Secure Communications | 68 comments (68 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Secure Communications (4.00 / 7)

Problem with stenography is that the larger the message content the more likely it is to be detected, I think. So you end up with an awful lot of kitten pictures to send any sort of significant message.

Which, come to think of it, explains a lot.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Aug 14th, 2013 at 02:02:05 PM EST

Re: Secure Communications (4.00 / 3)

The wikipedia example of steganography uses:

as an example of an encrypted image. The decoded message is:

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Wed Aug 14th, 2013 at 09:38:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Secure Communications (4.00 / 2)

Video. One byte per frame. 25 bytes/sec is enough for simple messages, and given how noisy video is, it's likely undetectable if it's buried in a pattern of +/-1 RGB offsets.

You don't even need the original. You just need to agree a PNRG seed, a PNRG algorithm, and the algorithm you'll be using to work out xy and RGB offsets.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Aug 15th, 2013 at 09:54:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Secure Communications (none / 0)

Sure, keep the bit rate down and it's easy to hide. For more complex messages you have more of a problem. How do you securely send video?

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Aug 15th, 2013 at 10:22:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

With the Sneakernet (n/t) (none / 0)

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Aug 15th, 2013 at 02:33:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Secure Communications (4.00 / 2)

You don't securely hide anything. You send it using any public channel that happens to be convenient and pre-agreed - YouTube, Vimeo, some squirty porn site, or whatever.

The one thing you don't do is try to hide it.

What makes it invisible is the fact that it looks just like the rest of the content it's hiding in, and doesn't come with a tag that says 'SUPER SEKRIT HIDDEN CONTENT - PLS TO NOT DECRYPT THX'

Which is the obvious problem with Tor and PGP email.

Obviously this doesn't work for simple emails. But there's no reason in principle content piggy-backing couldn't be added to any publicly accessible content distribution system, and the packaging and unpackaging couldn't be automated.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sat Aug 17th, 2013 at 10:31:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Secure Communications (none / 1)

hmm how can you automate piggybacking without leaving a crackable trail to the content?

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue
- Queen Elizabeth II}

by eurogreen on Sun Aug 18th, 2013 at 11:43:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Secure Communications (none / 1)

If you encrypt the data (to make it look random) and use a low bit rate you're just adding random looking noise to the stream. It's not possible to find the data. Really not traceable, done right, even if the NSA are running a statistical analysis over their giant stash of data - which I would be if I were them. Assume you're using a truly random one time pad to generate the stenography and I'm pretty sure they'd be screwed. Just remember to generate your content on your secure, air gapped work station, preferable enforcing things like MAC and BLP.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Sun Aug 18th, 2013 at 01:33:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Secure Communications | 68 comments (68 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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