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Hacktivismo to Release Steganography Tool
Anonymonkey writes: "According to this story at , a group called Hacktivismo will release a steganographic tool called Camera/Shy at H2K2 this year. Apparently, it will make it easy for persecuted political groups to hide messages in images. The group has links to the Cult of the Dead Cow, which is, of course, working on Peek-a-Booty."
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Go turn on CNN. There was a shooting at the LAX ticket counter for an Israeli airline.. sounds like terrorism.
Jack Buck (1924-2002)
Darryl Kile (1968-2002)
what's wrong with the existing tool that i use to keep all my porn in my slashdot posts?
free (as in mp3s) electronic music
just another way to hide secret messages... dont we have enought of these already
What do they mean by persecuted anyway? One could argue that the Taliban/Al Qaeda are persecuted political groups...
Reposting again. Managed to get up to 50 Karma, posted ONE pro-Troll message, and got mod-bombed. This diatribe was truer than I thought. CLiT, I shall be honored if you accept me as a member!
Visitors to the website slashdot.org [slashdot.org] will by now have surely heard of the act of Moderation. This is where a contributor's post can be 'Moderated' either positively or negatively, depending on how the Moderator perceives the value of the post. There is a sliding scale of total moderation points, from -1 to 5, along with snappy summaries of the reason for moderation, such as "Funny", "Insightful", or the ever popular "Troll". An additional benefit offered to Moderators is the ability to ban a poster from contributing, by negatively moderating enough of his postings in a 24 hour period.
In order to retain some level of fairness for the Slashdot population, the Slashdot Editors (adopting the role of 'Benevolent Dictators') have implemented a scheme whereby regular users of Slashdot, chosen essentially at random, are given the ability to act as Moderators.
This underlines an inherent flaw in the system. Psychological studies have shown that in any community, no matter how small, should a random sampling of people be given the slightest grasp of power, they will immediately abuse it. There is a primal, evolutionary desire in Man to place himself higher than his peers by whatever measurement they can muster. Slashdot Moderation provides the ideal means for which a man can prove himself more equal than others.
At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law at such an early point in my thesis, I have no choice but to compare Slashdot Moderation to the systematic genocide of the Jewish community in 1930's Germany.
A bold statement, I admit, and deliberately designed to shock, but I feel the statement is necessary. I shall now offer a more rational explanation, as well as a comparison of the parallels between Slashdot Culture, and the National Socialist regime.
First, some history. National Socialism did not spring up overnight. It grew from a feeling of national bitterness and resentment at the war reparations Germany was forced to make after World War One. Germany was a broken country, populated by desperate starving people. And to the desperate, an extreme ideology begins to seem like a rational choice.
The advent of new technology forces a paradigm shift in the way the beholders of that technology think. The Christianity Meme was made wide spread by the invention of the Gutenberg press. And the rise of National Socialism was made popular because of the invention of Cinema. Here we had a new means to control the flow of information to the populace, that they are willing to unquestioningly listen to due to the 'novelty factor' of moving pictures. It is no coincidence that some of the best Cinematography of the early 20th Century came out of the National Socialist propaganda machine.
Why is this the case? It is yet another fault of man that a new means of distributing memes is perceived, due to the 'newness' of the medium, to have a greater 'validity' than older media. Those harnessing new inventions have the power to win control of the hearts and minds of others.
With the tools in place, who should the National Socialists target? Clearly, as a counterpoint to Man's desire to hold power over others, there is also a desire to resent the success of others. If someone is successful, they reduce the self-worth of their beholders. Although times were harsh in Germany in the prelude to World War II, there were still successful inhabitants of that country. Possessing shrewd business acumen as well as the contacts in other countries needed to maintain support in such a poverty stricken and broken land, who else should deserve the wrath of the populace more than the Jews?
Fast-forward to the latter quarter of the 20th Century. Computing technology is focused in niche markets, and limited to big successful companies like IBM and Microsoft. As the markets were limited, there were also limited opportunities for employment. This gave rise to a rising number of college dropouts, seething with resentment and unable to relate to society beyond the staccato clatter of keyboards and the pallid green glow of an 80x24 text display, and lacking the basic business skills (and a smart suit) needed to secure employment at one of these companies.
At this time, a new invention was beginning to take hold in College campuses throughout the world. The Internet. As with the Gutenberg press and Cinema beforehand, this new technology would grow to spread one of the most virulent memes of the modern age - Open Source Software, created as the antithesis of successful business practise.
So, the parallels between the birth of Anti-Semetic National Socialism and the birth of Open Source Software have been made. Of course, it is easy to claim that A=B without providing further logical evidence in support. So, the next task of my thesis is to provide further parallels, and bring this discourse back to the initial focus on Slashdot Moderation.
Slashdot was conceived, in it's original 'Chips 'n' Dips' incarnation, as a vehemently anti-corporate Open Source website. Roughly 10-15 years down the line from the birth of Open Source, it has become saturated with propaganda, and now forms the centrepiece of the Open Source Development Network. An authority in it's field, Slashdot's success is in no small part due to the ability of the editors to 'pick and choose' valid news articles submitted by users, and present the same old tired "Open Source Good / Closed Source Bad" rhetoric time and time again, dabbling with anti-copyright and the right of the 'common man' to remove an artist's ability to gain compensation for the work. In essence, this is similar to the 'paring down' of artistic worth in 1930's Germany. If no-one is willing to contribute valid and vibrant art to the community, then all art shall become harsh and functional, possessing a certain intimidating aesthetic.
