Re: steganography (and bin Laden)

From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Thu Oct 11 2001 - 12:21:32 MDT


From: "Louis Newstrom" <lnewstro@bellsouth.net>
> It does NOT carry the death penalty in the USA or other countries where the
> recipients are. Also, many terrorists would already face the death penalty
> for murder. Why would they care about the death penalty for pornography?

Good point! As the Ananova article mentions, many terrorists favor the use of
pornography to hide their messages. This adds another layer of disguise and
concealment for their command messages.

> A porn site is set up to hide the sender's identity. A non-porn site (like
> AOL) will probably not protect the sender's identity.

Another excellent point... who'd have thought Wahhabis would use porn sites,
and due to high volume of traffic, tracking is that much more difficult.

At any rate, the article is useful in that it shows an awareness of
steganographic messages and that some effort is being made to crack them.
Every little bit helps, and if Iomart actually does something to catch
terrorists, that would make it one of the most extropic of corporations in the
world today.

--- --- --- --- ---

Useless hypotheses, etc.:
 consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
analog computing, cultural relativism, GAC, Cyc, Eliza, cryonics, individual
uniqueness, ego, human values, scientific relinquishment

We move into a better future in proportion as science displaces superstition.



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