Investigator's Guide to Steganography [Hardcover]

Gregory Kipper (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0849324335 | ISBN-13: 978-0849324338 | Publication Date: October 27, 2003 | Edition: 1

Investigators within the law enforcement and cyber forensics communities are generally aware of the concept of steganography, but their levels of expertise vary dramatically depending upon the incidents and cases that they have been exposed to. Now there is a book that balances the playing field in terms of awareness, and serves as a valuable reference source for the tools and techniques of steganography.

The Investigator's Guide to Steganography provides a comprehensive look at this unique form of hidden communication from its earliest beginnings to its most modern uses. The book begins by exploring the past, providing valuable insight into how this method of communication began and evolved from ancient times to the present day. It continues with an in-depth look at the workings of digital steganography and watermarking methods, available tools on the Internet, and a review of companies who are providing cutting edge steganography and watermarking services. The third section builds on the first two by outlining and discussing real world uses of steganography from the business and entertainment to national security and terrorism. The book concludes by reviewing steganography detection methods and what can be expected in the future.

It is an informative and entertaining resource that effectively communicates a general understanding of this complex field.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Auerbach Publications; 1 edition (October 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0849324335
• ISBN-13: 978-0849324338
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,202,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A comprehensive and useful work!, November 21, 2003

By 

Stephen Northcutt (Kauai, HI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Investigator's Guide to Steganography (Hardcover)

As a security focused manager the more I learn about steganography, the art of hiding messages, the more concerned I become about its security implications. These techniques allow an individual to use secrecy in communications.

I am sure the book aids the investigator, but it helps a manager understand how secrecy has been used in the past and the present as well. A tremendous amount of research must have gone into the book to be so comprehensive. I was already familiar with S-tools and a few other picture file related techniques, but had never considered slight alterations of the space between letters and had never heard of Civil war quilts. The beginning of the book is packed with technique after technique.

The author, Greg Kipper is to be congratulated for such clear writing especially considering how complex the subject gets.

The publisher, CRC Press, went the extra mile to create a very detailed table of contents so the reader can find what they need fast.

The bottom line, this book is an excellent coverage of the subject and yet they packed it into about 200 pages so it is 100% fluff free.

One concern and one wish. The coverage of tools is a bit spotty, the links to stego tools seem to change rapidly and some of the tools do not even have a link. If you can't find a tool you might try: http://www.stegoarchive.com/ that is what I use. I hope this goes to second edition and if so, my wish is that the author will beef up the detection chapter. Greg does such a great job of showing how stego can and has been used in the real world, I would love more information about how I can protect myself and apply detective controls in my organization's network.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Overview, April 19, 2005

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Investigator's Guide to Steganography (Hardcover)

Steganography is the hidding of messages in plain sight, it hides a message within another message that looks like a normal message. This is different from Cryptography in which the secret message is converted to what looks like a meaningless jumble of characters.

Example: You mail a letter. It currently takes 37 cents in postage. Instead of using a 37 cent stamp you use stamps of the following values: 9 cents, 2 cents, 3 cents, 1 cent, 9 cents, 4 cents, 9 cents. That's the right amount of postage so the letter goes through. But the letter is meaningless. The message you sent is 9-2-3-1-9-4-9. Perhaps this means September 23, 1949, or perhaps it's comething else that the receiver understands. Or perhaps the message is in the green ink that you used to address the envelope.

When you get to computers you can be far, far more secretive. A movie or audio file can be millions of bytes long. Changing a few bits here or there would be completely undetectable but could incorporate a huge message.

This book is intended to be a guide to law enforcemtn investigators and cyber-forensics. It describes the techniques and the literally dozens of programs that exist (usually free on the web) for hiding messages and several programs for detecting these messages. This is an area that has received little attention in the past and this book does a very good job of bringing this field out into the open.