Which leads onto Open Source's shining achievement - Linux. This diatribe is not aimed towards Linux in particular, as it is a well-oiled, well-tuned machine. A technically adept Operating System, it is worthy of admiration by any rational man. The point of this thesis is not to attack the art produced by Open Source coders, which in itself is worthy, but to enlighten all as to the political processes behind the OSS movement.
By the same scale, it is hard to fault Mercedes for the technical excellence of the vehicles which were used by the National Socialist party. But the politics behind the party are what taint the image of Mercedes' vehicles of the era. The Swastika itself is a benign symbol, found this day in such diverse locations as Pokemon cards, but is permanently tainted with the history of the acts made under its auspice. In the same way, companies switching to Open Source solutions will begin to regard the Penguin with the same trepidation as their profits fall.
It should be worth noting at this point that IBM, previously one of the world's greatest companies, has begun reporting servere financial losses, no doubt due to its adoption of Open Source practises. This epoch-making event was NOT reported on Slashdot, even though articles were submitted.
And what of the other great company mentioned above? Microsoft, aka Micro$oft, Mickeysoft, Microshaft, Kro$oft, and many other derogatory and undeserved names. Throughout the previous 25 years, Microsoft has grown from strength to strength, again possessing shrewd business acumen as well as providing products that people want. This makes them the number one target for the OSS movement. Incapable of standing by their own merits, the OSS zealot would rather attack Microsoft as a priority than produce anything of worth for their community.
Slashdot Moderators, crazed with their limited new-found power, exhibit this behavior. It is a sad state of affairs that the majority of article moderations are negative. Where is the positive feedback and sense of social contribution? Nowhere to be found. Moderators are too focused on putting their peers down to make themselves appear superior, rather than doing the hard work and becoming better on their own terms.
As the National Socialists required a scapegoat, Slashdot Moderators require a constant stream of Postings to label '-1, Inferior'. Once a posting is reduced to the score of -1, it becomes invisible to the casual user. Again, this is a parallel to the Ghettoization of Germany upon the election of Hitler.
In essence this would not be so bad, were postings to be evaluated on their own terms. However, alongside the moderation of their postings, each user has a 'Karma' value, namely the sum of their worth to the Slashdot community. As a user's posts are moderated up or down, so their Karma fluctuates. As Karma becomes negative, a user's default posting score is reduced, until they are posting at a default of -1. Again, ghettoizing PEOPLE, not just their opinions.
This ghettoization is reinforced with the often fake belief that a negatively moderated post, and therefore the poster, is a "Troll". (Is it any wonder that such a name has been chosen to describe these people, invoking mental imagery of facial disfigurement and hooked noses?) As the Jews were accused of fraud, dishonesty and being subhuman animals, so too are Trolls accused of FUD, Crapflooding, and obfuscated goatse.cx links. Quite often, these 'undesirables' are capable of providing a valid insightful comment on a topic, but because it is in opposition to the Political dogma of Slashdot they are moderated back into their ghetto. The person becomes moderated, not their opinion.
This is just the thin end of the wedge. Although, as memes are transient, it is difficult to silence an opinion, it is trivial to silence a person. Upon the rise of National Socialism in Germany, the populace were motivated by propaganda into entering the Jewish Ghettos en masse with the sole purpose of causing as much damage as possible to Jewish businesses and residences. The infamous Krystalnacht. This parallels far too accurately with the Slashdot Editor's non-discouragement of the act of IP-banning. As mentioned above, this occurs when an individual user's postings are repeatedly moderated down in a short period. They then become incapable of posting any contributions themselves. In essence, they have been silenced, regardless of the worth of their postings.
Of course, the editors claim that Meta-Moderation is the panacea to solve this clear abuse of moderating privledge. But if a Meta Moderator is presented with a list of moderations that they disagree with, such as this targetted 'silencing' mentioned above, they cannot note them as such without in turn becoming an 'Undesirable' themselves, as too many Disagreements with the Moderation groupthink also result in loss of Karma.
Throughout all of this, the Editors have claimed a false level of detachment from the acts of moderation. In a same way, as the National Socialists gathered their power and began working on their Elite Political wing, The SS, they too remained detached from the civilians working in their name. Why? Because after inspiring the populace to such acts of violence through their propaganda, they could then claim that they were only giving the people what they want.
And then began the next stage of the atrocities. The Gestapo, Germany's secret police, were recruited from the best and the brightest of Germany's elite. As is the case now, the best and the brightest of society were often shunned and ostracized in society. In essence, the Gestapo were a tightly controlled 'Geek Army' of intelligent young men with a burning, seething resentment of normal society. The perfect psychological profile for the cause.
After all, give a normal man (with an active sex life) a gun and he will use it responsibly in self defence. Give a geek a gun and he will behave according to his sociopathic logic and hatred of the world he arrogantly presumes to be distant from. Ask yourself why Slashdot flat-out justified the murder of innocents at Columbine. And then ask yourself why, even for a brief moment, you almost began to sympathize with the killers after Jon Katz' manipulative and pseudo-emotive Hellmouth articles.
How this relates to Slashdot is clear. The majority of Slashdot posters are Sociopathic OSS zealots, unable through lack of social finesse or personal hygiene to mate regularly. Sexually and emotionally frustrated and with grudges to bear, incapable in their blinkered sense of self-righteousness of accepting any dissenting opinion than the OSS cause. Now give these people the opportunity to Moderate these dissenting opinions. Of course they are going to want to silence them, by any means necessary.
