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The Americans had tried almost everything, but they just couldn't crack an encrypted message they came across while investigating the 9/11 attacks. Finally, they approached a 17-year-old boy in Delhi about whom The New York Times had done a feature. Over the next 10 days, Ankit Fardia hunkered down in his room in Delhi and came up with the key to crack the message. The worst fears of American investigators came true — Al-Qaeda was using a sophisticated technology, called steganography, to communicate. It involved sending encrypted messages concealed in a photograph or series of photographs. “I was lucky in...

ROME, May 8 — Investigators analyzing computers seized from an Italian mosque say they have uncovered images of the twin towers that were downloaded just days before the 9/11 attacks, as well as a trove of pornographic photos they believe were used to conceal coded messages. On Sept. 4, 2001, according to investigators, pictures of the World Trade Center were saved as temporary files on one of the computers at the Via Quaranta mosque in Milan — the mosque frequented by Abdelkader Mahmoud Es Sayed, also known as Abu Saleh, an Egyptian currently on trial in absentia in Milan on...

'Super-DMCA' fears suppress security research By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus Posted: 14/04/2003 at 10:16 GMT Steganography and honeypot expert Niels Provos may risk four years in prison by completing his Ph.D., writes Kevin Poulsen, of SecurityFocus. A University of Michigan graduate student noted for his research into steganography and honeypots -- techniques for concealing messages and detecting hackers, respectively -- says he's been forced to move his research papers and software offshore and prohibit U.S. residents from accessing it, in response to a controversial new state law that makes it a felony to possess software capable of concealing the existence or...

There exists a series of 'nonsense' postings in Usenet. (Please no jokes about Usenet already being full of nonsense). Obviously computer generated.  These often have Arabic names interspersed in the content. One speculation is they might just be 'merry pranksters' posting vast amounts of nonsense to confuse Usenet readers. Another speculation is this might be the 'increased al-Qaeda chatter' we hear about when the Home Land Security changes the color to a redder hue. Note the increase just after Dec. 22 (the date that the Shoe Bomber was captured trying to blow up Miami to Paris, flight AA 63). We...