I'm nervous about (one of) the conclusions being drawn from your work. The work itself is important, both for the stated goal (to attempt to refute the USA Today article) and to advance the state of the art of detection (which will in turn advance the state of the art of hiding).
While it is certainly important to try, I don't think there is any way to disprove the rumour started by the USA Today article (and continued in the popular press). People will believe what they want to believe, no matter how much evidence you pile in front of them, and the media is notorious for taking advantage of this. Anyway, let me rephrase my concern. Statistical research usually expends significant effort proving that the sample data is *good* sample data. Your paper assumes it. Twice you claim, without justification, that (paraphrased) "even if the majority of messages were undetectable, we should still find some messages". In my opinion, you need discuss the issue, and either support the claim or mention it as a source of potential error. Of course, I'm just an amateur... -- Harald Koch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "It takes a child to raze a village." -Michael Fry --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]