Now, the Slashdot Editors have admitted taking this silence of opinion into the next stage, by moderating whole swathes of 'undesirable' posts negatively. And then permanently banning anyone who moderates said posts back up from moderating EVER again! The result of this new policy? The few Moderators with any sense of fairness and decency are removed from the moderation pool, leaving the power ENTIRELY in the hands of the zealots. Clearly, positive moderation is discouraged under this regime, which is a direct parallel with the way the National Socialists moved their own sympathisers into positions of power throughout Europe.
So how does this compare to the genocide performed in Auschwitz and their ilk? I would like at this point to explain that in NO way do I wish to belittle the horrors that were performed in the name of National Socialism. The six million innocents killed were a cry of anguish from which humanity may never recover. And a vast distance in time and scope from a few banned posters on some shitty "My Favourite Links - now with comments" website. But these stories need to be retold before the horror is lost forever.
For the only thing that we learn from history is that we never learn anything from history. Time and time again, the St. Vitus dance is played out, we make the same mistakes, and we perpetually fail to see the warning signs.
So, moderators, the next time you moderate a rational, insightful post down, maybe because you disagree with it or because it's posted by a 'Known Troll', just ask yourself this...
--
hemos_: Alterslash [alterslash.org] is illegal. And is violating copyright.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Will it do anything differently than the rock-solid and famous OutGuess" ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
... this product is designed for non technical users... oh yah and you need IE5.0 or higher... i wonder what the good old feds are going to have to say about maybe giving some real encryption ro regular people...
personally i think this is a good project BUT once again im afraid we may have to defend it from the same old DMCA/PATRIOT nonesense...
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
Sometimes it isn't the content that gives you away, it's the fact that you're sending traffic between point A and point B, and B talks to C, D, and E.
That can be enough to tip off the wrong someone.
Likewise, if you start sending graphic files back and forth where you USED to be sending other types of traffic, whatever entity might be watching those transmissions is likely to catch on. Let's not even go INTO how you're sending MORE data rather than less. Me, I'd be shooting for a method that breaks the communication up, sends it in with a bunch of other garbage to multi-pointed destinations at random times, strongly encrypted en-route so sender and receiver are masked...
Oh wait, that sounds a lot like a mixmaster remailer.
And yes, I know, mixmaster and PGP are not an option for environments where the very use of same is enough to get you drawn and quartered.
i'm sure the question on everyone's mind is 'are the tools going to be free as in software?'
aren't the sites that host these tools going to be the first sites to be filtered by oppresive governments and thus rendered unusable due to not being able to get them?
free (as in mp3s) electronic music
The only thing that is news in that article to me was that a) steonography is being used, and b) the hidden messages will be encrypted.
So, basically the author had to paste together some code for a front end gui that manages the stenographic encoding with the key based encryption.
I don't even see how this is going to change anthing or be relevant to those indivuals who use combinations of both at present time.
Although, I can see myself downloading this when it's released so I can send a test out. But c'mon...
dmarien
The phrase "Hi'tuk Mi'jobb" is Arabic for "I'm killing you, but I really want to kill your children in the name of Allah. Allah permits me to kill children in order to secure my place in heaven!"
It's a common mistake to make. I advocate going out now and shooting an islamic mongrel in order to make amends.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
I am afraid unless Hacktivismo is really careful and knows what they're doing, their program may get some human rights workers tortured and killed. By careful, I mean don't even mess with embedding messages in jpg images. It might be reasonably safe to embed them in audio or video streams at very low bit rates, like one bit per several seconds of 44 khz 16 bit PCM audio or mini-DV video. And even that would take sophisticated encoding to keep detection difficult.
Reference: Security Engineering by Ross Anderson, reviewed on Slashdot a few months ago.
Apparently, it will make it easy for persecuted political groups to hide messages in images.
Why just 'persecuted political groups'? (which I hope isn't another name for a terrorist organization). The article says that it is easy to use. Which means that you and I can communicate with each other securely, with no one eavesdropping. It's neither a good or bad thing, it's a tool. This tool can be used for good and bad.
I really think that this post was implying that terrorists will take advantage of this tool. Drop this terrorism crap. Terrorists use many other mundane things to cause damage, why not make a big deal about those items too.
Sites such as the Internet Paper Mill and Term Papers will start to have to list EssayWritingChicks.com
Now we should be able to hide from these guys.
Plagiarism.com
Plagiarism.org
Wordcheck
Integriguard
Eve
Tournament Management Online &
I always thought Bert was there just because Bert always looked like he had a lot of anger inside him. Kind of like Osama.
Now I can hide messages in my porn.
Certainly a nice toy, yeah, much like any other stego app.
But, what's the practical application? Surely traffic analysis makes stuff like this pretty lame for routine use? Yes, you can hide one message, or a few, but how do you have a conversation using this kind of technology and not stick out for emailing huge JPEGs back and forth?
What do you do? Have a competition to photoshop images? Run a porn site?
I'm just not convinced this is the way to go for real applications.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Hmmm, does it seem strange that such a tool would only be available for IE 5.5+ on the windows platform?
Is this anything like that episode of the X-Files where the code for a kill switch was interlaced into the data on a CD-ROM's audio track? It'd be kinda cool to do that ...
