No doubt a fair proportion of them contain spook words too.
I do not know anything about steganography but I think that there is no general method to find a message hidden in a picture. If the length of the message is small enough compared to the length of the picture and the picture has some random noise in it (like every photography has). A typical GIF contains tens of thousands pixels. Assume that I want to hide a short message (50 chars 5.5 bits per char ie 275 bits in total) it means that I must add a single bit of noise to one of 40 bites of data. How can anyone find that? And what if I add the noise myself? I mean somethig like one-time pad cipher.
Has anyone done this personally? I'd love to do this - has anyone out there tried it?
Do the tools cost money? Are they easy to use?
Any experienced people, please respond...?
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
I think I read that back in 79? 80? Anyway, it was before everyone tried to be "gonzo". Back in the days when Rolling Stone was actually worth reading. Besides, that line in my sig describes much of my life...
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I'm trying to picture this image leaping about the Serengeti, grazing amongst the gazelle, and fleeing from lions...
Unless of course they have a warrant, or the US government implements some more 1984 laws.
Reading the links , I was not able to figure out whether they found the image during their search of random images on the web ?
Or did they use the known image from the ABC show and decoded it ?
Its less interesting if they already knew about the image, than to have found one out of millions of random images.
The problem with looking for hidden messages is taht you can apply some algorithm to any set of bits to generate any message. It's all about how the bits are interpreted.
Two of my aunts mentioned the coverage on ABC. They thought that the demonstration images shown had actually been found and related to the terrorist strikes. I didn't actually see the broadcast, but the two ladies involved aren't stupid. It must have been pretty misleading coverage to give them that impression.
Did anyone actually see the story when it was broadcast and can comment on it?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I thought about putting stego images in all of my pictures in eBay auctions. You know, something like:
"BID!! Bid Higher!! You know you want to!! Don't let that other guy win!!!!"
PK: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
I wonder if they have tried subscribing to a service such as Easynews.com that catalogs every image file found in most newsgroups and saves them for usually ten days. I would imagine that would be a good place to look. If they dont find anything at least they'll have the start of a great pr0n site
Eventually they get told that yes, there is a steganographic image on ABC, and they look at it, and guess what? They prove that it is a steganographic image and they can really desteg it. Quel surprise!
Of course, this particular image was very simply constructed as an example for a mass entertainment news channel intended for a general, non-specialist, audience. It was not constructed by someone concerned about secrecy or desperate to conceal a secret message. On the contrary it was constructed using handy, freely available steganographic image tools, not special purpose custom written ones.
Great!
This doesn't prove that there aren't staganographic images on eBay which their software can't detect. It doesn't prove there aren't steganographic images on alt.sex.binaries.fluffy-bunnies. It doesn't prove there aren't steganographic images on your favourite pr0n site.
It doesn't even prove that some spook agency somewhere can't detect all these steganographic messages, desteg them, and read the payload. All it proves is that these two academics can only detect a steganographic image it they're told where it is and what it is, and even then only if it's produced with a small range of well known, freely available tools.
Incidentally, there is a steganographic payload in this post. Care to scan all Slashdot posts for steganographic payload? All Usenet? No, thought not.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Why bother with all this crap? If terrorists wanted to communicate, they would just browse to a webserver which could be anywhere, get the info they need and get out.
They would likely have a code, maybe use wiki, or forum software, even a java irc client..
Do this from an internet cafe and they're laughing..
What am I missing?
Recently, I have been frustrated by 1) not really doing something (other than donating) related to the recent events, and 2) the government's accusations that technology is actively utilized for terrorism without providing an example.
Considering the importance of this project and the number of images provided on the web, would it be possible for this project, or maybe another, to go to a distributed computing model (@home) ?
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I am sorry to see the above post modded down as "troll". The poster makes some very good points. Here's eBay's own 'acceptable use policy' excerpt that covers this:
Access and Interference.
