Ross Anderson <Ross.Anderson@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Scratch Monkey proposes building an Eternity service using the Stego File System, provided an anonymous broadcast channel exists - it's assumed that alt.anonymous.messages will do the job.
I suspect that wide deployment of Eternity would lead to this group being closed down. We need a more robust anonymous broadcast channel. Let's call it the `Covert Superhighway'. How do we build it?
Some ideas: - post to random newsgroups, use textual mimic functions, send decryption keys after the stegoed data has been distributed to disguise data until it is too late to affect distribution - become a spammer, or employ some spammers. Spammers use the hit and run approach with disposable accounts; with sufficient availability of accounts, and the economic incentive they seem to flourish in spite of intense displeasure of recipients. - video signals: live porn shows, one on one "chat live to our model, she will do anything you ask, blah, blah" -- high volume, easy target for stego, plausible reasons for anonymity - subliminal channels in the TCP/IP and IPSEC protocols. Someone posted a reference for an implementation of some subliminal channels in the linux TCP/IP stack. - VR gaming, VR chat rooms with audio, video; this could be a higher bandwidth version of IRC. - Subliminal channels in computer generated random numbers for multi-player internet based games. (Death match doom with subliminal channels, or with audio, video, etc) Not a very super-highway like subliminal network possibly... mostly the internet is not up to real time VR, video chat, etc. for the majority of users at present. Many of the better applications for subliminal channels are currently impractical. When people can buy a T1 to their house for £2,000/yr instead of £20,000, we will stand a better chance. Adam