CDR: Re: stego for the censored

Tim May tcmay at got.net
Thu Oct 5 09:11:47 PDT 2000


At 2:31 PM +0200 10/5/00, Tom Vogt wrote:
>I'm currently looking for a way to get encrypted data via stego to
>people who live in countries where crypto is illegal, and who may be
>watched. so just sending them a large graphic would likely arouse
>suspicion.
>
>the 2 best solutions I've come up with so far are porn and spam. both
>are readily believable, even in large quantities.
>the problem with porn is that it may be illegal in itself in the same
>countries. the problem with spam is that ascii text just doesn't offer
>much to hide stego in (whitespacing, etc. is both easy to find and can
>store very little data).


Music. CDs are rarely restricted...DATs are probably uncommon, though.

A typical 700 MB CD carries 43 MB in the LSBs. The LSBs are at the 
microphone/cabe/preamp noise levels..probably even the 2nd least 
significant bits as well.

This is, of course, vastly more storage space than nearly any user 
might need. (Folks may recall that audio stego was one of my main 
examples for crypto anarchy a decade or so ago, where I cited the 
example of the B-2 bomber blueprints packed into the LSB of a Michael 
Jackson DAT.)

Audio editing programs are common, for mixing tracks, altering 
compressions, etc. Many of these are freeware or readily available, 
for Windows, etc.

It should be feasible to write the glue stuff to insert and extract 
bitstrreams into the LSBs.

--Tim May

-- 
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon"             | black markets, collapse of governments.





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