The conclusion reached--or assumed--that stego is not used by terrorists is bogus. It is not only bogus, but incredibly naieve. Stego, being easy to use, and easy to train people to use, is most certainly being used. E-bay and news groups (IRC being notably absent from the scrutiny of this purported study), though 2 logical places to look, are vast in themselves, and I would argue that a 'scientific analysis' of 2 million images would be little more effective or comprehensive than a random Internet-wide search. -----Original Message----- From: Alan To: 'crime@private' Sent: 7/11/02 10:40 PM Subject: CRIME More on terrorist use of Stegonography Forward from the politech list. From: "Quinn, SallyAnn" <SallyAnn.Quinn@private> To: "'declan@private'" <declan@private> Subject: RE: Politech challenge: Decode Al Qaeda stego-communications! Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 17:23:56 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 I can't believe this is back. Niels Provos and Peter Honeyman at the Center for Information Technology integration at U Mich drove a stake through the heart of this rumor last fall by scientifically analyzing 2 million images from e-Bay and 1 million images from USENET. Their conclusion is: "...we are unable to report finding a single hidden message." The study can be viewed at: http://www.citi.umich.edu/u/provos/papers/detecting.pdf Oh, Gina Kolata's stories are highly suspect. She interviewed PGP's author Phillip Zimmerman after 9-11, and wrote an article insinuating the the algorithm was somehow the terrorists' best friend and that Phil was quite happy about it. Sally Ann Quinn, Software Test Engineer West 50 East Broad St., Rochester, NY 14694 Mail Drop A1-N135 Tel (585) 546-5530 x3243
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