Of course, there was also that Along came a Spider movie, where they were sending msn-style messages using this sort of technology ... that would also be kinda neat ...
(Or did I miss something? Is this about encoding the message into an image, then using the original image to "subtract" and see the message?)
You know, in some circles (especially Middle Eastern), groups such as Al Qaida, Islamic Jihad and Hamas are considered "persecuted political gruops". Please, be honest with yourselves, people. That's like saying that the sole and most widespread use of P2P file trading software is for trading of Free, copylefted media.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
Bond Good afternoon Q, what have you got for me today?
Q Ok pay attention Bond there have been some developments in secret codes since you last came through. I'd like to tell you about our latest wheeze for getting messages back to HQ by e-mailing pictures of Anna Kournikova.
Bond You mean the tennis player named after an Internet virus?
Q The very same. What you need to do is put your message into a very small dot, a micro dot in fact . .
Bond And stick the dot onto a Kournikova photo?
Q Exactly.
Bond Why Kournikova? apart from the obvious?
Q Well that's the devilish part. You see noone will suspect that the picture is anything other than a virus so it will be blocked and deleted.
Bond While all your team will have the perfect excuse to examine Kourno pictures in extreme detail. Now that is devilish cunning. Who invented this stuff?
Q Ah well they used to call themselves the Cult of the Dead Cow but its really a SMERSH front
Bond I see . . . . . .
Fresh Dubya
As the United States works to bring peace around the world our diplomats and/or soldiers can be drug into the court. That's very troubling.
-- What's even more troubling is that Dubya thinks "drug" is the past tense form of "drag", Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 2, 2002
Over 75 percent of white Americans own their home, and less than 50 percent of Hispanos and African Americans don't own their home. And that's a gap, that's a homeownership gap.
-- Less than 50 percent of white Americans (25% to be precise) don't own their homes, either, Dubya. Cleveland, Ohio, July 1, 2002
Roberta is a mom of five children, and her passion is a passion which is shared by moms all across America. Her passion is pretty simple. I want my children to go to a safe school where he or she can realize their full potential.
-- Textbook Dubya-style pronoun mismatch, Cleveland, Ohio, July 1, 2002
It is conservative to understand government can hand out money, but it cannot put hope in people's hearts.
-- Dubya offering up a pretty cynical view of the government he oversees, Cleveland, Ohio, July 1, 2002
For the first time, young girls go to school in Afghanistan, thanks to the United States and our coalition.
-- Actually, I think young girls went to school in Afghanistan before the Taliban regime took power, Dubya, Cleveland, Ohio, July 1, 2002
This isn't a -- the type of war we're all used to. It's not the kind of war where there's tanks moving across, you know, some plain, everybody gets to see the progress of the tanks. This isn't the kind of war where planes are in formation.
-- Cleveland, Ohio, July 1, 2002
I had my first 'scope', as we say in the business, I think maybe five or six years ago. They discovered polyps for the first time.
-- Dubya seeming to indicate heretofore unknown expertise in proctology, White House, June 28, 2002
But corporate America has got to understand there's a higher calling than trying to fudge the numbers, trying to slip a billion here or a billion there and may hope nobody notices.
-- This, of course, makes it sound like slipping billions, too, is a noble cause, just not the noblest, Washington, D.C., June 28, 2002
And I want to thank the Morella men for allowing Connie to serve our nation and encouraging her to serve our nation.
-- Apparently Dubya still lives in a world where women need permission from the men of the family before they do anything, at Friends of Connie Morella for Congress luncheon, Washington, D.C., June 28, 2002
REPORTER: Should we read anything into the fact that you are going to transfer the power, the length of time of this?
DUBYA: No, not at all. It's just that I made the decision. We looked at the precedent. I'm the first President to have done so under this type of procedure and/or physical examination. I did so because we're at war and I just want to be super -- you know, super cautious.
-- Actually, Dubya's wrong here. President Reagan did exactly the same thing in 1985, when he transferred power to Dubya's father to go in for colon cancer surgery, White House, June 28, 2002
America is a nation that is -- a nation that values our relationship with an Almighty. Declaration of God in the Pledge of Allegiance doesn't violate rights. As a matter of fact, it's a confirmation of the fact that we received our rights from God, as proclaimed in our Declaration of Independence. I -- I believe that it points up the fact that we need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God. And those are the kind of judges I intend to put on the bench.
-- Dubya blasting an 8-foot-wide hole through the separation of church and state, and totally ignoring the actual context in which the "under God" stanza was added to the Pledge of Allegince. I also have to assume that in land of DubyaSpeak, "common-sense" means "God-fearing Christian". So much for atheists, agnostics and Buddhists, eh Dubya? Kananaskis, Canada, June 27, 2002
And so there is a -- I think that the Almighty is important -- obviously, important part of my life, but very important part of the life of our country. And that's why the ruling of the courts was out of step with the traditions and history of America.
-- A tradition in a Pledge of Allegiance that only began in the height of World War II (1942), and which was made more overtly religious at the insistence of the Knights of Columbus during the Cold War (1954)? Knee jerk Christian conservatism is the only acceptable policy in America? Wow. I know I shouldn't be surprised but I have to say I am. Kananaskis, Canada, June 27, 2002
Adam, as you know, my position is, is that the dollar will seek its level based upon -- based upon market forces and based upon whether or not our country can rein in spending, can recover, can revitalize our manufacturing base. And so the dollar will seek its appropriate level based upon market forces.
