Re: Just Carnivore (was: Yahoogroups and Carnivore)

["Marshall Eubanks" <tme () 21rst-century com>]

> On Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:01:53 PDT, Roeland Meyer <rmeyer () mhsc com>  said:
> > However, given mil-grade VPNs these days, there is no way they can read what

> > you sent. They can only tell that you sent something. However, I just
> > discovered the Steganography stuff in my SuSE Linux distribution, hmmmmm.

> > But, they still know where it came from and where it went.
>
> As Bruce Schneier said, the problem with steganography is that you need
> a good cover story for why you're mailing JPG's of giraffes back and forth...

>
Dear Vladis;

You need to to separate the forward and the inverse
problems here.

Inverse problem : Can you find a few message bytes in
gigabytes of files going back and forth between everyone
on the web, or even on an ISP, in order to find a target ? Probably not; at
least its tough. 

Forward problem : GIVEN A TARGET, can you look at all of 
their traffic over and over until you find their message
bytes buried in their traffic ? Much higher probability.
And, say, porn to Pakistan will appear in a new light.

I would submit that Carnivore from what I have seen deals
with the easier forward problem.


Marshall Eubanks

tme () 21rst-century com