[release] OutGuess 0.2 - universal steganography (fwd)

[Jim Choate]

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 18:01:59 -0500
From: Niels Provos <provos at citi.umich.edu>
To: cryptography at c2.net
Cc: coderpunks at toad.com
Subject: [release] OutGuess 0.2 - universal steganography

Release announcement of OutGuess 0.2
------------------------------------

OutGuess is a universal steganographic tool that allows the insertion
of hidden information into the redundant bits of data sources.  It
is undetectable by known statistical tests and provides for plausible
deniability.

You can download OutGuess from http://www.outguess.org/

Version 0.2 includes the following new features:

 - Undetectable by any statistical test based on frequency counts. 
 - Determines maximum message size that can be hidden safely.
 - Increases message space for JPEG format.

What does OutGuess do differently?

OutGuess modifies the least-significant bits of the quantized DCT
coefficients in case of the JPEG format.  While some people view this
as simple and primitive, it allows OutGuess to preserve statistics
based on frequency counts.  As a result, no known statistical test is
able to detect the presence of steganographic content.  Before
embedding data into an image, OutGuess can determine the maximum
message size that can be hidden while still being able to maintain
statistics based on frequency counts.

Regards,
 Niels Provos.