Category: (Book)
1 new, starting at $1,018.04
12 used, starting at $59.00
* Explains exactly what steganography is-hiding a message inside an
innocuous picture or music file-and how it has become a popular
tool for secretly sending and receiving messages for both the good
guys and the bad guys
* First book to describe international terrorists' cybersecurity
tool of choice in an accessible language
* Author is a top security consultant for the CIA and provides
gripping stories that show how steganography works
* Appendix provides tools to help people detect and counteract
stenanography
awesome book.Reviewed by Eric Kent, 2005-06-01
this is the best book on Steganography out there.
cole has a ton of great info.
Discover The Art of Hiding DataReviewed by Tony Bradley, 2005-02-10
Not knowing much other than the definition of steganography before
opening this book I found it very easy to read and very
informative.
Eric Cole has a background in working with hidden data and his
experience is translated into a book that even users new to the
concepts of covert communication can understand. The fictionalized
stories of actual events help the reader to understand how these
tools are used every day by both the good guys and the bad
guys.
The book covers a basic history and background of cryptography and
digital watermarking as well as steganography and then gets into
more detail about the techniques and concepts of "stego". It does
provide source code, but may not be "meaty" enough for
steganography experts.
(...)
Good, but basic, and the editor should be fired.Reviewed by M. Karapcik, 2004-12-24
The information is quite good, though not very in depth. The
examples are good, as they explain, "See, this really *can* be used
in 'real life'." There is also some programming information, so for
some parts (nothing critical, just program design), a knowledge of
C is useful. Personally, this is my first book on steganography, so
the technicality of the information was at a good level
(informative, but not buried in jargon or advanced math). I have no
programming background, but skipping the program designs was not a
detriment in any way.
However... I think the editor should be bludgeoned once or twice
with something heavy. I have written some documentation, and the
editor did things that I know never to do. First, there are a few
grammatical errors, which cause serious problems if you are not
paying attention. (In one example, it is said the user (I don't
have the book in front of me) "attaches her private PGP key,
encrypts it with [the other's] public PGP key, and sends the
email". This is after saying many times "NEVER EVER SHARE YOUR
PRIVATE PGP KEY!!!". Then, the example goes on to say the recipient
"uses the public PGP key, which is attached...". (The first
sentence should have read "public PGP key"). In addition to one or
two other situations like this, there is also an issue with the
inline images. They all appear only at the top and bottom of the
page, while the author clearly intends for some to be in
paragraphs. The author says things like "as seen in this image:",
but the sentence continues, and "this image", the number of which
is not given, is elsewhere on the page. Further, many images have
the eight resize anchor points and thick border visible from screen
shots; these should have been Photoshop'ed out (it's not that hard,
I've done it with Paintbrush).
If you are looking for advanced work, skip this. For a basic work,
I would give it five stars, but the editors errors are so bad....
Silly editing mistakes and empty information.Reviewed by Nick Veys, 2004-09-01
Call me silly for expecting more from this. This book
rollercoasters from the wildly vague overview to the distractingly
specific detail and back again. The author shows promise in writing
style but the editing needs some work. Typos and silly mistakes
like the majority of the second half of the book's images appear
taken from a Word document (or similar) while selected (border,
drag handles overlayed) and LOTS of white space.
And how useful is 80 pages of printed source code? The CD is
included, just save the trees and my shelf space please.
The author is a seemingly public figure (TV show appearances, etc)
so I guess you can only expect so much.
If you're looking for meat on the topic, don't bother. If you want
a basic overview in a weekend read, go for it.
Not an in-depth studyReviewed by S. Christian, 2004-06-09
I have to agree with a few of the other reviewers. This book only covers a very basic overview of stego. Anybody familiar with the topic will get bored fast. The 'example' stories littered through the text were interesting at first but get old quick. There's only so many ways an author can present the same information. This books reeks of an author stretching an old term paper into a book in order to make a few bucks.
