6 August 2013 - decoy steganograms

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In the wild days of the internet, before business tamed it, some net activists added “NSA food” to their postings: Keywords that they hoped would confuse the NSA’s automated scanners (“north korea ellis air force base explosives”). Such a primitive trick won’t work today. Try decoy steganograms: Every time you (say) post an image, use steganography software to hide a random string of bits in it. To make sure your hidden “messages” are found, occasionally post the same original image with different random bits. To waste real resources you have to engage the codebreakers.

clue:

“NSA food” was fairly common in the 1980’s. Knowledge of NSA surveillance is not new, only the details are new. Another tip: Keep your computer secure. If an intelligence agency does grow curious, the hacking squad is cheaper than the supercomputer squad.

take oh take this clue away

the Daily Whale || copyright 2013, 2024 Jay J.P. Scott <jay@satirist.org>