Breaking a steganography software: Camouflage

  
 

Caveat: Most of the home grown steganography software written by amateurs (including MCTE, Mhow) are easily breakable! (Thank GOD, Army did NOT say that the MCTE software is Classified! Had they said that, you can only call them stupid and nieve!) Any thing that is NOT open source and  NOT reviewed by Cryptographic community is total hog wash and  what is called "snake oil" in America.

For more on "snake oil" cryptography: read here:

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9902.html#snakeoil

http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/snake-oil-faq.html

 

Breaking a (very weak) steganography software: Camouflage

1. Background

Steganography is the technique for hiding data inside other data, for example, to hide a secret message inside a picture, or a secret picture inside a music file. There are several techniques to do that, and several softwares available. Some use complex algorithms and are pretty good at doing their job (it's difficult to affirm that there is actually hidden data, and even more difficult to retrieve it), some other use very simple algorithms and are easy to detect and break. You can find reliable and scientific information about steganography, digital watermarking (which is basically the same thing) and how to detect them on several web pages on the web, like the Neil Johnson site, the Fabien Petitcolas site, the Outguess page (here you can find a tool to detect steganography in images), and several others.
A few days ago, actually September 11th of 2002, first anniversary of the attack in the United States, there was a short subject talking about steganography use by terrorists. It was aired on the french private TV network "Canal Plus" on the show "Le Journal des Bonnes Nouvelles". Not only the tabloïd-like subject by itself raised my bullshit detector alarm to the red level (it's an old rumour, never proven, but the journalists transformed this rumour in facts: they said several times that terrorists actually used steganography), but also there was a lot of technical errors in the commentary. Sloppy and cheap journalism at its best, using the last hype or rumours to scare the audience.
They did a "demonstration" of a "famous" and "unbreakable, even by the NSA" steganography sofware, which hides data in a "totally indetectable way", and is "illegal". Here are some screenshots of the show:

 ................

For more:  http://www.guillermito2.net/stegano/camouflage/index.html

	The original JPG picture, without anything hidden in it, is 5,139 bytes.
	The original picture with the secret message added, without password, size is 6,021 bytes.
	The original picture, with the secret message added, password is "aaaa", size is 6,021 bytes.
	The original picture, with the secret message added, password is "a" repeated 255 times, size is 6,021 bytes. 255 bytes is the maximum size for the password, you will understand why later; if it's longer it will produce an error (we could probably use this for a classical buffer overflow exploit to force Camouflage to execute some arbitrary cod

   5. Conclusions

Don't trust what is said on TV, journalists don't know what they are talking about, and instead of doing a little bit of research asking  competent people (there are plenty in the academia and the corporate worlds), they fall for the hype, and listen to people who are incompetent or just want to have their faces on a TV screen.
Most of the steganography software around are easy to detect and to break.
If the algorithm used in some encryption or steganography software is not documented precisely, its strength is probably very weak. Never use them for serious security purposes.
Don't trust what you see on the internet, and that includes this page. Be especially aware of people with a big mouth who use big words ("unbreakable", "undetectable", etc...). Test everything yourself, or ask different people who may know more. There are plenty of forums on Usenet with specialists about almost any subject you can imagine.
[Note written much later: I've since discovered some other tools to unprotect Camouflage files:
- CKFP (Camouflage / Kamaleon File Patcher) by Vikt0ry.
- CamouflageCrack by Kasky.
- CamoDetect Perl script by Andrew Christensen, found on PacketStorm]
Have a nice day!


Source: http://www.guillermito2.net/stegano/camouflage/index.html


Take home: 

1. Most amateur cryptography and steganography software are  breakable. The fact that you can not see the "secret message" with your naked eyes means nothing. Most media people talk non-sense when they say a software that is unbreakable.
2. Relevance for UD case: You can not convict  an honourable soldier based on such nieve pseudo-scientific criteria. If proscution can, they should  break the code and prove that there was a "secret message" and what the "secret message was" and how that message involved   a "national secret" and how the "spy had really  betrayed the nation"!  If not, eat the dust and face consequences for "betraying the nation" by torturing and destroying an honourable soldier  who served the nation honourably for 40 years!