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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

> Note that there is simply no way for two known parties on the internet to hide the fact that they are communicating with one another from government-corporate managers of the Internet

Not entirely true. I could post a message on a popular forum like HN, where the message contains a hidden message.

View on HN

Steganography is a real thing. I've often wondered about those meme powerhouses, like on Facebook.

I used to collect thousands of memes and just blast them to my mother indiscriminately. Then I wondered whether silly-looking memes could be carrying secret messages, or just nasty hidden stuff. I decided to stop helping traffick in that stuff.

Has anyone read/seen Mother Night? That's a real good example of how secret communication can hide in plain sight.

> Has anyone read/seen Mother Night? That's a real good example of how secret communication can hide in plain sight.

Are there any confirmed examples from non-fiction?

Yes.

In World War II, German spies used a technique called the "microdot" to embed secret messages within seemingly innocuous documents. The microdot technique involved shrinking the text of a message to the size of a small dot (about 1 millimeter in diameter) and then placing it within the text or image of a cover document, such as a letter or newspaper article. The recipient would need a microscope to read the tiny message.

The Least Significant Bit method is used frequently for the legitimate use of watermarking image, video and audio IP. It is a simple technique that embeds the watermark data into the rightmost bit of a binary number (LSB) of some pixels of the cover image.

It is also very common for malware to hide it's configuration data or payload within image files. (ZeusVM, Zberp, NetTraveler, Shamoon, Zero.T)

In one of those historic ironic twists, the technology the Germans used to make microdots was created by a Jewish inventor, Emanuel Goldberg.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/new-york-man-charged-theft-tr...

> The criminal complaint alleges that on or about July 5, Zheng, an engineer employed by General Electric, used an elaborate and sophisticated means to remove electronic files containing GE’s trade secrets involving its turbine technologies. Specifically, Zheng is alleged to have used steganography to hide data files belonging to GE into an innocuous looking digital picture of a sunset, and then to have e-mailed the digital picture, which contained the stolen GE data files, to Zheng’s e-mail account.

On the other hand, he did get caught...

If they didn't we would never know, would we? We must do something like the Border Patrol does when they seize like 1kg of drugs and use that to assume that 1,000kg got through.

In 2010, the Colombian government commissioned a pop song called "Better Days" that received nationwide airplay. Hidden within the song was a Morse code message for FARC hostages (some of whom were soldiers and trained in Morse) that help was on the way.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-63995293

Steganalysis is the process of trying to separate cat pictures from cat pictures with steganographic information added. It's quite possible to do this well under ideal conditions -- where you know the proportion of the two a priori -- but much harder in real life.

Yeah the parent's assertion seems incorrect. It's totally possible to hide such messages on the internet.

Basically a digital dead drop.

Not to mention literal dead drops with encrypted messages on thumb drives. Etc.

Maybe that explains some 'word-salad' speeches by our VP. She really is sending a hidden message to somebody who has the secret decoder ring. Then again, maybe not...

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