BitTorrent's Bram Cohen Unveils New Steganography Tool DissidentX

Sparrowvsrevolution writes "For the last year Bram Cohen, who created the breakthrough file-sharing protocol BitTorrent a decade ago, has been working on a tool he calls DissidentX, a steganography tool that's available now but is still being improved with the help of a group of researchers at Stanford. Like any stego tool, DissidentX can camouflage users' secrets in an inconspicuous website, a corporate document, or any other, pre-existing file from a Rick Astley video to a digital copy of Crime and Punishment. But it uses a new form of steganography based on cryptographic hashes to make the presence of a hidden message far harder for an eavesdropper to detect than in traditional stego. And it also makes it possible to encode multiple encrypted messages to different keys in the same cover text."

Comments

Bram Cohen

[vikingpower]

deserves a medal.

Re:Bram Cohen

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I like that Dracula book.

Svefg cbfg!

[Grantbridge]

Svefg cbfg!

Re:Svefg cbfg!

[Thanshin]

I almost modded that as Troll, but maybe it's insightful if decoded with a different key.

Actual Link

[steamraven]

Come on guys! At least post a link to the project.

https://github.com/bramcohen/DissidentX

Re:Who the hell needs this?

[nurb432]

Need is relative. Even if all i want to do is have my wife send me a note to pick up milk on the way home, its not the governments business. So in reality, *yes* i do have something to hide. It doesn't mean i'm a criminal. Its called personal privacy.

Re:Brave

[Thanshin]

It's probably better to work on this kind of thing in silence until it's released...

Or even beyond that point.

I released a similar tool two years ago and I'm still eagerly waiting for someone to discover it.

tool?

[Anonymous Coward]

This does not even have tests. Barely any project-like organization. Just a bunch of python scripts hobbled together. Seriously, this is barely v0.1 material.

Call it a proof-of-concept, an experiment, anything. But not a tool.

Leak Tracking

[guttentag]

But it uses a new form of steganography based on cryptographic hashes to make the presence of a hidden message far harder for an eavesdropper to detect than in traditional stego.

I think steganography is far more likely to be used to track the people who leak information. When information gets out that was apparently available to multiple people, the leaker may not realize that his copy had a specific steganographic signature that identifies him as the source. It could be a pattern of extra spaces or line breaks in the code of document that he doesn't even see. The increased availability of the technology will likely mean smaller companies or government agencies will use it to suppress leaks.

Re:Leak Tracking

[girlintraining]

I think steganography is far more likely to be used to track the people who leak information.

You've got the right idea, but you're not connecting all the pieces of the puzzle to answer how. Allow me: You know that massive data center the NSA is building to basically "download the internet"? Well, as it turns out, the overwhelming amount of traffic on the internet is just a copy of something else. Translation: If you compressed it you'd get some amazing compression rates. Here's the thing about steganography that is going to fuck most people who try to use it: If they ever find the original file that you used pre-stego, a simple binary comparison will reveal the alteration. In other words, if you use any publicly available image, document, etc., and then "stego" it... an adversary like the NSA can programically detect this. Plausible deniability goes right out the window.

The increased availability of the technology will likely mean smaller companies or government agencies will use it to suppress leaks.

This is something separate from steganography. What you're talking about is watermarking, and it's something color printers already do -- the serial number, username, time, etc., is encoded in yellow microdots on all pages. It was originally implimented to assist in anti-counterfeiting measures, but has since expanded to cover "national security" interests. And by that, I mean tracking down political undesireables and neutralizing them.

Re:Who the hell needs this?

[gstoddart]

I could see state level espionage, perhaps smugglers or mafia, drug dealers, etc. But normal people do not need this - it's completely loony-tunes.

I see it as more of a big "screw you" to the people who want to watch everything we do.

I'm not committing any crime, and you have no reasonable basis to believe I am. It's still my right to communicate and keep some things private.

But if you're going to insist on tracking everything we do, we're going to make your job harder.

Expect to see lots of products intended to give end-user security.

If you're willing to allow the government to spy on everything you do (clearly not the case since you posted as AC), that's your problem.

Since the whole planet is being spied on by the US, denying them the information is the best response.

Re:Steganography has always one big problem

[guttentag]

All the other side needs to know is that you have something to hide, and depending on the level of society you live on, water boarding, lead pipes, or court order to make you divulge what it is.

Unsophisticated societies use lead pipes to force people to divulge information.
Sophisticated societies use court orders.
Modern societies use waterboarding.
Postmodern societies use facebook.

Think about it.

Re:Who the hell needs this?

[wonkey_monkey]

But normal people do not need this - it's completely loony-tunes.

Normal people shouldn't need this. What's completely loony-tunes is that they do.

Re:Brave

[wonkey_monkey]

I released a similar tool two years ago and I'm still eagerly waiting for someone to discover it.

I sent you an email to say thanks but it would have looked like a letter from a Nigerian diplomat.

Re:The problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stego is a useful tool for transporting provided the de-stegoed document never, ever winds up on the Internet

Just make sure vast numbers of multiple "similar but not exactly the same" pictures like that one you're using are already on the internet. What did you think all those funny cat meme pictures were for?

Re:The problem...

[sexconker]

it would surprise me if they don't have automated tools to spot steganography. (i.e. They know exactly what the formatting of say a Word document should be, and should have the capability to automatically flag traffic which has nonstandard information in the headers or data.)

Have you seen the formatting of Word documents that come out of your typical user?
You don't hit the "enter" key to make space, you jackasses. That creates a new fucking paragraph. Edit the paragraph's spacing if you want space below it. If you want an actual newline+carriage return, hit shift+enter. Stop using tab without first defining your tab stops to control where you want shit to be. Why are you using tabs to make columns anyway? Why are you trying to make columns (incorrectly via tabs) when what you want is a table? That's it, you're getting party vanned.