Our web site contains robot exclusion headers and you agree that you will not use any robot, spider, other automatic device, or manual process to monitor or copy our web pages or the content contained herein without our prior expressed written permission. You agree that you will not use any device, software or routine to bypass our robot exclusion headers, or to interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the eBay site or any auction being conducted on our site. You agree that you will not take any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure. Much of the information on our site is updated on a real time basis and is proprietary or is licensed to eBay by our users or third parties. You agree that you will not copy, reproduce, alter, modify, create derivative works, or publicly display any content (except for Your Information) from our website without the prior expressed written permission of eBay or the appropriate third party.
I think that this very clearly shows that eBay does take a dim view of these things and that such abuses of their network are prohibited. Whether it would stand up in a court of law is another matter, but trying to predict the court system in the U.S. is about as easy as winning at roulette.
Is it some sort of MTV-esque "Look at how bad I am, I like Thompson!' thing?
Perhaps partially. I admire and respect Thompson because gonzo journalism was, at its onset, a new and refreshing change from more traditional reporting styles. It was a partially successful experiment, and worthy of trying.
But perhaps more importantly I admire anyone who is able to flagrantly flout society's conventions and morality and be successful doing so. Since the mainstream media continues to hound upon the virtues of leading a pure and chaste life, it is refreshing to have someone show that extreme debauchery does not necessarily lead to a life of tragedy, if you are smart about it. I don't consider him a "drug crazy retard", but a journalist who has pursued (and abandoned) some interesting styles and who is a better-than-average writer.
What have you read by him?
How much computing power does this type of decryption/investigation take? How much would it take to examine the large (ie > 1M) pictures? If it takes a non-trivial amount of computing power, it sounds like an excellent candidate for a seti-at-home or similar project: "Help us fight terrorism: download this program and help us crack images"...
I looked at that picture for hours and I couldn't see those B-52s
I just kept staring at it and staring at it....
This
why?
Iraq.
Just imagine: you find a pr0n pic with a stegangraphic message. You decode it and find......
a picture of Janet Reno! ARRRRGGGHH!!
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
Just one little thing that seems to be easily forgotten...
The purpose of steganography is information hiding . An information hiding method that reveals more than random noise to an observer is broken. The only thing that can be deducted from a properly encoded steganographic message is the presence of (seemingly) random noise modulated on top of an information carrier. Claim: Encryption is a requirement in order to properly implement information hiding, otherwise one simply ends up with two images/message on top of each other.
There is no way anybody that is serious about information hiding (and we all know who that could be...) will resort to simply mixing two picture sources using [choose your favourite modulation scheme here].
This is also why it is so easy to detect and remove a known watermark from documents. (And certain unknown ones as well, as demonstrated by Felten & Co)
So, while scanning the net can be useful for detecting broken applications of steganography, it will hardly reveal interesting information. (note: "Application" here refers to "method" or "usage" and not necessarily to the software performing the modulation.)
-- Fortes Fortuna Adjuvat --
Why don't you try POSTING LINKS THAT WORK!
the reason they 'cracked' the key was obviously because it wasn't really encrypted.
Any real stego you wanted to hide would also be encrypted. Strongly. So all you would find is noise.
You can use spread spectrum techniques, you dont have to use the LSB. If an image has any uncorrelated noise at all you can always make sure the signal strength of your encrypted message is below the level of that noise ... and if the encryption algorithm can produce a sequence indistuingishable from noise if you dont know the key ...
Makes me want to write a script that periodically scans my drives and drops some stego garbage into each file that doesn't already have some. Would Spy Agency X really find it worth while to crack every jpeg out there when 99.9999% of them contain useless garbage? Whoopee! lets feed Carnivore to death!
Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
Many are beginning to discredit the detection of steganographic images in the wild without learning the actual methods of detection!
While it is very easy to change an algorithm by byte offset, this is NOT the method of detection being used.
The method of detection exploits the characteristics of the JPEG compression algorithm to detect non-naturally occuring deviations in the image file. An example of this would be the gamma balance which is averaged over a certain number of pixels. In order to "hide" a change to a single bit, another bit would need to be inversely modified such that the balance of the image remains within or close to natural balance.
