[Cryptography] stego mechanism used in real life (presumably), then outed

[Jerry Leichter]

There's an interesting and significant sidelight to the previous discussion of watermarking, and the message a couple of days ago from "M373" concerning the Seaglass project at U of Washington, which is developing means for detecting IMSI catchers at city-wide scale.  In both cases - and there are others - we have legitimate research devoted entirely to discovering, publicly explaining, and perhaps effectively neutralizing, mechanisms that LE has put in place.  As far as I can tell, this has little historical precedent.  Criminals/revolutionaries/freedom fighters - it all depends on you viewpoint in particular situations - have long conducted exactly this kind of research.  But it's been clandestine, done in support of their own activities, and passed around as secret tradecraft.  (Of course, state actors have also long targeted each other this way.)

We've crossed a threshold when entitled members of society feel the need to work to subvert their own society's enforcement mechanisms.  (No, university faculty members and EFF researchers and such - while hardly among the big movers in shakers - cannot reasonably be considered the downtrodden in any Western society.)

                                                        -- Jerry