Listen, we've got a lot of work to do to make sure the Forest Service has got wise forest policy -- to make sure to maintain the forests so that they're healthy and viable, and not become kindling-boxes.
-- Making it sound like "insufficient" logging creates a fire hazard, Eagar, Arizona, June 25, 2002
I understand there's a lot of small business owners who are worried about your business, and I don't blame you.
-- A little subject disagreement here, Eagar, Arizona, June 25, 2002
You know, the enemy would have loved to have seen a scrawny little budget up there.
-- You have to decide whether Dubya is really trying to divine the thoughts of the enemy here (which is hilarious), or if he is trying to paint anyone who would try to defeat his budget request as an enemy, Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, June 24, 2002
It's important for our country to understand this new war of the 21st century is really not like any other war we've fought. You see, we fight people who, on the one hand, send youngsters to their death and they, themselves, try to hide in a cave.
-- That really sums up what's different about this war. Thanks, Dubya. Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, June 24, 2002
Somebody asked me to describe them one time. I said, they're nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers. And they still hate the fact that we love freedom. And they really can't stand the fact that we're not backing down. See, they thought we'd probably just file a lawsuit or two.
-- A new rendition of the lawsuit "joke", which has become a staple of the Dubya vernacular, Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, June 24, 2002
As I travel our country, I remind our citizens there are thousands of people working as hard as they possibly can to keep America safe. Today I recognize I'm in the midst of that type of citizen, who's working hard to keep America safe. Thank you for a grateful nation.
-- Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, June 24, 2002
All together, 75 Port Authority employees were killed on September the 11th. And you need to know, no matter how long it takes, we're going to hunt their killers down, one by one, and bring them to justice.
-- At the risk of sounding crass, the killers (suicide hijackers) can't be hunted down. They died on September 11. [I only mention this as it seems an important distinction to make.] Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, June 24, 2002
In order to defeat evil, you can do so by loving your neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourself.
-- Dubya mixing and matching two of his favorite concepts (unconvincingly), Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, June 24, 2002
I just came from a strong exercise class. Thankfully, I didn't have to join.
-- In speech promoting physical fitness to senior citizens, Orlando, Florida, June 21, 2002
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
They're all the fucking same. One root cause. islam.
It is islam which compels these wretched man-beasts to commit acts of terror. Devoid of any form of rational humanity, they lurch forth from their filthy caves in order to bring as much destruction and desolation as they can onto the civilized world.
I really hope, in fact I'm putting $50 on the line right now, that some brave True American Hero reads this message with the understanding that they have the RIGHT to take their guns outside and shoot as many subhuman ragheaded vermin as possible.
There's $50 in it for you if you do, gentle reader. I'll be waiting.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
You're absolutely right. I find it dispicable that people would release programs that terrorists could possibly use, with the weak excuse that there might be other legitimate uses! I mean, if we got rid of Steganography, PGP, Linux, MS Word, AutoCAD, MS Project, Bablefish, Oracle, OpenOffice, Squid, Rogue Spear, Mathmatica, Apache, Cu-Seeme, and KSH... why, the world would surely be a safer place!
Cheers
-b
Some people are talking about traffic analysis, but it seems to me that the best way to use this would be to post images on the web (ideally, with no HTML files linking to them).
In each message, you'd give a URL to the location of your next transmission. Maybe also a date and time period when it will be available.
And, if you used public web access points like internet cafes to transmit and receive your images, your activity would probably be pretty darned hidden.
Just a thought off the top of my head.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
There's another air-related assault in Los Angeles. abcnews.com are reporting that a plane's deliberately crashed into an LA suburb.
More islamic terror. You'd think they'd have some imagination, wouldn't you?
No, wait. Imagination, Creativity, Free Will. These are all PROHIBITED in the name of *spit* allah.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
They're not saying it was deliberately crashed as far as I know. I saw that news. Wait and see, though it does seem quite suspicious.
Jack Buck (1924-2002)
Darryl Kile (1968-2002)
Cult of the Dead Cow cooperate with the FBI. Anyone who respects these "Pop" hacker groups is probably just a script kiddie or else a gullible pud.
I mean, seriously, how carefully is Uncle Sam going to keep tabs on alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bin_laden_and_a_goat ?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
> Imagination, Creativity, Free Will.
If you were capable of using any of those things, you'd probably be talking about other things, rather than using the easiest, most spineless rhetoric americans have been priviledged to in years.
Wait and find out what has happened, like people capable of using their brains do.
"Old man yells at systemd"
What do they mean by persecuted anyway? One could argue that the Taliban/Al Qaeda are persecuted political groups...
That's correct, but it could also work for groups like the Falun Gong. The Falun Gong is a religous movement that has suffered much oppression in China.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
These popular groups all have a "pro-democracy anti-communist china" message which is of course a message endorsed by the US government. Picking on China is a easy target. Try standing up for something that goes against US interests. These guys are working with US agencies so obviously, give me a freaking break.
Then there's peek-a-booty which was demoed with much fanfare at Codecon but where is it!!!! That was months ago and there is no product we can play with and no source to be seen.
I'm on side with these guys stated intentions ... I just wish I had there publicity touch.
Isn't painfully obvious the CIA and FBI have got these high profile groups promoting anti china sentiment in cracker circles after the scare of a china "hacker attack". This is just so cheesy. Come on Uncle Sam you might trick the scriptoids but the people you should really be worrying about will never buy this nonesense. Better luck next time.
