Hiding text in pictures, part II

In the recent post "Hiding text and pictures in pictures", we described the use of steganography, which allows to make text or photos invisible to the human eye by putting them into photos or images.

We were overwhelmed by the audience response and should have seen it coming. While we were thinking of cat photos or flower pictures, others would, of course, think of other pets. Yet others would prefer inanimate objects or architecture.

What we hadn't taken into account was nekid pictures, and not just any nudes but outright porn.

It makes so much sense, said our TheEditor, no wonder I didn't see that. If you are not doing an art project or talking to grandma via steganography, dirty pictures could well be it.

Remember who social media lit up when Mr. Snowden told the world that the guys were sharing naked pics? added TheEditor. The whole surveillance thing is wildly overblown, as Mr. Snowden confirmed and we all know by now, but just imagine you use a nudie pic from the web, put the date of the next pub crawl in, then mail it to your buddies. If the pic gets picked over by someone who is not supposed to see it...what a riot.

It made sense, we thought. If the spooks of a country with a strict ban on nudie pics intercept your email between two liberal countries, how cool would that be. If their software throws a stego alert and the pic is displayed on the 10 foot by 10 foot big screen...bingo.

If you can assume some homophobia in spooks offices, how about a wiener pic? There are lots of wiener pics of politicians, professors, etc. out there.

Any reasonable person would likely say the use of nude pics to send hidden messages is adolescent, and we'd agree. But it doesn't mean it is not effective. 

Even in an environment that is not 100% male, the distractive power of the body is immense. Some services would probably have to form same sex teams, all male or all female. If you are a male analyst in Backward Country A staring at a screen of gorgeousness and your supervisor stops behind you? That supervisor, depending on its sex, might get you fired for looking at a lewd pic, might proposition you, or might resign in shame.

You really should not do this. Stick to cats or other nice pics.


Copyright notice: We are not sure of the copyright situation of various wiener pics or other photos, and it is your responsibility to ensure you do not violate their copyright. Some of these folks have lost everything, copyright may be all they have left.