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Comment by compsciphd | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why crypto doesn't help avoid detection?

Imagine I have a usb thumb drive with gigabytes of mp3s on it, and I devise a way to embed and extract a floppy image into the mp3s (i.e. steganography), or perhaps family pictures. unless the images are viewed before and after, it can be difficult to determine what was stored or even if anything was stored.

Of course, not impossible as their attacks that can be done on this, but I'd argue that if one is already suspected of using steganography and they have access to the device you are storing the data on, you are most likely screwed anyways, even if they can't prove it.

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The described use scenario is for smuggling the specified device in a secured environment where no electronic devices or storage devices are allowed, and passing through a physical search by masquerading the device as something innocuous i.e. "initial plan for concealment host is as a day planner". There's no intent to use steganography, random data (e.g. gigabytes of mp3 of family photos) should never be exiting the secure area in a legal manner, not even after a review; even if accidentally gets brought in, it's not getting out.

Bringing an USB thumb drive to such a place by itself would a serious incident, but might be treated (after a review) as a benign accident, but having a concealed device that can read floppies is another manner, it's obviously not a coincidence. Discovering that you ("the asset") have such a concealed device is by itself clearly sufficient for failing the mission and getting detained. It doesn't matter if it's "difficult to determine what was stored or even if anything was stored" - possession of the device and attempt to smuggle it to the secure area would be sufficient.

If you get caught with a hidden floppy drive near a place that uses floppy disks for any interesting purposes, it is pretty clear what you were up to. Being able to conceal whether you already copied anything and if, what exactly, wouldn't probably make a big difference. You are almost certainly in some serious trouble at that point.

I worked for a vendor that made networking hardware. On the system there was some flash storage. We sold to the TLAs. When we got kit in for a demo it came back out minus the flash. USB drives and the like are never allowed in a secure area. Best case you get fired, worse case you end up in prison for 100 years. In the case of what they are asking for here, it is likely "hey we have spy in one of the secure areas and we want to copy the data from the floppy on the system (still in use as others have pointed out)." If you got caught with the device you would get shot and it would not matter if they could read what was on the device. Crypto would just slow down what is a time sensitive operation.

Steganography actually causes distortions that are noticeable. Unencripted data often has very odd patterns, encrypted data looks unusually random.

Probably was supposed to be steganography, since stenography is what courtroom reporters do.

Aye, AutoCorrupt to the rescue.

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