[FYI] (Fwd) WP:FBI investigating if/how terrorists used stego, crypt

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

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Date sent:      	Wed, 19 Sep 2001 18:21:10 -0700
Send reply to:  	Law & Policy of Computer Communications
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From:           	Xeni Jardin <xeni@XENI.NET>
Subject:        	WP:FBI investigating if/how terrorists used stego, crypto
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Terrorists' Online Methods Elusive
http://www.washtech.com/news/netarch/12557-1.html

By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Jonathan Krim,
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 19, 2001

Government agencies are contacting computer experts for help in
understanding how Osama bin Laden and his associates may have used the
Internet to send encrypted electronic messages to one another to
coordinate last week's attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, sources said yesterday.

For at least three years, federal agents had found evidence that bin
Laden's group embedded secret missives in mundane e-mails and on Web
sites. But efforts to track down and decipher the messages have
floundered.

Numerous, easy-to-download software applications are available online
that enable users to protect transmissions from curious eyes and
frustrate government attempts to create a systematic way to locate and
screen those messages.

Basic encryption tools allow people to scramble messages so that only
those with a "key" can read them. An increasing number, however, go
beyond this by allowing messages to be hidden inside graphics, music
files or in the headers of e-mails. The technology, known as
steganography, allows users to get around electronic wiretaps by
piggybacking messages on seemingly innocent digital files for things
such as 'N Sync songs, a posting on eBay or a pornographic picture.

The proliferation of this technology, people in the security community
say, is changing the rules of the intelligence game by allowing anyone
to coordinate dispersed global armies quickly and cheaply.

Several experts in the field said yesterday they've received calls
from the government asking for their assistance. One academic
researcher said he was asked to remain on standby to help try to peel
the layers off of any encrypted messages the government might find.

But that might be the easy part. Sources close to the investigation
said the few messages investigators have intercepted in the past did
not take advantage of encryption techniques. The challenge, at least
in this case, has been finding the messages in the first place.

Neil Johnson, associate director of the Center for Secure Information
Systems at George Mason University, which receives funding from the
government, said steganography is powerful because messages can
effectively be hidden almost anywhere.

Johnson's recent research has focused, with some success, on how to
crack it by examining a site, image or data stream for signs that
steganography was used, he said.

Mark Loveless, a computer security consultant with BindView
Development Corp., said the technology is also popular because if it's
used properly it would be almost impossible to trace the author of the
message and the recipient because of the random way in which files are
distributed from user to user using swapping services such as Napster
and Gnutella.

In the wake of the attacks, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) has proposed
making it mandatory that software developers give government security
agents the "keys" to encryption programs when they are created, a
position strongly opposed by many in the technology community who
worry it could be used to invade the privacy of law-abiding computer
users.

Phil Zimmermann, the creator of a popular encryption technology, said
he believes the answer to catching the terrorists lies in human
footwork rather than more surveillance technologies: "It's not
practical to frisk everyone on the planet to find the one person with
a box cutter."

The government has been waging war on data-scrambling technology on
several fronts for more than 30 years. It has asked Congress for
stricter rules on exporting the technology and has taken the
developers of such technology to courts. Most recently, the NSA
created a whole department to try to "leverage emerging technologies
and sustain both our offensive and defensive information warfare
capabilities," according to a recent document outlining its
cryptography strategy.

At a closed congressional hearing last year, one federal official said
that U.S. intelligence is "detecting with increasing frequency the
appearance and adoption of computer and Internet familiarity" in the
hands of terrorist organizations. "The skills and resources of this
threat group range from the merely troublesome to dangerous," the
official said in a submitted statement. "As we know, Middle East
terrorist groups — such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Osama bin Laden's
organization — are using computerized files, e-mail and encryption to
support their organizations."

That view was echoed by Ben Venzke, an intelligence and cyber-security
consultant in Virginia who assists several government agencies.

"Groups like them are very intelligent," he said. "They are very wise
in the ways of tradecraft and operational security and will make use
of any tools that are available," he said.







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© 2001 The Washington Post Company


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