According to their press release they use "LSB steganographic techniques".
In the stego world this is roughly equivalent to using ROT13. If you try and hide any sizeable amount it's a joke to detect. There are many better methods- F5, SSIS, etc...
...Is that of a surgeon who, when faced with a filthy black tumor in the otherwise healthy flesh of his patient, decides against cutting the cancer out, but instead offers it pity and reparations.
Humanity is a living organism. islam is cancer.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Freedom of speech is being able to go in the center of a public square and say whatever you want. It's being able to put your ideas on the front page of a newspaper or pamphlet and distribute it without fear of persecution.
That being said, this may be a useful tool for some people, but I doubt it will be undetectable. Steganography is a tough problem. And encryption won't help you if the stego is detected, because the police will just put you in jail until you give them the key, since you must have something to hide when you use encryption...
L O S A N G E L E S, July 4 -- A small airplane crashed into a Fourth of July crowd at a suburban park, injuring six people, authorities said.
Two of the injured were in serious condition after the crash at Bonelli Park, said Capt. Brian Jordan, of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
steganography stuff. And really attack-safe steganography is beyond the abilities of these guys. Personally I think such groups just create
some PR-hype to found a little later a "security
company" and suck money out of clueless customers.
Just take a look at @Stake formerly l0pht.
And peek-a-booty ?
Rather peek-a-vaporware.
The "Cult of the Dead Cow" should rename itself to "Cult of Microsoft" for their 31337 v4p0rw4r1ng 5|<155.
You are the dot in slashdot !
In reading about the software mentioned, I was more impressed with Peek-a-Booty than Camera/Shy. The ability to make use of 'https' connections to not only get access to prohibited/filtered materials but encrypt them as well (with standards currently accepted as 'unsnoopable' by the business community) makes Peek-a-Booty the posterchild for the Right to Learn and Know. I hope it adds in Freedom of Speech by allowing POST/cgi interaction along those connections.
But that doesn't mean I hate Camera/Shy. It's all about giving people more options to talk to each other. If someone's country has decided to filter what you know, restrict what you say and jail you for just thinking different, I'll give praise to any software, hardware, wetware, lotek or notek method for getting people talking to each other, even if it's just a ROT13 plugin for Eudora.
CDC is just sad. They just jump on other peoples bandwagon. Look at all their lame wammering about open source and p2p. These guys a big lamers. I mean come on these guys are only good for writing shitty stego and windows trojans. These guys couldn't even write some shell code to save their ass. Fucking wannabes.
For you only believe that whites can be racist. Your best friends, Al Qaeda, are a purely racist organisation. They care not for world peace. They only care about the destruction of non-islamics.
Are you growing your beard nice and long now, in the hope of joining them?
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Really these guys are just out of work windows programmers. *snicker*
I'd like to wish a happy july 4th to the country that funds Israel's terrorism, created the DMCA, and generally wipes it's ass on the rest of the world.
Happy July 4th you filthy pig fuckers.
The Slashdot Effect: A new for
With this tech there is many ways to hide your message.
Of course e-mail is out. But using a web site and splitting up your message throughout the images would be great.
Maybe as the images are layed out on the screen, the top one being part one, middle part two and so on.
A whole site can be used to hide anything from Decss to "anarchy" text files or plans to blow up shit.
Still, my favorite was the earlier suggested posting pr0n to newsgroups. See, before you "diss" this type of product get creative. The users will, the NSA will....
Get your Unix fortune now!
Guess what: groups such as Al Qaida, Islamic Jihad and Hamas aren considered "persecuted political groups" EVERYWHERE. The word "persecuted" is not a synonym for "wrongfully persecuted".
Hiding information in the least significant bits of images is okay if you keep the bit rate low. If it gets too high, the statistical profiles of the image changes and that can set off detectors.
I currently like the list of disco songs tool because it doens't have the same statistical problems.
As a Muslim, I feel offended that this hasn't been modded as troll, and that when someone said ringbarer was wrong, ringbarer's reply about "islam is cancer" has a score of 2.
Of course moderation is meaningless. The important matter is that such views are accepted in the name of free speech, while in most modern countries the incitement to hate is a crime.
Fucking DUH!
And islam is a hateful religion. I hope you get shot today by one of our many brave white warriors.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
The whole point is, islam is not a tumour, it is the living body, and the individuals who commit these acts are the tumors. Fine, remove them, charge them, whatever. The point is, dont throw away the body to spite the tumour, a view you seem to endorse.
"Old man yells at systemd"
when its a "persecuted political group".
Jeez, talk about making thing politically correct. Its funny how people who live in free countries are constantly trying to undermine that freedom. Thats ok, there are people perfectly happy to hang us with our own rope.
here
Fav quote -
"If there were no state-sponsored censorship of the Internet, if Cisco et al weren't crack hoes for hire, if there were no democracy activists screaming for help -- hell, we could be off having fun instead of working long hours after our day jobs," Hacktivismo member and occasional Reg contributor Oxblood Ruffin told us
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
It's ALL AMERICA'S FAULT. No, really. Never ask a muslim to acknowledge his own mistakes. These schoolyard bombing cowards are all the same. They ALL blame other people for their faults.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
the moral issue here is rather interesting, if a terrorist organisation were to use the technology would the programmers have a moral responsibilty?
there's also a rather nice Steganography Plugin for The GIMP.
Software Freedom Day!.
