KLB says:
Hmm... if authenticating signatures can be transmitted, then some enterprising and patient cryptographers can also transmit messages, encrypted if desired, back and forth using one of the "subliminal channel" protocols! [and goes on to explain such steganography]
yes, you could _theoretically_ use steganography in the authentication block, but it would be illegal. Very simply, you must not transmit a message over the Amateur bands if that message contains information that is not "in the clear". And I doubt any ham would knowingly transmit such a message... hams would consider it "poor form". Hams and amateur radio has been self- policing since WW 1 and Hiram Maxim's passage of a congressional bill *making* ham radio self-policing to the greatest extent possible. That's why the US hams were not silenced "for security reasons" during WW I, and the tradition of self-policing ham radio has held up ever since. Besides, essentially *all* ham traffic is monitored- usually by other hams, as well as by shortwave listeners, scanner groupies, and even, occasionally, the FCC. Hams will DF (direction-find) in on anybody on their frequencies who break the rules with the ruthless efficiency of Truly and Justly Annoyed Citizens, and the FCC has (at last!) agreed to accept tapes made by hams as legal evidence in seizure proceedings. Thus, the ham radio frequencies are "the wrong pool to piss in", if you get my drift. -Bill, N1KGX