Recent comments in /f/Futurology

czl t1_jbbjlgv wrote

Reply to comment by volci in A group of researchers has achieved a breakthrough in secure communications by developing an algorithm that conceals sensitive information so effectively that it is impossible to detect that anything has been hidden by thebelsnickle1991

> You have to have the unaltered originals somewhere, or you won't know what you hid where

You do not need originals.

Data can be encoded to look like noise yet still be decoded if you know the algorithm despite not having unaltered originals.

This is commonly done when secret messages are EM transmitted for example with turbo codes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_code

With stenography instead of encoding messages in the EM spectrum you encode in the media (sound, images, video, ...) you are using.

If you have data treated to look random (compressed / encrypted) you can for example encode it using the "least significant bits" of your media which are mostly sensor noise anyways.

A more sophisticated approach can spread this out across pseudo random offset pixels. Your algorithm knowing the pseudo random sequence can decode your data analogous to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_spectrum techniques for secret messages transmission and applications like: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-probability-of-intercept_radar

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burnnottice88 t1_jbbj8c8 wrote

Reply to comment by kropkiide in A group of researchers has achieved a breakthrough in secure communications by developing an algorithm that conceals sensitive information so effectively that it is impossible to detect that anything has been hidden by thebelsnickle1991

Human behaviour is studied at great length and you can get one hell of a lot of info from a person's smartphone what they watch, for how long, what they watch afterwards, what they upvotes, downvote. Tie that in with smart watches that measure your bpm and blood pressure etc. That info is worth billions to the right people.

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Mechasteel t1_jbbh94i wrote

Reply to comment by zalgorithmic in A group of researchers has achieved a breakthrough in secure communications by developing an algorithm that conceals sensitive information so effectively that it is impossible to detect that anything has been hidden by thebelsnickle1991

Cryptography is so when they see your message they can't understand it. Steganography is so they don't see your message. Shannon entropy is how much your message looks like noise, which is coincidentally the same as data density.

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cas-san-dra t1_jbbe9a0 wrote

Reply to A group of researchers has achieved a breakthrough in secure communications by developing an algorithm that conceals sensitive information so effectively that it is impossible to detect that anything has been hidden by thebelsnickle1991

In order to count as non-broken, an encryption algorithm must already be secure against a distinguishing attack. All you need to do is grab a non-broken algorithm, and stick your cyphertext in a place where you can expect to find random junk anyway. Like the least significant bit of an image or frame of a video. This is the standard obvious thing that everybody has known about since forever.

I fail to see why you would need to improve upon this way.

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LummoxJR t1_jbbdp5l wrote

Reply to comment by Schrecht in A group of researchers has achieved a breakthrough in secure communications by developing an algorithm that conceals sensitive information so effectively that it is impossible to detect that anything has been hidden by thebelsnickle1991

There are forms of steganography you can detect without the original, if you have an idea what patterns to look for. Ultimately the data is there somewhere.

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warlock415 t1_jbbcbvr wrote

Reply to comment by volci in A group of researchers has achieved a breakthrough in secure communications by developing an algorithm that conceals sensitive information so effectively that it is impossible to detect that anything has been hidden by thebelsnickle1991

Not necessarily. Consider the following: I take a picture of my cat using a digital camera. I open up a laptop without a hard drive, boot to a Linux thumbdrive, copy over the picture from the camera's SD card. I make the picture smaller by some percentage amount and then make the picture bigger by the reciprocal. Save the output of that process and use that as the base for the steganography.

Now, even if someone gets their hands on that SD card and somehow defeats deleting the picture / destroying the card, they still don't have the "original" image that went into the steganography process.

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D1rtyH1ppy t1_jbb44q6 wrote

Reply to comment by HastyBasher in A group of researchers has achieved a breakthrough in secure communications by developing an algorithm that conceals sensitive information so effectively that it is impossible to detect that anything has been hidden by thebelsnickle1991

It's probably developed by the Israeli government and sanctioned by the phone manufacturers. Pegasus 2 doesn't need you to click on anything or download a package, the sender just needs your phone number. It cleans itself up nicely also so you can't tell that it was ran on your device. This is most likely the back door that congress was asking for about ten years ago when Apple refused to unlock the phone if the Riverside, CA shooters. Apple gets to claim it doesn't violate the users privacy and the government get access to every smartphone in the world.

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zalgorithmic t1_jbb400v wrote

Reply to comment by DoktoroKiu in A group of researchers has achieved a breakthrough in secure communications by developing an algorithm that conceals sensitive information so effectively that it is impossible to detect that anything has been hidden by thebelsnickle1991

Isnt one of the main points of good cryptography to have the message already be indistinguishable from noise? Just build up enough entropy that it seems like noise unless you have the proper key.

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