# Steganography **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 1, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228 "2010-07-01T18:58:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228/1 "2010-07-01T18:58:49Z")
My Google-fu is failing me on this question: One early steganographic program was written by a hacker who had once posed for Playboy. Searching so far has only produced references to Playboy images used for steganographic test images (most famously, the Bebe Buell Playmate of the Month centerfold). I’m sure I saw this information back in the 1990s. In light of the Russian spys using it, I want Rachel Maddow to do one of her “Moments of Geek” on Steganography, and was trying to find the name of this person to give the subject a compelling “angle”. Her most recent show quoted some “expert” that this was the “first use of Steganography” - which is bullshit. I used an Amiga steganography program to make a password for an FTP site available, posting it in an image hosted on that server with a hint to the ID of the photo posted on a Usenet newsgroup. ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228/2 "2010-07-01T21:42:29Z")
Yesterday, I read this fascinating FBI article on steganography: [http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/fsc/backissu/july2004/research/2004\_03\_research01.htm](http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/fsc/backissu/july2004/research/2004_03_research01.htm) One interesting quote to support your debunking of the “expert”: > [@](#): > > Although the term steganography was only coined at the end of the 15th century, the use of steganography dates back several millennia. In ancient times, messages were hidden on the back of wax writing tables, written on the stomachs of rabbits, or tattooed on the scalp of slaves. Invisible ink has been in use for centuries—for fun by children and students and for serious espionage by spies and terrorists. Microdots and microfilm, a staple of war and spy movies, came about after the invention of photography (Arnold et al. 2003; Johnson et al. 2001; Kahn 1996; Wayner 2002). ---
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228/3 "2010-07-01T22:39:31Z")
NPR just had an expert on the radio talking about it but I wasn’t interested enough to absorb it. He did mention a website to download from [steganography.com](http://steganography.com), I guess. Doesn’t interest me enough to check. What was the question in the OP? ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228/4 "2010-07-01T23:28:11Z")
I’d not be entirely convinced that _steganography_ is any younger than _cryptography_. They’re both obviously ancient. Even the nuanced literature on the history of the latter becomes an account of “secret writing” in general when discussing that far back. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228/5 "2010-07-01T23:34:49Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > I’d not be entirely convinced that _steganography_ is any younger than _cryptography_. They’re both obviously ancient. Might even be as old as the dinosaurs, though I’m sure for them it was a pain in the butt. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228/6 "2010-07-01T23:40:24Z")
Forestalling any pedants, I should acknowledge that _cryptography_ does literally mean “secret writing”. My point however is that through the 20th century the term _cryptography_ tended to contemporaneously mean codes and ciphers, not steganography. The likes of Enigma and Venona are thus, for example, what springs to mind when one refers to 20th century cryptography. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228/7 "2010-07-02T07:39:13Z")
The interesting thing about steganography, especially in re Russian spies, if that you can hide information in plain sight, encoded into the least significant bits of an image uploaded to a web site, as opposed to traditional cryptography where someone can tell that the item is encrypted. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228/8 "2010-07-02T08:04:27Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > My Google-fu is failing me on this question: > > One early steganographic program was written by a hacker who had once posed for Playboy. Searching so far has only produced references to Playboy images used for steganographic test images (most famously, the Bebe Buell Playmate of the Month centerfold). > > I’m sure I saw this information back in the 1990s. In light of the Russian spys using it, I want Rachel Maddow to do one of her “Moments of Geek” on Steganography, and was trying to find the name of this person to give the subject a compelling “angle”. > > Her most recent show quoted some “expert” that this was the “first use of Steganography” - which is bullshit. I used an Amiga steganography program to make a password for an FTP site available, posting it in an image hosted on that server with a hint to the ID of the photo posted on a Usenet newsgroup. The name you’re looking for is Romana Machado, IIRC. She also had a website called [glamazon.com](http://glamazon.com), where she would sell naked pictures of herself. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228/9 "2010-07-02T20:49:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Searching so far has only produced references to Playboy images used for steganographic test images (most famously, the Bebe Buell Playmate of the Month centerfold). Really? I would have thought the most famous would be [Lena Söderberg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna). ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228/10 "2010-07-02T21:14:23Z")
> [@Manduck](#): > > The name you’re looking for is Romana Machado, IIRC. She also had a website called [glamazon.com](http://glamazon.com), where she would sell naked pictures of herself. That’s her! Thanks! > [@Chronos](#): > > Really? I would have thought the most famous would be [Lena Söderberg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna). You’re right, my mistake. Either Bebe or Lene was a definite improvement on that mandrill. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/steganography/545228/11 "2010-07-04T06:19:12Z")
> [@Manduck](#): > > The name you’re looking for is Romana Machado, IIRC. She also had a website called [glamazon.com](http://glamazon.com), where she would sell naked pictures of herself. And, if you’re curious, the old site is still available on the [Internet Archive.](http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.glamazon.com/). Obviously, most of the links on that page will be NSFW.