BitTorrent's Bram Cohen Unveils New Steganography Tool DissidentX 124
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "For the last year Bram Cohen, who created the breakthrough file-sharing protocol BitTorrent a decade ago, has been working on a tool he calls DissidentX, a steganography tool that's available now but is still being improved with the help of a group of researchers at Stanford. Like any stego tool, DissidentX can camouflage users' secrets in an inconspicuous website, a corporate document, or any other, pre-existing file from a Rick Astley video to a digital copy of Crime and Punishment. But it uses a new form of steganography based on cryptographic hashes to make the presence of a hidden message far harder for an eavesdropper to detect than in traditional stego. And it also makes it possible to encode multiple encrypted messages to different keys in the same cover text."
Bram Cohen (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who the hell needs this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Need is relative. Even if all i want to do is have my wife send me a note to pick up milk on the way home, its not the governments business. So in reality, *yes* i do have something to hide. It doesn't mean i'm a criminal. Its called personal privacy.
Leak Tracking (Score:5, Insightful)
But it uses a new form of steganography based on cryptographic hashes to make the presence of a hidden message far harder for an eavesdropper to detect than in traditional stego.
I think steganography is far more likely to be used to track the people who leak information. When information gets out that was apparently available to multiple people, the leaker may not realize that his copy had a specific steganographic signature that identifies him as the source. It could be a pattern of extra spaces or line breaks in the code of document that he doesn't even see. The increased availability of the technology will likely mean smaller companies or government agencies will use it to suppress leaks.
Re:Who the hell needs this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I see it as more of a big "screw you" to the people who want to watch everything we do.
I'm not committing any crime, and you have no reasonable basis to believe I am. It's still my right to communicate and keep some things private.
But if you're going to insist on tracking everything we do, we're going to make your job harder.
Expect to see lots of products intended to give end-user security.
If you're willing to allow the government to spy on everything you do (clearly not the case since you posted as AC), that's your problem.
Since the whole planet is being spied on by the US, denying them the information is the best response.
Re:Who the hell needs this? (Score:5, Insightful)
But normal people do not need this - it's completely loony-tunes.
Normal people shouldn't need this. What's completely loony-tunes is that they do.