[3222] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Encryption is like a locked suitcase
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Honig)
Fri Aug 21 20:17:34 1998
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 16:16:18 -0700
To: John R Levine <johnl@iecc.com>, cryptography@c2.net
From: David Honig <honig@sprynet.com>
Cc: coderpunks@toad.com
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.3.91.980821132755.13918R-100000@ivan.iecc.com>
At 01:32 PM 8/21/98 -0400, John R Levine wrote:
>
>I suppose this is the digital equivalent of wrapping your Cuban cigars in the
>poopy diapers.
Which ruins the cigars. The proper way to launder cigars is to exchange the
Havana ring for some legit variety. However, customs reportedly (this is from
soc.cigar or whatever people from years ago) can detect Cubans by smell.
Encrypted data is more obvious ---every *other* kind of data has structure.
Just histogramming it will give 'signatures'.
You don't have to be a chemist to detect explosives, you just need a dolt
with the
right machine. You don't have to understand entropy to measure it.
Stego distributes suspicion over *all* of *everyone*'s multimedia data.
(Analogous to: When you do anonymous IP tunneling, you should pick random
source-addresses so as to distribute blame over the whole IP range.)
This is much better than concentrating your precious bits in an obvious
high-entropy file.
There is a secret message embedded in the phosphor of this period.
