Does anyone have any experience with covert messaging techniques and cyphers?

I am going to have to be a little vauge about this I am afraid so I appologise in advance.

As the OP says does anyone have any experience with these topics?

I think I may have stumbled apon a rabbit hole and have no idea as how to proceed.

An interest in mathmatics and formula would also be helpfull.

Again sorry about the vaugeness but canot really go into detail straight away, also why I put in generall chitchat mods

a reply to: nonspecific

As the OP says does anyone have any experience with these topics?

You;re going to have to be a little more specific than that. What era of history, which conflict, type of code?

It goes form satellite cryptography to knots on ropes or notches on sticks. I even heard once that they used to shave messengers heads, tattoo a message on the skull and regrow the hair before sending them to their destination.

There they would reshave the head and read the message.

Sorry I don't have a link, Im pressed for time.

a reply to: intrptr

As I stated I appologise for the vaugeness.

Modern era, Ie. now. Specifically the use of the internet as a means of covert communication that can be hidden in plain sight with an understanding of historical and contemporary methods of encryption and methodolgy.

Hope this is a little more explanitory

How covert do you need them to be?

a reply to: Blissful

Way misinterpreted the post. Sorry, can't help you bro!

originally posted by: Blissful
How covert do you need them to be?

LOL, I am not looking to do it myself I am looking for information on you could go about looking for patterns to see if there is a correlation in something seemingly random.

I am not good with that kind of thing but I know that some people can see that kind of thing quite naturally.

It depends on the server you would want to access. Whether its an HTTP://, an https://, or another protocol. Then, there is no www, a www, www1, www2, etc.

So much of the protocol is security, but you could try alien symbols, negative numbers, or something simply offbeat.

Good luck, hope you fiind what you are loooking for...

a reply to: nonspecific
There are so many different methods. Cadence, missing letters that look like accidents, spacing, the list is endless. I've seen posts here on ATS that look like intentional code. Sometimes it's just a key word.

There's also a method that was used in WW2 that is still used today. Both sender and receiver have graphs of letters with across and down, that look like "find a word" puzzles. The sender designates which graph to use for decryption, and then a series of numbers and letters(5d for 5 down, and 2a for 2 across. AB for which graph to use). These can actually be hidden in a paragraph if both sender and receiver know the method for finding them in the text. Near impossible to crack without the graphs. Point being, you need someone familiar with many different methods, that can spot which ones are being used. I don't know if we have anyone that well versed on ATS, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Good luck. I'd be interested to hear about it later. We all fancy a little cloak and dagger with our conspiracies.

a reply to: nonspecific
Short answer is that if its done right you won't be able to get to the bottom of it. Have a glance at this for an idea.

There are linguistics analysis methods that (within a level of probability) can tell you if there is a language hidden inside groups of random characters. How effective that is depends on the cypher etc ...

It's unlikely I'd be able to help to the level you might want even if I did look unless the persons involved have made some serious errors.

there are SO many ways to encrypt information in plain sight.
Leter skipping
gibberish that can only be decoded with a pre-issued code book
rand0m numbers
even specially modified pixels on a picture that are used to encode messages.
multi pixel encrtypion visual crypography

a reply to: nonspecific
Have you search encryption cypher? I just checked and there are tons of info on Youtube.

a reply to: nonspecific

I have no ideaL what yOu are talking about, its Very unlikely that anyonE on ATS could help you.


Just being sarcastic if you find the hidden message. I can't really help you.

originally posted by: Isurrender73
a reply to: nonspecific

I have no ideaL what yOu are talking about, its Very unlikely that anyonE on ATS could help you.


Just being sarcastic if you find the hidden message. I can't really help you.

I looked really hard for the hidden meSsage in your short but quite well composed post And could find no sign of any hidden messages i feeL that the answers i am looking for may be hidden deeper than I thought

i wilL keep looking.

a reply to: nonspecific

nvm

That entirely depends on what type of information you are trying to encode.

Plain text encryption methods are pretty straight forward and everything from RSA to PGP algorithms are publicly available for research purposes.

If you are looking to funnel information out of a system encryption won't help you very much save for the connections used.

Stenography and multi pixel encryption is excellent for multimedia encryption. Encrypting malicious code and still being able to execute the program is a function you could look into.

I recommend a lot of reading in your future. ATS is really not a good forum for this kind of stuff. There isn't a lot of information people can share with you that would give you anymore of a deeper understanding of the information you're seeking.

1. We don't have enough information about what it is you're trying to do. So all people can really do is spit ball ideas and concepts at you and hope something sticks. This will be incredibly time consuming and ultimately useless.

2. You need to go and get an understanding of encryption theory, methods, classes, and how they are applied before trying to jump into this "rabbit hole" head first.

a reply to: projectvxn

Thanks for the advice.

I got a little carried away with something for a while, I am a conspiracy nut and all

Some people can just see patterns which makes them very important to the spooks etc, it can be very easy to hide a message in the madness if the other person knows what they are looking for.

lets take what seems like a standard spam message for some pills, now the message is broadcast to millions of email addresses and the crap they fill up the space with what seems like random letters or words but if you receive a message like that you know to read the 1st, 4th and 32nd word and from that you can decode what your mission is...it could be "hi, want to kill in the bedroom.......be a king in the bedroom all for only $9.99"

a reply to: Maxatoria

Some just knows?

a reply to: nonjudgementalist

No different than someone can listen to a car engine and say the 3rd spark plugs needs changing without even seeing the actual car, its just basically pattern recognition and spotting where the important stuff is from the chaff.

It could be a savant style skill or perhaps after spending 20 years listening to car engines you can pretty much tell where the problem is or that guy who can multiply billions by trillions in his head in about 10 seconds

a reply to: Maxatoria

Yes, I know "i" agencies use them a lot and often use funny sounding names for their data gathering programs like XKEYSCORE and the five eyes network. But I don't understand what they mean, I know its probably code for something though.


PS sorry OP i don't really know what to suggest.

What field are you investigating? Any in particular?