I just find it very strange that somebody tries to make us believe that Steganographic content is limited to pictures and will be found on eBay. _IF_ you really want to hide something you might want to embedd a message at a certain time (time synching is not a problem) into an ever changing stream of data (like a webcam or an Internet radio station). The content has to be spread out over a certain amount of time. Maybe only chunks of a message per hour. This is not exactly emergency communication, orders, information, etc. can be received over several hours if needed. Now you spread the content over a pre-defined sequence and maybe start with a "wakeup" message to indicate that a new block of cipher information is about to come. This would be impossible to detect, because you have nothing to compare against (like a picture of a busy street is never the same). So I personally think that this "we scan on eBay and the pictures are evil" is something to put people at ease, but is not really helping a lot. Other than people will be forced into more stealthier methods ...
Hi ! How are you?
I send you this file in order to have your advice.
See you later. Thanks
I've been putting images with steganographic goodies in them up on message boards and other public webby places for months, in hopes that someone would trip over them.
Been making it as obvious as possible, only to discover that the "I thought it was obvious" password was too tough for the U Mich guys to break with their dictionary attack.
Just me jammin', trying to stir up trouble in the name of liberty and other outmoded concepts.
Yeah, it was found in the wild. They had a filename to go on. Not very "wild" to me. And sure, they broke the pwd, but come on, ABC? Uhm...yeah.
"Science Explores, Technology Executes, Man Conforms." -1929 Worlds' Fair
Shayne
Today I didn't even have to use my AK; I got to say it was a good day -- Icecube
Given that image based steganography has been around for a while, and there are probably at least a few thousand people online experimenting with it, they should be turning up a lot of these. That doesn't even begin to factor in that criminal organizations all over the world are probably playing with the stuff, especially given recent coverage of steganography in the news.
What does this really mean? Perhaps finding well hidden messages is a hell of a lot harder than anyone expected- and it will only get harder. If criminals are using this to communicate, they may be justified in feeling safe doing so.
Of course, it is probably a bad idea to put stock in anything that comes from guys trying to grab the spotlight by reporting an image created by abc news as a steganographic image found "in the wild." If nothing else it reminds me of idiots who try to get attention reposting known securiuty vulnerabilities to BuqTraq.
The image on terraserver that abc encoded. Clarification: This was NOT a terrorist encoded picture. This was planted by ABC and found and decoded.
If I use some of this software, will my wife really believe that the 12MB photo of the cute bunny rabbit isn't really an mpeg of 'Debbie does Dallas." But at least I'll be able to hide the rest of the pictures. Unless she starts wondering why I've suddenly started collecting photos of nature.
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
I wonder if the spookes have any "bugs" which can plant steg messages in analog video. For example, bug the camera's of Al Jazerra / Taliban / Al Queda with a GPS enabled chip, and hide the co-ordinates / time in the video. Then, with alot of luck, you might see where bin Laden actually was at a particular time.
You are correct. The week of Sept. 11, James
Woolsey, ex-CIA director had an article in the
the Daily Telegraph. Use their search engine to find the
article with a search on with the option
"in the last year".
He suggested that one of the hijackers had a meeting before Sept. 11 with an Iraqi government official. Woolsey theorized that the alleged Iraqi participation in the WTC attacks was to "finish the job".
Furthermore, airborne anthrax requires more
than ground swabbing. Iraq has airborne anthrax capabilities. Although chemical weapons are more
accurate and effective than biological weapons,the marginal paranoia of the anthrax cases appear to have increasing returns to scale after President-Vice Cheney said "in all likelihood" it was bin Laden without providing any evidence.
I am most offended by Congress approving U.S $60
billion without any quesions.
The "war on terrorism" is a "war on Afghanistan"
and soon to become, after some Fleischer spin-
doctoring and public memory loss, the "war on Afghanistan and Uuhhhmmmm...Iraq (for the 3rd?!!!!! time). That's why they fingered Afghanistan to begin with and, of course,
to "stabilize" Afghanistan so the oil and gas
pipelines can be completed:
Janes has an article on U.S. intervention to
"stabilize" Afghanistan titled
Prospects For A Post-Taliban Afghanistan:
"It now appears certain that any effort to
regenerate Afghanistan is predicated upon
the removal of the Taliban, and the terrorist
attacks upon New York and Washington
have given the US a perfect opportunity to
legitimise its plan to do just that (which
existed well before 11 September)."
