On Thu, 9 Dec 2004, Tyler Durden wrote:
Those cops you taught...do you think they were stupid enough to assume that, because this was their first time hearing about Stego, that Al Qaeda was only starting to use it right then?
Thats an interesting question on several different levels: (1) There is (both within LEAs and the rest of us) a wide range of opinions as to the feasability of stego being used in the field for anything useful. Remember that USA "professional spies" (who spent over a year learning tradcraft IIRC) had continuous problems with very simple encryptions/decryptions in the real world. (2) The folks in the "Al Qaeda is Satan" camp generally believe that not only is stego in wide use, but that AlQ has somehow managed to turn it into a high bandwidth channel which is being used every day to Subvert The American Way Of Life and infect Our Precious Bodily Fluids. No amount of education seems to dissuade these people from their misbeliefs. (3) The other camp believes that stego is a lab-only toy, unsuitable for much of anything besides scaring the shit out of the people in the Satan camp. (4) I have yet to meet a full dozen people who share my belief that while stego *may* be in use, if it is, that use is for one way messages of semaphore-class messages only. I really do not understand why this view is poopoo'd by all sides, so I must be pretty dense? -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF Civilization is in a tailspin - everything is backwards, everything is upside down- doctors destroy health, psychiatrists destroy minds, lawyers destroy justice, the major media destroy information, governments destroy freedom and religions destroy spirituality - yet it is claimed to be healthy, just, informed, free and spiritual. We live in a social system whose community, wealth, love and life is derived from alienation, poverty, self-hate and medical murder - yet we tell ourselves that it is biologically and ecologically sustainable. The Bush plan to screen whole US population for mental illness clearly indicates that mental illness starts at the top. Rev Dr Michael Ellner