India Abroad
08-30-2002
The professor analyzes Internet images for hidden messages
We have all heard this one - the theory that Al Qaeda and other terrorist
organizations have turned to the Internet to communicate their lethal
plans.
Heard, too, how shadowy terrorist leaders encode instructions, maps, plans,
logistics concerning future plans into innocent-seeming messages and
pictures and transmit them over the Web.
And we have heard that investigative agencies led by the FBI have devoted
massive amounts of time, money and manpower to track these messages, to
break the terrorist Web, as it were.
Put a face to that effort, and the face will belong to Professor
Rajarathnam Chandramouli who, between classes and various research
projects, spends hours each week analyzing Internet images that could hold
hidden messages
"We have just started looking at an entirely new field, that could have far
reaching implications," says Chandramouli, assistant professor of
electrical and computer engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in
Hoboken, NJ.
"Just looking" is his way of downplaying research funded by no less than
the US Air Force - research of which he is lead investigator, and which has
gained critical status following 9/11
Steganography - the technology that permits you to hide secret messages
within digital media - has its benevolent applications, such as the hiding
of watermarks for copyright protection/authentication.
It is the darker side of the application that has people like Chandramouli
working overtime.
The science of identifying and isolating digital data that may contain
secret messages is called steganalysis (analogous to cryptanalyis in
cryptology)
"We could use the steganalysis technologies developed by our team to see
the unseen." They are getting there, but there's a way to go yet. Current
steganalysis has to become less data dependent, for one. "Currently, if the
digital image changes (say, from jpeg to bmp), then the steganalysis
algorithms have to be tuned all over again." Another problem his team is
working on is to compute the maximum length of a message that can be hidden
successfully and can evade steganalysis.
Technologies developed by his team can be potentially used to monitor
Internet web sites, screen email messages, analyze photographs, etc for
harmful covert communications. Simultaneously, the research also focuses on
developing better watermarking algorithms for digital copyright protection
- an application with wide ranging implications for the entertainment
industry. "Music companies, for instance, can plant digital watermarks in
their products. Since the unauthorized editions of CDs and DVDs will also
contain these sophisticated watermarks, it will be easy to prove the
editions are pirated." Chandramouli received an initial grant of $200,000
and expects bigger grants soon. "Research along these lines can have an
impact worth billions of dollars from homeland security to music
industries."
He obtained his first college degree from Loyola College, Chennai - in
mathematics, which was his first love. He was also interested in the
applications of mathematics in telecommunications research.
"I had admission to IIT [to study math] and to the Indian Institute of
Science [to study engineering]," he recalls. "After some deliberation, I
chose engineering because it involved many fascinating practical problems
that needed elegant mathematical solutions."
Subbalakshmi was an engineering student at the Indian Institute of Science,
who went on to become his wife. She is currently an electrical and computer
engineering professor at Stevens, with a doctorate in engineering science.
More to the point, she was the one who encouraged Chandra-mouli to pursue
doctoral research. Further details of his work can be obtained from the
lab's web page: www.ece.stevens-tech.edu/~msync.
Article copyright India Abroad Publications, Inc.
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