[denydenydeny]

One of the criticisms on the linked article is that "2 million images on e-bay and Usenet were searched last year and yielded nothing." But why didn't they look on Azzam.com, a place where we know the 9/11 hijackers lurked?

[JohnathanRGalt]

denydenydeny wrote: "One of the criticisms on the linked article is that '2 million images on e-bay and Usenet were searched last year and yielded nothing.' But why didn't they look on Azzam.com, a place where we know the 9/11 hijackers lurked?

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From: "Quinn, SallyAnn"
Subject: RE: Politech challenge: Decode Al Qaeda stego-communications!
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 17:23:56 -0500

I can't believe this is back. Niels Provos and Peter Honeyman at the Center for Information Technology integration at U Mich drove a stake through the heart of this rumor last fall by scientifically analyzing 2 million images from e-Bay and 1 million images from USENET. Their conclusion is: "...we are unable to report finding a single hidden message."
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denydenydeny, you are right and SallyAnn is jumping to an unwarranted conclusion. That doesn't prove that the images on Azzam might not have secret messages -- only that the ones on e-Bay didn't -- at the time of the study. If you're going to look for secret communications from terrorists, why not look at a terrorist website, Duh.

As I understand the study, Provos & Honeyman were looking at e-Bay to establish a scientific control so when they found images that are altered by steganography they would have some statistical evidence to know the difference.

Steganography is a means of hiding messages. Encryption is what renders them secret.

Both are important in communicating instructions to operatives in the field.

But, more importantly, it's what Azzam does in the open -- in plain English or Arabic that is the most worrysome.