How convenient.
'..Steganographic.....steganographic MY ARSE!'
I once bought a wok and decided to try cooking with it. Got me some veggies and pieces of chicken strips and dumped them into the wok with a little oil, turned up the heat and after stirring a little while, smoke started pouring out and I realized I'd burned the crap out of my supper. Undaunted, I tried for a second time with less heat, but I guess I was too paranoid after my first failed attempt and my stir-fry meal didn't get cooked thoroughly enough and it was rather greasy. I gave up and now I use the wok only as a drain pan when I change the oil on my motorcycle.
Hm...wouldn't a browser caching the image to disk then be a violation of copyright? Just looking at a web page which happens to have an image with a stegonagraphically hidden message puts a copy of that image on a permanent medium. Assuming the image/its hidden contents are copyrighted, and put on a website, lots of people will be violating the copyright in this way....any laws that set precedent against this sort of thing?
And guess who makes the browser with the most widespread distribution now???? MickySoft!!!!!! That means that now they're TRAFFICKING IN COPYRIGHT CIRCOMVENTION DEVICES and should be thrown in the slammer alongside Dimitry.
If a person creates there own, unknown program with new algorythims, an FBI agent will not be able to decode the hidden measage. why? because if you do not have any information about the system that created the picture, you will not know how to decode it. the only way that the FBI will be able to decode pictures would be to get the program from some one...if you are a terrorist, are you going to give them a copy of your program?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
It's spelled "je crois que oui".
I suggest you read Hell's Angels.
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.
OutGuess 0.2 can not be detected using these techniques.
A little cornfusing, but it sounds like they couldn't really find any hidden info IN THE WILD, so ABC creates this image for a stego program and challenges these genie-asses to decode it? Bloody difficult key there, ABC.
Excuse me but this sounds like a police dept. with a bloodhound who couldn't find squat, takes a prisoner, ties a t-bone steak around his neck, puts him in the dog house and says, "Find the criminal, boy! Good dog! Good Doggie!! See what progress we are making in the fight against terrorism?!" while the media are rolling film.
Or they want to justify continued funding for their research on images in alt.binaries.pictures.you.know.what.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
You aren't REALLY so naive as to believe they intend to use these to combat *terrorism*, are you?
These "antiterrorist" laws are nothing more than the standard antiprivacy "pro law" items that certain elements have been trying to get for years. Now they have a window of opportunity to ram them through.
If passed the average person convicted of a crime using the antiterrorist rules will be high school kids selling pot or dicking with their school's chess club web page.
They know damn well that these provisions won't really let them watch terrorists, but it will sure as hell let them watch YOU!
KFG
Quick! Everybody start hiding pictures of the goatse man in as many images as you can! See how eager researchers are to decode the pictures then! >:D
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
An half-truth in a major trusted place is brutally efficient. Damn that "false authority" sindrome...
What does UBL's message sound like played backwards? Are voices hidden within?
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Why hide messages just in one picture? Why not a message that requires various picture to be read? Why hide just in images? Why not in .mp3, for example? Why don't they use hardly audible noises on an audio file that could be decoded into a message? And, why don't they build their own independent network?
Why hide just in one image? Why not in multiple images? Why just in images? Why not in .mp3, for example? Why don't they use hardly audible noises in an audio file that could be decoded into a message? And, why don't they build their own independent network?
very clever! I like!
more of the same "if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about" mantra we keep hearing, courtesy of the powers that be.
"It really doesn't have very many legitimate purposes. The purpose is to actually hide the fact that you are communicating."
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
so we don't have to hear about this again:
ebay and all isps could run de-steno proxies that transform all images into reasonable quality jpegs. the encrypted/stenoed stuff would be damaged enough that it couldn't be deciphered.
but then, coded lanuage could really be inserted anywhere, newsgroup posts, chatrooms, ebay item descriptions.
I wonder what would happen when some freak hides some instructions to carry out some sort of terrorist act in a pr0n image and it gets widely disseminated and shared around. Now if law enforcement found such an image on you, how would you prove you weren't the one who wrote the message?
