Steganography with Flickr

yiangocy writes "Steganography is not something new, there have been techniques and available programs for hiding data in pictures/audio files for a long time now. However, one step further is using popular online photo sharing sites, such as Flickr in hiding your data, successfully."

Comments

nothing to do with Flickr

[Petronius]

This is an interesting article, but it has nothing to do with Flickr, except for the fact that instead of saving the images on a local device, this guy uploaded them to Flickr.
Yaaaawn, -1: misleading.

Hiding in the spam

[S3D]

Other similar techincs is hiding messages so it looks like a spam http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=hiding+me ssages+using+spam&btnG=Search I've even read an article (can't find link right now) analizing some samples of the actual spam and concluding that they in fact used as an encripted communication medium by spam originators.

Re:again?

[imsabbel]

Yeah yeah.
Besides the usual trolling, there is some truth in the parent.

Maybe just put a link to the (then current) revision, and not to the general article? That way, everybody will get the same article that excisted before the ./ story went online.

Movie Plot Vulnerability

[Mr_Icon]

Ho-hum. There are much better ways to back up your data for $25 a year.

This is a general "this can be used by terrists!" freak-out. Well, you know, this is an awfully stupid and ineffective way to pass information -- something Bruce Schneier likes to call "movie plot" vulnerabilities. Why bother with steganography when there are much better means to pass encrypted data between two people? Like, I don't know, DCC'ing a file over IRC, or just plain sending an email? If you own both the sending and receiving servers, or use one of the infected army of the drones, there is a miniscule chance of your message even being observed in the ocean of the information that is the internet. Much less stupid than using a complex routine to hide data in an image, and then upload it to a central service like Flickr for all to see (it shows up immediately in the "recently uploaded" pool).

This is a fine idea for a movie plot, but utterly dumb for someone to actually try this. Thus, I assign the article a -1 Troll.

we need humint, not sigint

[danharan]

So bad guys can communicate through even more opaque channels. Woop-dee-doo.

The too-often referenced 9/11 attack was not a failure of signals intelligence. Secret services whose job it is to capture communications did their job in this regard.

Information was not translated and/or acted upon.

Getting more sigint will lead to a panopticon society, without actually resolving the fundamental problem of our lack of human intelligence.

Re:we need humint, not sigint

[quarkscat]

"...without actually resolving the fundamental problem of our lack of human intelligence."

Amen!

In spite of all efforts to thwart the creation of the 9-11 Commission, and then to stonewall on making available government files regarding "who knew what, and when" to the Commission, the truth slowly but surely does surface eventually. Not only did the FBI have information on some of the 9-11 highjackers taking commercial aviation flight instruction pre-9-11, but it also turns out that DoD intelligence had pinpointed a part of the Al-Queda terrorist cell more than a year ahead of time.

It would appear that most of our alphabet soup of government intel and investigative agencies are not only bureaucratic but also oxymoronic in nature. Considering the DHS focus on toenail clippers and boxcutters, instead of seaport and border security, it would seem that far too little has changed, with the exception of the US Patriot Act torpedoing the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.