more reports of terrorist steganography

[Dave Korn]

On 20 August 2007 16:00, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

> http://www.esecurityplanet.com/prevention/article.php/3694711
> 
> I'd sure like technical details...


  Well, how about 'it can't possibly work [well]'?

 " [ ... ] The article provides a detailed example of how 20 messages can be
hidden in a 100 x 50 pixel picture [ ... ] "

  That's gotta stand out like a statistical sore thumb.


  The article is pretty poor if you ask me.  It outlines three techniques for
stealth: steganography, using a shared email account as a dead-letter box, and
blocking or redirecting known IP addresses from a mail server.  Then all of a
sudden, there's this conclusion ...

" Internet-based attacks are extremely popular with terrorist organizations
because they are relatively cheap to perform, offer a high degree of
anonymity, and can be tremendously effective. "

... that comes completely out of left-field and has nothing to do with
anything the rest of the article mentioned.  I would conclude that someone's
done ten minutes worth of web searching and dressed up a bunch of
long-established facts as 'research', then slapped a "The sky is falling!
Hay-ulp, hay-ulp" security dramaqueen ending on it and will now be busily
pitching for government grants or contracts of some sort.



  So as far as "technical details", I'd say you take half-a-pound of security
theater, stir in a bucket or two of self-publicity, season with a couple of
megabucks of goverment pork, and hey presto!  Tasty terror-spam!

  BTW, I can't help but wonder if "Secrets of the Mujahideen" refuses to allow
you to use representational images for stego?  ;-)

  (BTW2, does anyone have a download URL for it?  The description makes it
sound just like every other bit of crypto snakeoil; it might be fun to reverse
engineer.)

    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com