SAN DIMAS, California (CNN) -- One person died and at least 10 were injured Thursday when a small plane slammed into a suburban Los Angeles park, a local fire official said.
Six people, including two children, were in critical condition, said Capt. Mark Savage of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
Capt. Russ Collins, a spokesman for the San Dimas Police Department, said a call came in at 12:49 p.m. local time (3:49 ET) that a twin-engine plane was down on the east shore on Puddingstone Lake.
Collins said personnel from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, deputies from the San Dimas sheriff's station, and Los Angeles County Park Police were at the scene.
The pilot has been identified as one Mohammed Yusuf, who overpowered and stole the plane from a nearby storage yard. It is unclear whether he was acting alone.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Your anti-American liberalness has been reported to the Office of Homeland Defence. Please remain where you are, you Terrorist-Loving, anti-American Liberal, and the government will be these shortly to pick you up. Thank you. Have a nice day.
Matt Swanner
The Falun Gong is a religous movement that has suffered much oppression in China.
Of course, one could also argue that Falun Gong is a doomsday cult which preachs racism. I assume that PRC's government believes that, aside from the implications of competing with a powerful organization full of people with martyr complexes, their actions are little different from Germany's treatment of the Church of $cientology and the United States' treatment of Branch Davidians, for example.
You do realize under strict islamic regimes listening to funky breakbeats and groovy trance music, or any music for that matter, is punishable with lashings and/or amputations?
I mean just becuase someone doesn't like america doesn't mean they are good guys.
I mean the fucking nazis didn't like america either, are you gonna put them up on a pedestal worship them to?
Thought we already knew that a picture tells a 1000 words...
Support for Al Qaeda, such as that bestowed by "Jihad" Johnny Walker stems from a deep seated hatred of America.
This in turn comes from a deeper, unexpressed hatred by youth of their parents. For a typical whiny, snot-faced angst-ridden rich brat, their parents represent everything that is 'wrong' in America. Tradition, Honor, Optimism, Common Decency.
Force fed nigger-music by MTV, they find themselves coming to hate the security of their home, something which their parents fought long and hard to maintain.
What better way to rebel against their parents by rebelling against America? Of course, the muslim vermin makes this easy by perpetually reminding everyone that they are not accountable for their actions because everything in the whole world is America's fault.
"I live in poor country" - Blame America
"I've spent all my food money on guns and explosives" - Blame America
"I'm so ugly I have to wear a shit-face beard" - Blame America
"I've got a tiny cock because I'm an inbred subhuman freak" - Blame America
The day islam accepts responsibility for the horrors perpetrated by their staunchest advocates is the day world peace may be a viable goal.
Until then, we should kill any muslims we see. I ran one over in my car earlier on today.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
How about just using Slashdot forums to hide messages cleverly disguised as "fp!" ? Seems to me that no one reads that shit anyway...
"I think you guys with quotes in your signatures should go have an original thought." -- Dan Miller
I'm figuring that not only will this kind of software allow people to get around censorship, but wouldn't it also create a P2P-style anonymizer? This would pretty much make logging of user activity useless for criminal investigations. Would the "host" of a benevolent node on this network be liable for illegal activity that was routed through hir machine?
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Then... "Think about the Children!" (i.e. kiddie pr0n)
now... "Think about the terrorists" (i.e. taking away our rights)
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
From their site:
The cDc and Peek-A-Booty
A commonly-perpetuated misconception about this project is that it is run by CULT OF THE DEAD COW (cDc). This is a myth that has been propagating since the projects inception. The Peekabooty project has its own open- source group, entirely separate from the cDc.
I'm at a loss here...
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
There are just too many ways of sending unencrypted / unhidden messages; adding more work just seems like a big hassle for the sender and recipient - as was said after 11/9/01, the reason that messages were not intercepted was because they were low-tech / plain text / whatever. It is quicker and easier to make it innocent-sounding except to those who know already. Any agency screening emails / web pages / whatever would have a lot LESS work to do if it just had an image scanner that decided if there was any potential code, then concentrating on those. As another poster said, checking if a pic does or doesn't have steganography involved is easy (though you then have to decode it) - would it not then be easier to have an image of unencoded text which would be easily readable only if you look at it, on an obscurely titled web page? No automated searcher would be able to read it, no human would ever know where to look unless they alredy knew where it was.
With email, text messaging, instant messaging, unlimited internet forums, the internet pages themselves, snail mail, telephone, telegraph, morse, hundreds of languages, and god-knows what other methods, there are just too may ways to transmit info to plough through these and find hidden messages.
I just don't see the point.
On another note - could terrorist emails be easily intercepted if the volume of traffic was reduced significantly? i.e. if spam was banned?
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
According to the article:
A technology called steganography allows data to be embedded in the digital information comprising an image file. This is accomplished by altering relatively unimportant bits so that the changed image remains identical to the naked eye.
Oh, it's a special computer technology..
And here I was, thinking that storing my ATM code under "Rob Malda" in my phonebook was steganography. Doh!
I hereby convict the author of ignorance, the
penalty will be to read Simon Singh's "The Code Book",
and to abstain from writing about cryptography or steganography until he does.
"BAM!" - Elzar the chef
Timothy writes:
;)
The group has links to the Cult of the Dead Cow, which is, of course, working on Peek-a-Booty.
