Saw the post on Mastodon that linked over here and decided to give it a shot. I just wrote up this piece which feels like maybe it would fit.
Saw the post on Mastodon that linked over here and decided to give it a shot. I just wrote up this piece which feels like maybe it would fit.
This is a fascinating concept. I used to store encrypted private keys in images on social media sites I never used as a way to have a good backup.
You can even break up the data and store it across multiple images, instead of say a single avatar. If the site like facebook did support a gallery.
Your prose is good too, very clear, I wish I could write as well as you do.
Another method is having two accounts on a social media site say reddit, and storing data within PMs between the users. You can be explicit and store the data unobstructed or use come up with a type of hash like a mnemonic hash that converts your block of data into somewhat meaningful lorem ipsum text.
Again you can split the data across multiple messages and reconstruct them to get bigger file sizes without overloading a single image or message.
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A different technique but also side-channel based, so you might be interested in it; is storing data not in the transmission of the packets themselves but the distance between the messages. So for example you encode your message into time durations, then connect to a computer using ping or DNS lookups, or hitting a specific page from an IP. And the server stores the durations between connections from the expected IP address and reconstructs the data. That way the data itself is never actually in a packet, but help in a side-channel.
oh, a side-channel based on durations. Very cool idea. You’ve got me thinking of ways to use playlists where the duration of the songs is what’s important. I don’t think that’s exactly the same as what you were talking about, but it’s another potential way to store data. The docs says you can put 10,000 songs max on a playlist, but there’s no limit to the number of playlists. Of course, that’s also interesting because there’s a plain-text “description” field. I don’t see details in the API docs, but it sounds like maybe there’s a 200character limit for those. Lots o bits to play with
(also, thanks for the compliment on the writing! that post took about three hours to write and edit so I really appreciate it)
Yeah, that could work. I’d recommend trying to find other side-channels to store data in too so you don’t require a massive play list. For example, length of song name, or difference from last song name + the time difference. Thinking of these is fun because it really gets your brain working. There are so many clever techniques to either hide, or transmit data without anyone ever knowing its happening.