What about Traffic Analysis?

[Adam Shostack <adam () homeport org>]

        Ok, so the assembled wizards have declared trying to
understand the content of messages to be a loss, which is toughly
correct.

        What about performing traffic analysis on the mail flow?
Catching information by spikes in the places people send mail?
Sending files to the competition?  Is this worthwhile?  (Assume
trapping messages that hit some threshold.)

        In a talk at Defcon this weekend, someone made the comment
that sending pictures of giraffes to your freinds is calling attention
to yourself, regardless of the ability of the screener to find the
stego'd encrypted message in the picture.

Adam


-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
                                                       -Hume