However if you visit the PeekABooty people:
A commonly-perpetuated misconception about this project is that it is run by CULT OF THE DEAD COW (cDc). This is a myth that has been propagating since the projects inception. The Peekabooty project has its own open-source group, entirely separate from the cDc.
Oh well
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Quote: "Honeyman says existing steganography cannot be completely undetectable and adds that the key used to hide messages in images can be revealed with brute force computing power."
Any weakness of steganographic systems can be overcome.
For example; to beat brute force computing power only requires to have the message as an image of obfuscated text. There are several ways to do this; for one - think red-green colourblind eye test charts. It can also be multi-layered - each with seperate key. This would require manual viewing at every single attempt to crack it. The man hours required are too large to estimate.
P.S. The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization and the United States Department are hiding the simple solution to uniquely identify all registered trademarks on the Internet. The answer to this problem has been ratified by honest Lawyers. I believe UN WIPO and US DoC to be corrupt.
If you have heard of the respected Dr. Milton Mueller, you may be interested in the conclusion of his recent report, Domain Name Trademark Disputes under ICANN's UDRP. My comments and link to it on ICANN forum. His conclusion matches what I told UN WIPO and Nominet UK over a year ago.
Please visit World Intellectual Piracy Organization - Not associated with visit United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization
cDc/Hactivismo is no longer working on Peek-a-booty, and hasn't been for some months. Paul and Joey took over development, as you can see at www.peek-a-booty.org:
"The cDc and Peek-A-Booty
A commonly-perpetuated misconception about this project is that it is run by CULT OF THE DEAD COW (cDc). This is a myth that has been propagating since the projects inception. The Peekabooty project has its own open-source group, entirely separate from the cDc."
This left Hacktivismo members with some time on their hands, and Camera/Shy (and other projects underway) is the result.
Now for some comments on earlier posts:
"This will get people killed because stego is weak/traffic analysis is possible."
There is weak stego, just like there is weak crypto. But wouldn't you trust, say, triple AES encryption followed by 'outguess' stego? If not, you should stop forgetting your meds.
Traffic analysis could find some change in traffic patterns using almost any existing tool or method. Nobody can guarantee the safety of people who circumvent the Chinese firewalls, for example. Those who do so, do it at their own risk. But traffic analysis is not undertaken lightly, at least not on a large scale. Echelon, for example, does not incorporate any sort of traffic analysis per fairly recent reports. I assume that The Pull will be adding PNG and/or JPG support before long, which would make it quite a bit harder.
To the other armchair critics out there, I'd say "So where is *your* privacy/anticensorship product? The one which is immune to port and IP blocking, DoS, and traffic analysis, but which is easy to use, requires no cryptography, etc?" The fact is that there will never be such a product, because it's simply not possible. Forgive us for not expecting the oppressed people of the world to simply give up all hope because of theoretical risks. If you want to criticize, please code something and show how it can be done better! Any contribution, no matter how trivial, is more helpful than empty whining.
Persecuted is one of those words that implies something without explicitly stating it, in this case it implies "wrongfully persecuted." It's a loaded word favored by major media outlets and other alleged sources of "objective reporting".
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
I've see nothing except the 'mobile wire tap' that's different from what has always been available to law enforcement provided there is a court warrant. If someone is to be wiretapped at all, a mobile wire tap and a tap on Internet communications only makes sense.
Due process appears to be intact.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
Ok, I'm referring to the country currently known as "Myanmar", but I refuse to grant the torturing, fascist limp-dick fucks in SLORC the dignity of using their chosen name.
Basically, from what I've heard, 10% of the adult population of Burma are secret police informants, either willingly or through coercion. You can never be sure who your real friends are, and no activity involving more than one person can be secure. More importantly (to this discussion), unlicensed possession of a modem is severely punished. So, in Burma, stego, crypto, and traffic analysis are all effectively obsolete. Only "trusted" people and organizations get internet access, with the understanding that they will be watched closely. Everyone else lives in medieval isolation (except for working for PepsiCo), cut off from the rest of the world, with far fewer human rights than even the citizens of China.
Freedom: "I won't!"
I hate responding to flamebait... but this story at CNN. Does not support any of your terrorist claims, no mention of your alleged Terrorist. The actual Pilot died at a local hospital with the passenger as survivor.
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"
this is not to be confused with the Saganography tool, which will be released in the near future, and will allow the common PC to visualize billions and billions of hidden alien transmissions.
Speaking of the X-Files, one of Chris Carter's other shows, Millenium, used something similar in an episode. There were a coulple of young hacker guys (reminiscent of the Lone Gunmen) who decoded a message hidden in a picture file by detecting subtle changes in the colors of pixels. One of the show's better episodes, as I recall. And I want whatever hack they were using to make "Print Screen" send a screenshot directly to the printer ; )
I must say that's the first semi-intelligent thing I've seen you say.
Of course, being a troll, 99% of what you post is inflammatory crap anyway...
Shame it will doubtless be used by paedophiles, nazis, George Double-Yah Bush and other terrorists etc etc.
The price of freedom isn't just eternal vigilance.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I don't see the point. I use PGP once in a blue moon, but I can't imagine ever wanting to use steganography.
Sigh. My life must be boring compared to those hacktivist James Bond types.
nobody
may I remind you that almost all the federalist papers were written with (nom de plums) and secretly posted on trees in the unpopulated woods along roadsides.
Ik looks like the Hacktivismo-site has disappeared ??
ZDNet is just running a Newsmessage about Camera/Shy... Coincidence ?