Camera/Shy is a pretty simple application, so there is not much to say about it
once you have seen the demo. The technology is not new, the steganography. Everyone
has seen a browser before. What is really new about Camera/Shy is the ability to
do this whole process of finding and decrypting the images on the fly.

Some people are afraid it will aid terrorists. Some people are afraid that the steg I
use is not strong enough, though there is no steg downloadable from the web which can
not be detected. 

One of the biggest points, here, though... is that we are talking about censorship, we
are admitting there is a problem. We are saying we can work towards a solution. We
are acknowledging that the internet is an amazing force of freedom. We are looking
at using the internet for this freedom.

In the past, we used to have to smuggle banned books into Soviet Russia and the
Eastern Bloc manually. We would hide books in microfiche. Today, we have the internet
and the only thing stopping someone from finding out whatever they want to know
is that censoring firewall at the ISP level.

For me, while I have beliefs, while I have opinions... I understand one thing. Opinions
which are true can handle opinions which are untrue. Beliefs which are firmly grounded
in reason, can handle doubts against them. Truth is infinitely stronger than lies, though
lies can appear so menacing. They are but wisps of smoke. Dreams made of nothing.

This is why these countries censor their people. They censor their people to control
their people. They control their people by lies, and if the truth be told, their control
will collapse.

As long as we have countries and organizations which control people by lies,
injustice will exist. Wherever there is injustice in the courts, injustice in the powers
that be, there is the slander which falsely accuses the innocent. Slander is a lie. Censorship
is the defender of that slander.

It was slander which had men thrown to the lions. It was slander which had men burned
at the stake. It was slander which the Nazi's used to justify their outrages against the
Jews. It was slander which sealed the fate of those doomed in Siberian jails.

Camera/Shy is easy to use. You do not have to download the image, drag and drop
it or use it from the commandline. You just double click the content it finds automatically.
It is real world based, not theory based. 

In the real world, sites are banned haphazardly at the ISP level. It is with genuine difficulty
one can police this. It takes money, it takes manhours, it takes budgets made the year before.

Current IDS systems do not implement steganalysis. It will be very costly to have them
do so. And, if they ever do this, they will find themselves having two choices. 

One, they can ban the site with the stegged image. Or, two, they can start tracking whomever
downloads the stegged image.

The trick in making this secure is to put up stegged images everywhere. To use the lie
of the fake image correctly. There is no use in putting a stegged image on a dissident website.
You put a stegged image where it will be downloading innocently by people in the know
and people not in the know. 

This way they can not stop the images from being downloaded even if they are able to
find them.

They can not ban them, either, because they don't know what they are banning. They could
be banning something anti-Communist, anti-UAE... or they could banning something for
themselves. They could be forced to ban whatever sites we wish them to ban if they did this. So,
we could put these images up on American business sites, on European business sites, on
pro-Communist sites. 

Camera/Shy is not for idiots. By the common user we do not mean it is for idiots. If you
are dealing with highly explosive material, you have to know the risks. You have to study
what you are doing. For those putting up images, you have to put them in proper places -- you
don't put up dissident stegged images on dissident sites.

All that does is tell people that you have something really serious going on nobody wants
to know about.

You try and put it on a site with high traffic. If you are the only person visiting a site... then
if it is found, you are the only suspect. If that site is found. Granted, many a lonely sites
out there which are never found by anyone.

This scares some people. They say, "Then there are risks and no one should use it". There
are always risks. We are not some tin cup saviours here. The real heroes are those in
the trenches, and nobody forget that. There are risks in these countries people in the free
world never have to take or know about. 

But, for most user's of Camera/Shy none of this will come into play. Their government doesn't
really care about them, just like our government doesn't have in jail everyone whom smokes
pot or attends KKK rallies where they preach about overthrowing the US. There is a lot of unrest, 
a lot of distance between the government and the people.

KKK. Terrorists. Now, about terrorism, which really detracts from the more important points...
there are a number of things which I believe are really common sense here, and nobody should
be asking this question. But, as I work in security and am well versed in the history of terrorism
and organized crime... maybe it is not something they really ever even think about.

The major point that screams out at me is the fact that I am one of two vulnerability
researchers at a very famous security company. We have zero day in our possession all the time going
through vendors or being further researched out.

We know how easy it is to hack anyone or anything. We know how buggy even the most
supposedly "secure" software is. 

I do not believe we would have any qualms with working with the government in fighting 
against these criminals. None. 

And, while this may be a scary issue in and of itself, the fact remains, that surveillance
is a part of life. The FBI can put bugs in people's homes. The CIA can bug diplomat's offices.
They can watch wherever they go, and use helicopters to trail difficult to follow subjects.

But, anyone whom has read about their surveillance trials with the Mafia or other organized
crime groups... anyone whom has read about the cold war spy games... knows that it is a back
and forth situation. Yes, you can sneak away and talk to someone in private. Yes, you can
get sentences out in private, even with a twenty man surveillance team on you.

On the internet, one trojan on a person's system, and they are toast. One properly coded
trojan on an extremist's website, they are all toast. One special newspost, they are toast. One
special email, they are toast. Yes, if small companies with little resources can find zero day
exploits, the governments of the world surely can. Camera/Shy doesn't change any of this. 

Lastly, but with Camera/Shy you do have a very easy means to browse private content. It
is a technique for escaping the watchful censor's eyes. You can keep your website from
being banned with Camera/Shy. You can quickly and easily provide whatever content you
wish to people without prying eyes catching them. You can force these governments to have
a genuine headache in trying to catch up. It is not fool-proof if you have a twelve man 
surveillance team on you -- but it is pretty darned good if you are not a suspect and wish
to remain as such.