Blog: Steganography Discovery Could Help Data Thieves, But Also Improve Radar, Sonograms

Steganography Discovery Could Help Data Thieves, But Also Improve Radar, Sonograms
Network World (04/09/10) Greene, Tim

The technology for instruments used to see through fog also could be used for optical steganography, according to a team of researchers at Princeton University. Radar instruments rely on the refractive properties of crystals, which combine the energy of light noise with the weak energy of the signal, to make a clear image of an object. Jason Fleischer and colleague Dmitry Dylov used a ground-glass filter to simulate fog so they could control the statistical properties of the noise, but they say the same principles could be used in natural environments. Thieves might try to store stolen data on CDs in a way that prevents it from being detected by corporate security professionals. A coating on the surface could diffuse the signal from the data so conventional CD players would interpret just noise. However, a device with a tunable crystal could be adjusted to read the signal behind the noise. "There could be a signal there, but unless you know it's there you wouldn't even know to look," Fleischer says. The technology also could improve sonograms and night vision goggles.

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