Here is a message right off the back of my 3com shirt which got at a trade show 3 years ago:
http://doom.net/pics/3com-shirt.jpg
-v
That is an practical and powerful way to communicate. He could have sent the encrypted messages MONTHS ago (when no one was seriously checking for them) and told people "Ok, when you see Evil Bert on the signs, release the Anthrax" Now everyone is probably looking for encrypted messages and guess what? He wouldn't have to use them.
I don't think Bin-Laden is stupid. I think he is brilliant and would do something just like this.
The Phone Butler
http://www.phonebutler.com/
A friend of mine got one for his Dad and swears by it. When you hear the telemarketer start to say anything to you, you hit the * key and a precanned message asks that you are to be put on the 'do not call list'.
Advantages:
1. Removes all the effort from having to deal with them.
2. Puts you on the 'do not call list'
3. Doesn't confuse your friends (unless you want to!?
Disadvantages:
1. Its $50
2. Its got a really lame voice.
On a second note, i've been using my cell phone in LA, CA for about a year without any problems with NO LANDLINE.
Sorry if I'm wrong here, but didn't the headline say "found in the wild?" After reading the article it sounds to me like they got the image from an ABC show that was actually about steganography. That's not in the wild, among several million images on eBay, like the headline suggested.
I have the same combination on my luggage!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Sound like (sorry, I'm probably butchering this) a line from 1984: "We are at war with Eastasia and have always been at war with Eastasia." Sadly, the truth to this is that "Big Brother" kept his power over the masses by the very fact that "we are at war and always been at war", where patriots proudly surrendered their "rights" to ensure "victory", and that this his how our reality will play out.
I recently grabbed stegdetect and ran it against a CD of porn (no, really) images that i had grabbed off usenet and the web over the past couple years. I think there were about 6-7000 images in total, and about 200 were detected as having steganographic content. My guess was that it was copyright information. I haven't gotten off my ass and ran brute force against the keys.
From Stegdetect's website:
Stegdetect...is capable of detecting several different steganographic methods to embed hidden information in JPEG images. Currently, the detectable schemes are jsteg
jphide (unix and windows)
invisible secrets,
and outguess 01.3b.
OutGuess 0.2 can not be detected using these techniques.
Obviously, if we can convince terrorists to limit their tools to the "breakable" stuff, we'll be safe from terrorism at last.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
I found that how easy, yet devious, encryption technologies encrypt. Can they truly hide important secrets in laughable locations? Bad encryption inside messages provides really easy sending, still, easy decryption. :-(
Now go back and read the above paragaph, but this time only read the first letter of each word...
Since the mainstream media continues to hound upon the virtues of leading a pure and chaste life
Are you posting this from another planet or from inside Taliban controlled Afghanistan? You can't be referring to modern Western media. References to and glorification of illicit drugs and sex litter the media like empty beer cups and candy wrappers in the stands after an XFL game.
from the website:
Microsoft TerraServer contains digitized aerial photos and digitized topographical maps of the United States provided by the US Geological Survey. USGS digitized aerial images cover approximately 35% of the conterminous United States. New digitized aerial photos of the United States are loaded daily. 100% of the conterminous United States is expected to be completed by the end of 2001. The USGS digitized topographical maps cover 100% of the conterminous United States and Hawaii.
Error = 0
needs to cover more Terra before the name is justified!
Not that I care either way, but it apears that you are more of a homo.
Are you implying that if a person has "strength of character", he becomes invincible? Or perhaps just loved by all, so he won't be hurt by anyone? Are all crime victims suffering from some lack of character or perhaps an unwillingness to help that would have saved them? Are there no criminals, only reasonable folks murdering people who deserve it due to a lack of character?
I find your comments both insulting and profoundly ignorant.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Intelligent terrorists would use their own courier.
When not planning face to face, terrorists will just have to send personal couriers - or get caught.
Perhaps give mobile for single message when required - just using message - go with plan a / b or abort.
Government are using terrorism as an excuse - to scare people into supporting them in the monitoring of Internet traffic.
