From: rarachel@prism.poly.edu (Arsen Ray Arachelian)
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 94 19:03:09 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: New stego prog was "A possibility"
Message-ID: <9404110151.AA19349@prism.poly.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


Hey guys, I'm in the final throes of applying some cleaning up on a bit
of code I wrote a couple of years ago.  I'm wondering what would be some
good sites to FTP this to?  (I'd like to just post it up on here, but since
there are non-USA residents on this list, I don't need the NSA to come on
knocking on my door as I've bigger things to worry about (like bills,
graduating, etc.)

Anyhow, a bit about this code:  This is a program called White Noise
Storm which I wrote out of an inspiration flash (and subsequently the
reason I joined this list.)

I had left this project to rot until recently when my school finally offered
a crypto class, and decided on making this my project.  Unfortunatly disaster
struck and I had lost the final version of this program a few months ago,
having only a buggy, unfinished backup.  Suffice to say, I spent all last
night infront of my 486 and resurected WNSTORM from the dead, and in doing
so added some features which make it a useful program.

Someone from MicroSoft had a similar idea, so I thought I'd go public
with it before WNSTORM vanished totally. :-)  So Ophir Ronen (Rho) <a-ophirr@microsoft.com>, here it comes. :-)

A brief description of this program is basically an cypher box that takes in
a password, a stream of random numbers, a plaintext file, and a window size
specification (more on this later.)  The program takes in one byte of
plaintext, several bytes of random numbers (called a window) of varying size,
and then takes an encrypted copy of the plaintext byte and spreads its bits
across the random number window.  The actual bits and bytes that get replaced
in this window depends on the passkey and the previous window.

The great and obvious disadvantage to WNSTORM is that the size of the cypher
text is several times larger than the plaintext.  Another is that this is a
private key system, but that's not quite as large a sore point.

However, by replacing the random number stream with the low bits of a 
sound, picture, movie or other noisy data, inserting the plaintext into
this noise with WNSTORM, and re-injecting the low bits back into the picture
gives us the possibility of an excellent stego system!

WNSTORM will also try and statistically fix the bits it changes so that the
outgoing cyphertext matches the incoming random noise stream statistically,
making a stego sniffer's job much harder...

Anyhow since I'll need to clean up both source code and documentation, I
thought I'd take this opportunity and announce the program.

Oh and Tim, this is what I was talking to you about a long time ago and kept
secret. :-)