[privacy] Stego Tech: Researchers Use Statistical Modeling to Detect Stego-Embed ded Data

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

Interesting.

Via PhysOrg.com.

[snip]

Keeping computer files private requires only the use of a simple encryption program. For criminals or terrorists 
wanting to conceal their activities, however, attaching an encrypted file to an e-mail message is sure to raise 
suspicion with law enforcement or government agents monitoring e-mail traffic.

But what if files could be hidden within the complex digital code of a photographic image? A family snapshot, for 
example, could contain secret information and even a trained eye wouldn't know the difference.

That ability to hide files within another file, called steganography, is here thanks to a number of software programs 
now on the market. The emerging science of detecting such files – steganalysis – is getting a boost from the Midwest 
Forensics Resource Center at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory and a pair of Iowa State University 
researchers.

Electronic images, such as jpeg files, provide the perfect "cover" because they're very common – a single computer can 
contain thousands of jpeg images and they can be posted on Web sites or e-mailed anywhere. Steganographic, or stego, 
techniques allow users to embed a secret file, or payload, by shifting the color values just slightly to account for 
the "bits" of data being hidden. The payload files can be almost anything from illegal financial transactions and the 
proverbial off-shore account information to sleeper cell communications or child pornography.

"We're taking very simple stego techniques and trying to find statistical measures that we can use to distinguish an 
innocent image from one that has hidden data," said Clifford Bergman, ISU math professor and researcher on the project. 
"One of the reasons we're focusing on images is there's lots of 'room' within a digital image to hide data. You can 
fiddle with them quite a bit and visually a person can't see the difference."

[snip]

More here:
http://www.physorg.com/news67695382.html

- ferg


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg () netzero net or fergdawg () sbcglobal net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/

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