This is all propaganda by government - to invade our basic human right to privacy.
Government say about surveillance - "you've nothing to fear - if you are not breaking the law"
This argument is made to pressure people into acquiesce - else appear guilty of hiding something.
It does not address the real reason, why they want this information - they want a surveillance society.
This is like having somebody watching everything you do - all your thoughts, hopes and fears will be open to them.
All your finances for them to scrutinize - heaven help you if you cannot account for every cent when they check on your taxes.
Do not believe the lies of Government - even more money spent on Carnivore will not protect you.
Incidentally, the United States Department of Commerce and the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization know the solution to trademark and domain name problems.
You will find it on WIPO.org.uk
I hope he gets whacked
It's certainly not enough to claim it's been working with the ABC image. The fact that the key was "abc" prove that the hidding was done for ABC so it's probably using some very simple algorithme to hide.
The basics of steganography are very simple indeed.
Now the real way of testing their framework would be to have on one side people generating steganographic images, mix them with non steganographic images, then run the framework on it.
Of course the steganographic algorithme original pictures and hidden messages would not be known from the framework.
They should launch a contest.
Have they done that?
"killing hundreds of thousands both thru actions and inaction"
For every bloody conflict on earth, there are those who demand that the US help side A (action), those who demand that the US help side B (different action), and those who demand that the US stay out of it (inaction). No matter which option we choose, people will die, and we will be held responsible for those deaths and hated for it. When we act, we're simultaneously responsible on one side for acting, and on the other for not acting enough.
I suppose the right answer is that the US should do exactly what the rest of mankind agree unanimously that we should do. Oh, yeah, if the rest of the world were unanimous, there wouldn't be any conflict to be unanimous about.
BTW, I don't agree with US actions in many cases, and I don't attempt to justify actions that *I* consider wrong. Still, I have few illusions that if the US always did the "right thing" by my judgment, everyone would like us. Not a chance. I've seen too many cases of people furious that the US "allows" them to be abused by their government, and then furious at the US for "attacking" their country if we try to stop their abusive government.
Most countries can avoid all blame by not doing anything, but the US doesn't usually have that option. We get blamed by millions around the world for the brutality of our "inaction". The US is the only country whose inaction is counted as an action by most of the world.
"letting much of the world suffer without electricity, food, water...."
Yes, yes, this is just one of our weapons of mass destruction. Despite having the highest rate of charitable contribution (per capita) of any country on earth, there are still children who starve to death while we buy videogames -- so *we* killed them. Did the Norwegians also kill them? Of course not, silly. They can buy videogames. *American* inaction is the only inaction that will be condemned worldwide, often as "genocide".
"The root of all violence is violence". Yes, yes, and the KKK, the Mafia, and the Taliban are just misunderstood, and you "don't wish them to feel shame".
Clearly you feel none.
As for "do you have any concept of the conditions in Kuwait now?...I don't." No kidding. Best to just assume that they have problems of some sort and *we* are responsible for them.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
if ebay can afford to give out $4 a signup to all the warez puppies, then they can afford to give out a few k's of bandwidth in the interest of research.
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for the LOVE OF GOD!
all wiped out after terrorist activites following coded messages on steganosauruses.
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Finally a valid reason for downloading porn!
"I was looking for steganographic pictures..."
jari / dj ken-guru
Is this going to result in a lot of people putting up steganographic images on Ebay to see if the find it?
will they? - i would have thought someone reading about the project would have done it already. i would.
Apparently the U.S. government thinks that it would be dangerous if the U.S. citizens were allowed to hear bin Laden's propaganda messages.
The U.S. citizens have traditionally been given very little independent information about the international affairs. Therefore the goverment officials may believe that changing the amount of information coming from independent foreign sources while the U.S. internal political situation is somewhat volatile might not be a good idea.
To a certain degree all propaganda has a universal structure. And if the American public was exposed to Arab propaganda the American masses might learn that general structure of propaganda. They might be able to see through it. And that would be very dangerous at a time when the government needs to be able to use its own propaganda machinery at full power.
The similarities of christian and islamic fundamentalism are just too obvious when you are exposed to both of them. Therefore that direct exposure must not be allowed to happen.
