Posted on 07/15/2002 3:07:47 PM PDT by Bobibutu
Free Hacker Software Called Human Rights Weapon
By Masha Zager NewsFactor Network July 15, 2002
Camera/Shy allows users to check images for embedded messages, read them and embed their own return messages with the click of a mouse.
With the assistance of a new computer program, information that once had to be smuggled on microfiche or tiny scraps of paper can now be encrypted and embedded in any ordinary GIF image file.
Hacktivismo, a hacker group ostensibly dedicated to human rights, released the program, called Camera/Shy, at the H2K2 Convention in New York last weekend. The group, whose name blends "hacking" and "activism" with a Spanish twist, is an international assemblage of hackers, activists, artists and others who purport to use technology to further global human rights.
The Camera/Shy software, available for free over the Internet, provides a means for activists to exchange banned content across the World Wide Web.
Do-It-Yourself Steganography
Steganography software is nothing new; several programs are currently available for encrypting and hiding data. However, most of them are designed for technically sophisticated users -- a category that excludes most human rights activists.
Oxblood Ruffin, Hacktivismo's founder, told NewsFactor: "It was important for us to design tools that would be usable by the people we were trying to help. Hence, the simple approach."
Elias Levy, chief technology officer of SecurityFocus, agreed. "What will make this program popular is that it is all integrated and easy to use," he told NewsFactor.
While other steganography programs are command line-based, Camera/Shy is embedded in a Web browser. Other programs require users to know beforehand that an image contains embedded content, but Camera/Shy allows users to check images for embedded messages, read them and embed their own return messages with the click of a mouse.
The China Syndrome
One country whose activists are most likely to be interested in Camera/Shy is China -- especially since the software is dedicated to the memory of Wang Ruowang, a former Chinese dissident leader.
SecurityFocus' Levy questioned whether the Chinese government might ask antivirus companies to modify their programs to detect the new software -- in effect, treating Camera/Shy as if it were a virus.
China's government might also ask for ways to detect whether people are using the software and whether Web sites have hidden contents -- features that would be difficult but probably not impossible to provide.
"Given the size of the Chinese market and the leverage they have, it's likely that one or more companies might comply with this," Levy said.
However, Hacktivismo hopes that Camera/Shy's ease of use will encourage users to embed so many messages in innocuous and even official Web sites that governments will not be able to find and shut down all of them.
"You hide your real message in a crowd of fake messages," Hacktivismo told the H2K2 conference. "Which message is the real message?" Governments trying to defeat the program, the group argued, eventually will have to shut down their own Web sites and punish their own people who unknowingly downloaded embedded messages.
For Good or Evil
Another concern is that Camera/Shy might become a tool for terrorists and others using the Web for criminal purposes. Citing recent unsubstantiated reports that al-Qaeda may have embedded encrypted messages in Web sites, Levy said, "All tools can be used for good and bad."
Hacktivismo said it is aware of the risk but believes it is well worth taking.
"Camera/Shy advances democracy," Ruffin told NewsFactor. "Will terrorists use it? Not that likely. Will we be using it against terrorist states?... Yeah."
For those of you that are interested in reading more about this sort of thing, here are two good links.
Here is a Slashdot article on Steganography
and here's one on Hacktivism
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