#5 Shakespeare's Secret

Online Privacy Manual

Beyond Encryption

Once you understand PGP and are familiar with actually using it, you can explore a little known yet extremely powerful technique which goes way beyond encryption. You see, the problem with encryption is that it is obvious that you're using it. We heard that a certain agency is monitoring email traffic around the world and specifically targets those who use encryption for further investigation, believing that they have something to hide. One solution to this problem is to encourage everyone to use encryption for all of their communications. When encryption is widely used it will be hard to single out anyone in particular just because they encrypt their emails.

Shakespeare's Secret

However, there is an alternative. Some call it Steganography, we call it Shakespeare's Secret. Let's take a quick look at the history of this fascinating technique.

• In the 5th century BC, when the Greek tyrant Histiaeus was held as a prisoner of King Darius, he had to send a secret message to his son-in-law in the Anatolian city of Miletus. Histiaeus shaved the head of a slave and tattooed the message on his scalp. As soon as the slave's hair had grown long enough to hide the tattoo, he was sent to Miletus.

• Ancient Romans used to write between lines using invisible ink based on various natural substances such as fruit juices and milk. By applying special substances to the paper, recipients were able to read the hidden message. (That's the origin of the phrase "reading between the lines".)

• Shakespeare did not write the works he is so highly acclaimed for. Someone else did, and he left secret messages throughout the works by capitalizing or emphasizing special characters which can be decoded, among other things, into the name of the actual author. (See Who Wrote The Works? to find out who it was.)

• During World War II the Germans developed the microdot: A secret message was photographically reduced to the size of a period, and affixed as the dot for the letter 'i' or other punctuation on a paper containing a written message. These microdots permitted the transmission of large amounts of printed data, including technical drawings. The fact of the transmission was effectively hidden.

Times have changed!

Nowadays, you don't have to shave a courier's head or write a literary masterpiece to get the message across. It is much easier. Simply take any graphics or sound file, change some bits which are of little or no significance to the overall content, and then transmit the file to the recipient of your communications. He (and only he) will know where to look for the hidden message. To anyone else it is just a normal picture or sound file.

This strategy is based on two principles:

1. Digital images or sound can be altered to a certain extent without losing their functionality.

2. Minor changes in image color or sound quality cannot be noticed by humans, which makes it especially easy to use files containing some redundant information, like 16-bit sounds or 24- bit images.

This technique is worth exploring even if you live in a country where using encryption is currently legal. You might still be traced just for using encryption... as Big Brother agencies tend to believe that those who use encryption have something to hide. With Steganography, you can hide the very fact that you are sending an encrypted message. Instead, you are swapping innocent sound and graphic files, just like everyone else.

Below you will find some excellent Steganography software.

Windows 95/98/NT

Steganos II uses strong encyption and steganographic techniques to hide data in graphics, sounds, texts, and HTML files. Additional features include: Public key steganography, disk encryption, advanced password management, a "Zero-Emission-Pad" text editor to combat tempest attacks, and a data shredder. Highly recommended! Shareware, $59.95

Scramdisk allows you to create virtual encrypted drives. These can be stored as container files, or in the low bits of WAV audio files. Encryption included! Freeware

MP 3Stego hides information in the popular MP3 files, which are nothing other than WAV file sound tracks which are compressed using the MPEG Audio Layer III format. Freeware

S-Mail uses strong encryption and compression to hide files in EXE and DLL files. Includes measures to ensure that information is not detected by pattern or ID string scanners! Shareware

S-Tools4 hides files in BMP, GIF, and WAV files. Easy to use, worth checking out! Freeware

Gifshuffle is a command-line-only program which conceals messages in GIF images by shuffling the colourmap. The picture remains visibly intact, just the order of color within the palette is changed! Also provides compression and encryption of the concealed message. Freeware

Hide4PGP is a command- line steganographic program that hides data within BMP, WAV and VOC files. It is designed to be used with both PGP but also works well as a stand-alone program. Freeware

SubiText is currently under development and certainly worth a look!

MacOS

FatMacPGP is optimized for PowerMacs and has a Stealth option which strips off all identifying header information to leave only the encrypted data in a format suitable for steganographic use. Freeware

Stego is a steganography tool that enables you to embed data in Macintosh PICT format files. Freeware

Mimic Functions is a pseudo-random text-based stego program that uses context free grammer to hide data. Freeware

Unix/Linux

Gifshuffle is a command-line-only program which conceals messages in GIF images by shuffling the colourmap. The picture remains visibly intact, just the order of color within the palette is changed! Also provides compression and encryption of the concealed message. Freeware

Steg Party is a text-based software utilizing small changes in spelling and punctuation

MandelSteg is a GIF- based stego program

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