In today's Times - now more stego mythology

[Duncan Campbell]

The latest steganography mythology appears on a US news service ....  (see below)

Is anyone on the list aware of any specific citation of declassified intelligence reports or court testimony that repeats this claim.   I have seen none, and suspect that the reference is misleading or invented.  Any rebuttal? 
    * To date the FBI have said twice that although they have found many mails, they have found nothing in electronic code.  (As opposed to manual substitution, such as "the director" in place of "bin Laden"). 
    * The same non-electronic methodology was indeed described in the recent NY trial testimony for the Kenya embassy bombing in 1998.  But not stego.  
    * The recent seizure (somehow, by the French although the suspect was lifted in Leicester) describes a handwritten "codebook" onto which a stream of "experts" have now publicised their theories.  Nothing so far said about this "codebook" refers to electronic methods of crypto and stego.   Not that you would know if you listened to the media. 

Any reality checks on all this, anyone?

Duncan    


http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=SIEGE-INVISIBLE-10-04-01&cat=WW 


"- To terrorist cells such as Al Qaeda, a picture on the Web can be worth thousands of words.

Employing the 21st century version of a concept as old as secrets themselves, alleged terrorists affiliated with Osama bin Laden are believed to have exploited the vastness of the Internet to hide messages between conspirators in what amounts to plain sight.

According to declassified intelligence reports, court testimony and computer security experts, bin Laden's network has been a pioneer in adapting the ancient art of steganography to the Internet. U.S. officials and high-tech researchers seeking to counter such techniques are scrambling for methods to detect or derail them."   [snip]


















At 06/10/2001 19:38, you wrote:
>"Al-Qaeda hid coded messages on porn websites"
>http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001340010-2001345211,00.html
>
>"Secrets concealed by software"
>http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001340010-2001345085,00.html
>
>
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