[42576] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Just Carnivore (was: Yahoogroups and Carnivore)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Marshall Eubanks)
Tue Sep 18 06:21:19 2001
From: "Marshall Eubanks" <tme@21rst-century.com>
Reply-To: tme@21rst-century.com
To: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com>,
nanog@merit.edu
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 06:25:48 -0400
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>
>On Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:01:53 PDT, Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com> said:
>> However, given mil-grade VPNs these days, there is no way they can read what
>> you sent. They can only tell that you sent something. However, I just
>> discovered the Steganography stuff in my SuSE Linux distribution, hmmmmm.
>> But, they still know where it came from and where it went.
>
>As Bruce Schneier said, the problem with steganography is that you need
>a good cover story for why you're mailing JPG's of giraffes back and forth...
>
>
Dear Vladis;
You need to to separate the forward and the inverse
problems here.
Inverse problem : Can you find a few message bytes in
gigabytes of files going back and forth between everyone
on the web, or even on an ISP, in order to find a target ? Probably not; at
least its tough.
Forward problem : GIVEN A TARGET, can you look at all of
their traffic over and over until you find their message
bytes buried in their traffic ? Much higher probability.
And, say, porn to Pakistan will appear in a new light.
I would submit that Carnivore from what I have seen deals
with the easier forward problem.
Marshall Eubanks
tme@21rst-century.com
