[extropy-chat] codes in scam letters

[David Lubkin]

Spike wrote:

>it occurred to me that they would be the perfect vehicle for 
>broadcasting coded messages to sleeper cells or other criminal 
>gangs.  No one actually reads very far past any email that starts 
>with the word "greetings" so this might be just the thing.  They 
>could even hide a message in misspelled words, so that a copy-paste 
>into microsloth word would underline in red squigglies the actual message.
>
>Harvey and other security wonks, has this been done?

Sure, the concept is centuries old. The specific approach you suggest 
wouldn't be hard to break, but can be refined to a level that is 
effectively undetectable and unbreakable.

See earlier postings

8/14/2005 11:39 AM - Covert channels (was Re: Transhumanist short story)
9/20/2001 11:44 AM - RE: steganography

I think the idea in the 8/14 posting is as unbreakable as a one-time 
pad but has the advantage that it's much harder for your opposition 
to be sure that there's a message present.

One thing I love about your Nigerian variant though is that you are 
concealing the true crime within an apparent crime.

Which could, of course, be nested further. Perhaps the only true 
signal in a hidden message of misspelled words is the number of such 
words. Or send out 1000 spam messages, each of which embeds a 
different encoded message, only one of which is true.


-- David.