The original steganography technique dates back to 440 BC (according to Wikipedia) when a Greek wrote secret messages on a piece of wood, covered it in wax, and then wrote innocent text on the wax. The term, in general, means hiding a message in something that looks harmless. The LVDO project (and a recent Windows fork) says it is steganography, but we aren’t quite sure it meets the definition. What it does is converts data into a video that you can transfer like any other video. A receiver that knows what LVDO parameters you used to create the video can extract the data (although, apparently, the reproduction is not always completely error-free).
The reason we aren’t sure if this really counts as steganography is that–judging from the example YouTube video (which is not encoded)–the output video looks like snow. It uses a discrete cosine transform to produce patterns. If you are the secret police, you might not know what the message says, but you certainly know it must be something. We’d be more interested in something that encodes data in funny cat videos, for example.
The idea is not completely new. Backing up computers on VCR tape was very popular in Russia, although it never caught on in the US (despite a few products that did it, including one for the Amiga). In case you were wondering, yes, we’ve talked about hiding data using kittens before, too.
If you want to see what an encoded video looks like, here’s one. We didn’t decode it (we don’t have the keys) but if you do and you wind up being rickrolled, don’t blame us.
Or perhaps encoding plans for attacks in a pron video. Maybe i.e.d plans Ina cooking show.. that is the fun part of steganography
Well they did say Bin Laden had a Shiite load of porn in his hideout so it’s not a bad idea, anybody sees jacking material on your laptop they ignore it and the attack plans are encoded in it.
Just as long as he doesn’t watch it in the Ba’athtub…you can get a shock that way.
(Couldn’t resist)
whats wrong with doing it outside?? especially if its suni :P
Sir, what you did there?…I see it. Bravo.
CORVUS had a VCR backup option http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=653 and the Danmere Backer 32 was available in the late 90’s http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9805/29/vcr.backup.idg/
No picture using that technology
I also recall that at one time, PBS used something similar to broadcast data at night. 9MB/min translates into 1.2Mbps, which was considered super fast compared to the dial up modems of the time.
I think it’s the Danmere one that put a little block number in the corner of the picture, so you could fast-forward through the tape to find the file you wanted.
Anyone else run a long coaxial cable from their home office to their living room VCR to do backups? I think my big noisy Corvus drive held 5MB and the VCR was a handy way to back up such a massive amount of data. The restore came in handy when the drive crashed, too.
Those were the days….
I remember the 1st gen digital audio adapters that encoded 16-44 into a format that would pass as video (NTSC) and could be recorded on VHS or Beta. It was “viewable”. Our humble Von’s Bookstore cable FM used them as well as WBAA AM on cable FM. WBAA was the last NPR to be only AM. This was back in the mid-late ’80,s. WBAA in ’93.
An interference pattern worthy of my old ZX-81 during its save to cassette attempts
This has been around for a while. I see these now and again. Although these days it’s put into the edge pixels of a long video or the static on predictable colours.
Or even two videos on with different static then the other and you have to subtract the two frame by frame.
Imagine if someone chose to encrypt a live Internet connection over several streaming videos. Then you have something interesting.
Even the first frame or two being an ident and mask or at least clues to one, then the rest of the video is either a big barcode with errors or pixel numbers. I’ve ever seen plain text with a simple mask used before.
Theres fairly strong techiques for small amounts of data in digital images. Modern watermarks can be surprisingly durable and invisible. DigiMark was a old brand name one I think – came with older copys of paint shop pro. Images could be stretched, cropped, printed, scanned, and the scanned image would still maintain the data.
I couldn’t quite tell how it worked – but it did produce contrast changes in the image. Too subtle to notice unless you compared values. (yet, again, changing the contrast didnt erase the mark either, so it must be relative changes that were important)
The too subtle to notice thing is relative. On a monitor that’s properly calibrated and gets a decent range of color you can spot the contrast based watermarks from normal viewing angles. On crappier monitors you can usually spot them by looking at the monitor from an off center angle. To actually hide something inside contrast you would need to rotate the pattern often and in ways that could easily be mistaken for encoding artifacts.
It can be done a bit like the retina. Compare the eight pixels around the edge to get the ninth central pixel.
It can be done a bit like the retina. Compare the eight pixels around the edge to get the ninth central pixel. Now do that in reverse.
W Even the first frame or two being an ident and mask or at least clues to one, then the rest of the video is either a big barcode with errors or pixel numbers. I’ve ever seen plain text with a simple mask used before.
Christ, I was curious about that OniChiChi video they’re using, so I googled it.
…And of Of course, OniChiChi is hentai porn clip, specifically step-father on daughter.
It’s the Internet, what else could it be, except perhaps a picture of a cat.
I remember we used to encode and send data via FAX, from memory the data was hidden in an image. You then scanned the image and ran it through a decoder. was great for being able to send all sorts of stuff including colour images.
Cool… I’d be interested in knowing more about the VCR, model etc… a quick search for “radio shack vcr with serial port” doesn’t seem to turn up much.
Oops… wrong thread… apologies…
The Alpha Micro (68K-based mini) from the ’80s use VHS tape as a backup option, however it was mostly used as a cheap way to distribute OS and app updates. There was at the time a satellite download as well. IIRC the output was B/W blocks grouped into 10 vertical strips. The strips distributed 5 across by 2 down. Radio Shack made a special VCR for this that had a serial port so that you could fully automate it. I wish I had kept that VCR.
Cool… I’d be interested in knowing more about the VCR, model etc… a quick search for “radio shack vcr with serial port” doesn’t seem to turn up much.
if it has errors, perhaps it could benefit from QR-style redundancy.
You could use this for every other frame of your cat video. Then you get cats, and data, and everyone is happy.
A good way to hide data is to put it in captchas, since when the spooks try to decipher them they either fail or soon have a burnout and thus only get the first few words.
Incidentally, I can’t see the first video, it’s log-in walled. (and I don’t play that game.)
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