Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Release - Open source software - replacing hardware wallets with image {
by
trout
on 23/07/2016, 17:16:57 UTC
nice work, but I'd like to add a couple of general  comments on steganography which are very important for anyone who wants to use it to store real money.

First of all, steganography for now is  not nearly on the same level of security as cryptography.  In fact, *every* steganographic method can be broken with currently available stegoanalitic methods(which are typically statistical methods).  The only question is whether there is enough data, but practical amounts are sufficient (no astronomical figures like in crypto).
While it is easy to hide something in an image so that the image with hidden data looks the same to a human eye, it is so far practically impossible to hide anything from statistical analysis methods.


The only practical use of steganography is obfuscation. If you want to hide the fact that you are storing private keys on a machine from someone who is not too much intent on finding them, then it's useful. Otherwise it's not.  For example, a security agent at the border which decides to do a "random" Check of your laptop will probably not find anything. If there was a "tip off" on you - then they probably will.

Another note: these methods are typically very sensitive to any change in the image such as rescaling, change of resolution, not to mention printing/ scanning etc. Be careful and check in advance how much destortion the steganographic method is designed to handle (typically - no distortion).

The above are just general considerations, I didn't check which methods OP used. (Besides, there are off-the-shlef stego methods which you can use to hide any files, not only wallets/ private keys.)