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Hiding Secrets With Steganography On FreeBSD
BSD Forums writes "Bad guys in the movies all keep their wall safes hidden behind paintings. Is there a metaphor in there for your sensitive files? OnLamp's Dru Lavigne explores steganography, or hiding secret messages in images or sounds, with the outguess and steghide utilities on FreeBSD."
The analogy isn't security through obscurity, it's finding a better place than behind the painting to hide the safe. Or, perhaps more accurately, securing one's valuables in something that is not recognizable as a safe. If the burglar had to look at a thousand books to determine if even one of them had a secret compartment, it would be a much more effective security measure than a safe behind a painting.
If you are using stegged files (they do not have to be images) to communicate with others, then you are hiding the channel. This is a potentially very useful mechanism against automated monitoring tools, particularly if the data is first encrypted. Isolated information in high-volume channels can be very hard to detect. Another use would be to help defeat traffic analysis.
This is not to say that steganography is a magic means of information hiding. But it is one of the useful tools.
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
Keep in mind that the article said that hiding messages in images is NOT a great way to hide important stuff by itself, but that it could be used as a second layer of security. Lets have four people, shall we? They all run servers, and they all have an important file on there they don't want other people to find. Johnny keeps his file unencrypted and unhidden. Billy keeps his encrypted, but unhidden. Mike hides his in an mp3, but unencrypted. Joe hides his in a jpeg after encrypting it. Johnny's most likely to have his stolen, obviously. But Billy's file is more likely to be found than either Mike or Joe's, even though Mike's has no encryption on the file itself. Even though the person who took Billy's file doesn't have the information in it, finding it it one step closer to stealing it. Now, Mike and Joe are both considerably less likely to have this file found, unless the data theif expects them to hide it in a media file like this. On the off chance that the hacker DOES find the file, though, Mike's is as good as stolen, just like Johnny's. However, Joe is the most secure of the bunch. Not only is his file encrypted, but it's also hidden, meaning it's unlikely that the hacker will even get the encrypted version. They can't crack what they can't find. Even after what Johnny did, he can go furthur. Encrypt his password, hide the text in an image, rename the image to a .dll or .o and hide it in a system directory. Sure, it's not 100% secure, but it's better than leaving even the most secure file laying around.
One facet of data security is deniability. Which would you rather the Department of Homeland Security find on your hard drive:
/documents/plan_for_world_domination.pgp
/wallpaper/cute_puppies.png?
or
A securely encrypted message, hidden in a file with ostensibly another purpose, such that there is no way to prove the existence of the hidden message would keep anyone from telling you: "Reveal the secret key to this obviously encrypted file, or face contempt of court and an automatic prison sentence."