"Computer at Nuclear Lab Used for Access to Porn" [ snip ] -- Excerpt -- One computer expert, who requested anonymity, said there might be more to the incident than meets the eye. The expert suggested that the hard-core pornography may be a cover for an ultra-sophisticated espionage program, in which a "sniffer" program combs through other Livermore computers, encodes the passwords and accounts it finds, and then hides them within the pornographic images, perhaps to be downloaded by foreign agents. -- End excerpt --

It's a Steganography reference. This sets off my warning bells -- why would they explicitly mention the Stego technique, unless possibly it was used in the porn ring there? Granted, Stego makes good journalism fodder ("Hide your encrypted nuclear bomb plans in porn GIFs from the Internet!"), but it's definitely not as sexy [sic] as "Taxpayer-funded computers used in secret porn ring!" Anybody know exactly what was going on at LLL? We can't get papers easily up here. :(

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Brandt Handler <grendel@netaxs.com> Philadelphia, PA <mh7p+@andrew.cmu.edu> Currently at CMU, Pittsburgh, PA PGP v2.6 public key on request Boycott Canter & Siegel <<NSA>> 1984: We're Behind Schedule

I think that the Steganography is just an excuse to close down the place. It _could_ happen, therefore we should defend against it. Of course, every spy knows that blending in is the most important trick. It would be better to hide the information in something bland. On the other hand, a gif-station is one of the few types of ftp sites that attract enough attention to drown out the one transfer from the spies.