Sorry, I'm used to bad english on /. (like idiots who write "Collage" instead of "College") but bad french is a first for me.
There are many better methods - like commercials in newspapers, IRC, or just posting the secret phrase on Slashdot.
Bin Laden's 18 year old son said in an interview that he has internet connection now that he and his mom had to move to Pakistan (they are living there as refugees). So he might actually be reading Slashdot!
He also said that he had not been allowed to watch television because of his dad's religious views 'which are quite strict'.
My only exception to stwilwebm's comment above is the phrase "quite possibly". IMNSHO, "not bloody likely" is the correct adverbial phrase.
I'm not usually a "word-freak", but "quite possibly" and "quite probably" are two very distinct things, people sometimes use "possibly" and "probably" interchangably which is incorrect. He is right in saying that it is "quite possible", but I'd agree that it's not very "probable".
Transmission of nonsense phrases to spies in Eastern Europe continued throughout the 1950s, under the codename The Goon Show. To this day, many of them have not been decoded and the chief steganographer is likely to carry their secret meanings to his grave.
I don't know where people got the idea that a picture of clocks and a badly rendered lens flare is 'in the wild'.
It is clear that a person, with the help of some computing device, conjured up this image and doesn't deserve to be called in the wild.
Do you mean outside of some elite (see, you *can* spell it without numbers!) little club of developers?
Now, finding God's message to His creation encoded in the stripes of a zebra would have been a real example.
Someone needs to rethink their terminology.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
The facts are, I don't give a fek.
Most of these complaints reflect the fact that as a republic, we often attempt to let people "settle their problems themselves" (sort of a political prime directive). When we do decide to help, we try by all sorts of feeble, non-bullying means (Peace Corps, advisors, limited action, yadi yadi yadi). We try to give the gift of freedom, peace and rationality without dealing with the reality that such things are earned by centuries of cultural preparation. Where's the Moslem equivalent of the Magna Carta, in which
Until the flamebaiting "we are to blame as much as them" trolls understand the complete historical perspective, they should fek off. Sure, we are still trying to perfect the applications of these sorts of principles, but at least we have a foundation and a long history of evolutionary and revolutionary implementation. Of course, the effort to spread through example rather than force is a recent development. Until recently we kind of colonized and converted by the rules of empires, which, if the target country is lucky, means (1) "keep your mosques, synagogues, temples, giant budda statues, weird eating habits and marriage customs, but you gotta have property, courts and a legal system that provides for domestic tranquility resolving conflict", or,(2) fine, live here in the boonies with your animistic 10,000 year old ways, and we'll just hang loose over there, or (3) we'll kill you.Now, we are confronting an enemy who does not want option (1), and has rejected it in a way that makes (2) no longer an option. They make Peace Corps, advisors, limited action, yadi yadi yadi sort of like kneeling and praying in front of a fire ant nest.
Slashdotters like to think we are analytically astute, so I challenge us all to do the hard history study required to speak to the issues intelligently. I follow that with a challenge to figure out how technlogies that we are all so good with can be used to ensure that the world still has a place for freedom in 100 years.
Remember, if you climb up on a soapbox, and stretch out your neck - it's that much easier for them to slip a noose around your neck and kick away the box.
I dont care what they develop for detection or interception, anyone with 1/2 a brain can get past them without effort. The difference between a madman and a genius is that a genius won't use his/her knowlege to kill people for sport (or any other reason) The madman looks for any excuse to use his/her knowlege to kill maim or destroy.
Well thanks, you just gave the madmen ideas on how to defeat the stego-detectors. The only thing we have going for us in this battle is clever ideas they haven't thought of yet. The FBI is tracking purchases made on the hijackers' credit cards after 9/11 by persons whom the cards were shared with, for example. But now that the media has reported this fact, the terrorists will be sure not to make that mistake again.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I read that, for some years, British TV had forbidden broadcasting representatives of Sinn Feinn (even MPs). The result was that dubbing actors read their interesting declarations. I don't know if they had better voices than the originals.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
testing my posting abilities, i keep getting formkey errors :(
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.