For years, there have been unverifiable statements in the press about assorted hostile parties using steganography. There may now be a real incident -- or at least, the FBI has stated in court documents that it happened.
According to the Justice Department (http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/June/10-nsd-753.html), 11 Russian nationals have been operating as deep cover agents in the US for many years. According to Complaint #2 (link at the bottom of the page), a steganographic program was used. Other Internet-era techniques allegedly employed include ad hoc WiFi networks. (To be sure, the FBI could be wrong. In the past, I've seen them make mistakes about that, but they're *much* more experienced now.) It will be interesting to see how this develops in court. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majord...@metzdowd.com
