Re: [ISN] Fake web traffic can hide secret chat

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 07:19:39 -0500 (CDT)
Forwarded from: security curmudgeon <jericho (at) attrition.org>

On Thu, 28 May 2009, InfoSec News wrote:

: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227096.200-fake-web-traffic-can-hide-secret-chat.html
: 
: By Paul Marks
: New Scientist
: 26 May 2009
: 
: THE internet's underlying technology can be harnessed to let people 
: exchange secret messages, perhaps allowing free speech an outlet in 
: oppressive regimes.
: 
: So says a team of steganographers at the Institute of Telecommunications 
: in Warsaw, Poland. Steganography is the art of hiding a message in an 
: openly available medium. For example, you can subtly change the pixels 
: in an image in a way that is undetectable to the eye but carries meaning 
: to anyone who knows the pre-arranged coding scheme.

Anyone else getting tired of these articles? Can we please just have a 
form article where the journalist fills in a couple blanks and move on?

"The X [technology|protocol] can be used to hide secret messages. 
[Hackers|Terrorists] could use this to transmit coded messages to each 
other without being dictated. Called steganography..."

Any protocol, and electronic medium, any file format or anything with 1's 
and 0's can be subverted for this purpose. So let's get it out of the way; 
TCP/IP, e-mail, web, twitter, facebook, images, ascii art, vulnerability 
scans, IRC / SILC, application upgrade checks, marmots holding electronic 
billboards, carrier pigeon feather color patterns and everything else is a 
medium for this type of hidden message transmission.

If any journalist wants to write about this again, please do so in a 
medium that hides the article from the mainstream.


- security curmudgeon


p.s. five dollars to whoever decodes the secret message in this post


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Received on Wed Jun 03 2009 - 05:19:39 PDT

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