Nicola Amato
Ed. Italian University Press
pp. 208
What to say more?
The title says it all you say.
Perhaps it is so, but perhaps it is better to spend a few words ... either because Nicola is a friend, or because his book deserves to be read even by those who are not absolutely interested in steganography.
But let's get to the heart of things immediately and imagine we are interviewing the author.
A. Nicola, or maybe I should call you "Professor", can I ask you some questions?
N. Certainly Alessandro, please ask.
A. The first is a simple question, what is steganography?
N. Well, let's not waste time then, you must know that the word steganography derives from the union of two Greek words, Steganos which means hidden and grafein which means writing.
Steganography is therefore the set of techniques that allows two or more people to communicate with each other in such a way as to hide the existence of communication in the eyes of an eventual observer, something different from cryptography.
A. But what is steganography used for?
N. There are various uses, legitimate and illicit.
Steganography can be used to allow intellectual property to be recognized on a file, a photo or other as it can be used to send messages between terrorists of the same network ... perhaps that of Bin Laden.
A. But tell me, how long have you known and used steganography? Because it certainly is not a question of recent techniques developed with the birth of computers and the internet ...
N. You are absolutely right, we are talking about ancient techniques, indeed very ancient.
We can find traces of the existence of steganography already in Herodotus in his work "Stories". During the war between the Greeks and the Persians, writing tablets were used in a special way, in fact the writing was engraved directly on the tablet and then covered with wax so as to make it appear that you were dealing with tablets not yet used (normally the dry wax!). In this way Demaratus was able to get news of Xerxes' preparations for war.
A. Interesting ...
N. Yes, very much. The history of steganography is fascinating. One of the most interesting characters is perhaps the German abbot known as "Trithemius", in 1500 he wrote a treatise entitled "Steganographia" in which among other things he says that it will lead the reader to send messages at any distance without the aid of written texts, objects, signals or messengers.
Today it can be done with the use of radio waves, but then as far as I know no one had yet studied them. Although Galileo also mentions something similar.
A. You know Nicola I would like to ask you more questions but it turns out that then we bore the reader ... so thank you!
I reread the book of Nicholas Amato, now in its second edition, with great interest and I think I'll do it again later because there are many insights I want to look into.
It is a book that as you will have understood cannot be missing in our library.
Enjoy the reading!
Alessandro Rugolo
