Steganography and musical scores?

[Tyler Durden]

Well, of course there's the famous B-A-C-H that Bach encoded towards the end 
of Art of the Fugue, written right before he died. (H in Germany is the same 
as our B, I think, and B in Germany is our B-flat, but don't quote me, it 
may be the other way around.)
There're tons of others in the history of Western music. I'd bet there's a 
book or two on the subject somewhere.
-TD


>From: Thomas Shaddack <shaddack at ns.arachne.cz>
>To: cypherpunks <cypherpunks at lne.com>
>Subject: Steganography and musical scores?
>Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 09:27:20 +0200 (CEST)
>
>See also something about computer-generated music:
>http://brainop.media.mit.edu/online/net-music/net-instrument/Thesis.html
>
>
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 03:13:00 EDT
>Subject: Cryptography-Digest Digest #978
>From: Digestifier <Cryptography-Digest-Request at senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>
>To: Cryptography-Digest at senator-bedfellow.mit.edu
>
><irrelevant ones snipped>
>
>Subject: Historical Evidence or Possibility of Steganography in Music
>From: Mark Lybrand <nunya at spamstopper.com>
>Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 03:31:47 GMT
>
>I was wondering if anyone here might guide me to any reference material
>regarding the possibility or actual occurrence of information having been
>steganographically hidden in musical scores.
>
>If this is the wrong NG to post this to, please correct me.
>
>TIA
>
>Mark
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Richard Heathfield <dontmail at address.co.uk.invalid>
>Subject: Re: Historical Evidence or Possibility of Steganography in Music
>Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 06:26:02 +0000 (UTC)
>
>Mark Lybrand wrote:
>
> > I was wondering if anyone here might guide me to any reference material
> > regarding the possibility or actual occurrence of information having 
>been
> > steganographically hidden in musical scores.
>
>Sorry, I don't have any formal references for you about hiding information
>in music. Nevertheless, I know it's happened, because I have done it
>myself, in the mid-1980s. Not only that, but it survived a cryptanalytic
>attack from somebody who was 99% sure that the music contained a message
>but was unable to work out how that message was encoded.
>
>Some time in the 1990s, I read in good old Readers' Digest of a war-time
>incident in which musical notation was used for encryption; this nearly got
>a man killed when he was asked by the Germans to play the music. He was
>able to shrug off the cacophony as "this modern music", and got away with
>it. How true this account is, I don't know.
>
>I don't know why they didn't do what I did, which is to insert musical
>padding into the score to maintain some semblance of melody.
>
>It's an expensive method of steganography, though, since you really do have
>to compose your own tunes. The problem with saving time by using existing
>scores is that their composition (if you will forgive the term) is public
>knowledge, and so a comparison with the original will reveal the
>significant differences. The only way around this is to prevent such a
>comparison, and the only certain way to do that is to compose your own
>tunes.
>
>You might be able to automate the padding, if your computer is soulful
>enough.  :-)
>
>--
>Richard Heathfield : binary at eton.powernet.co.uk
>"Usenet is a strange place." - Dennis M Ritchie, 29 July 1999.
>C FAQ: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
>K&R answers, C books, etc: http://users.powernet.co.uk/eton

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