A couple of years back, there was a big hue and cry about
copyright violations on the Internet with pictures being copied without
permission of the owners. There was also the issue of patent rights of Unisys
and IBM on the popular GIF format of images used by most web designers .
In a bid to protect this IPR, some resorted to scripts that
disabled the right click on the mouse so that the picture could not be copied
on to the client's computer. This deterred all but the most determined to copy
pictures from one web site and put on another.
However one set of Copyright Enthusiasts hit upon a
brilliant idea of "Watermarking" the pictures. Their intention was to let
people copy and prosecute them with the evidence of the watermark.
This lead to the development of the technology of
"Steganography", the science of hiding text messages within pictures.
For example, let us see the following two pictures which
look identical.
Actually, the picture on the right has an embedded text
file which says "This is a test file created on March 9th."
This technology is reported to have been extensively used
by Osama Bin Laden to plan and execute the Newyork Twin tower attack of
September 11th. This technology was able to hoodwink most of the normal Cyber
surveillance mechanisms which the state intelligence possessed. There is no
doubt that similar exchange of steganographic images are being used by
the anti India terrorists also.
In a way therefore it was the Copyright moghuls who
assisted Osama Bin Laden to succeed in his attack on America.
Now there appears to be the beginning of another chapter of
"Hiding of Messages within Digital Video Messages" being promoted by Copyright
protectionists. According to a recent report that has appeared in USA, top
executives from the entertainment and consumer electronics industries have
agreed on the technical standards for a new digital "watermark" that
would be embedded in all digital TV broadcasts, as well as TVs, PCs and
other devices, to prevent digital piracy.
It is stated that broadcasters have been dragging their
feet on converting their signals from analog to digital, citing piracy
concerns, the high cost of digital equipment and a dearth of digital content.
The agreement is now expected to set the stage for a speedier rollout of
digital TV.
While this may be triumph for the Copyright protectionists,
the intelligence people all over the world will now have to worry about
terrorists hiding their secret plans within video CD s of Gandhi or audio CD s
of Lata Mangeshkar. Perhaps Osama may be beaming with happiness in his hideout
that his next major attack can now be planned. While pictures could only carry
small text files, the Video CDs can carry perhaps the entire strategy on a
nuclear attack along with maps and tutorials.
Welcome to the era of Steganography ++
Naavi
April 28, 2002
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