From: "Perry E. Metzger" <pmetzger@lehman.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 94 19:50:20 PST
To: tomh@bambi.ccs.fau.edu (Tom Holroyd)
Subject: Re: WE WANT SELF DECRYPTING STENOGRAPHY NOW!
In-Reply-To: <9402250339.AA14924@bambi.ccs.fau.edu>
Message-ID: <9402250349.AA19644@andria.lehman.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Tom Holroyd says:
> Any software for hiding data in fractals would have the problem that
> people would eventually learn to recognize the type of fractal.  Thus
> when the FBI digs through your PC, they'd find the fractals, and recognize
> them as data carriers. Hiding data in arbitrary .jpg files would solve
> this problem, but even so, if the FBI knows there is software for
> hiding data in the low bits of .jpg files, they'd run it on all your
> pictures as a matter of course.  Naturally you'll have encrypted your
> file, but you may as well have left it on the disk as is.

Precisely a point I've been making for some time.

We are safest if we quickly deploy so much crypto that grandmothers
are using it and they EXPECT it everywhere. That way, crypto is not a
signal that something is unusual. Steganography never took off as a
science largely because it is such a weak form of protection, almost
inherently. As soon as they SUSPECT steganography you have immediately
lost any safety you may have had.

I'm very much in favor of simply openly using crypto, as often as
possible and as visibly as possible.

Perry