Communications of the ACM
Steganography Is No Laughing Matter
A new approach to steganography hides messages in jokes, like those composed by the Chuck Norris Joke Generator, to make them less obvious.
Credit: Success Stories
University of Maryland Baltimore County computer scientist Abdelrahman Desoky has developed an approach to steganography that uses jokes to make hidden messages less obvious.
Unlike strong code, which protects communications with encryption but draws attention to the confidential nature of a message, steganography conceals sensitive information in plain view within the message itself or in a compressed image or music file format. However, large file sizes are a problem with music and image files, and while plain text documents enable smaller files, grammar, syntax, and spelling irregularities can indicate the presence of a concealed message.
To reduce issues with grammar and obviousness in plain text steganography, Desoky suggests using jokes to conceal messages. His Automatic Joke Generation Based Steganography Methodology, or Jokestega, uses existing software that composes pun-oriented jokes, such as the Chuck Norris Joke Generator or Jokes2000. Messages are concealed by substituting an alternate answer for the expected one.
Jokestega could hide about eight bits of data in a simple joke, and a collection of such jokes could be used to hide a message, Desoky says.
From EurekAlert
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