Grant backs Fairmont technology project

WASHINGTON — A $493,322 federal grant will support a West Virginia effort to detect and decode the information that criminals hide in digital documents, Congressman Alan B. Mollohan, D-W. Va., said Wednesday.

Mollohan put money for the Steganography Analysis and Research Center ( SARC) in the U. S. Justice Department’s 2005 budget. Justice officials recently notified him that they are releasing the funds for the Fairmont- based project, established in June 2004 with an earlier earmark he secured.

"Like any technology, the Internet can be used for good purposes as well as bad," Mollohan said. "The SARC was created to fight one of the bad uses: the hiding of criminal material or messages in harmless-looking computer files."

Backbone Security is leading the effort from its offices at Veterans’ Square. Its collaborators include Fairmont State University and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) operations at the I-79 Technology Park.

Steganography, which means “covered writing,” is a centuries- old practice of exchanging information by covert means, such as invisible ink. The electronic age has spawned new steganography techniques, allowing data to be hidden in digital files in ways that are extremely difficult to detect.

This digital steganography represents a significant threat, according to SARC Director Jim Wingate. Criminals — including terrorists, child pornographers and identity thieves — can conceal their activities through computer applications that are freely available on the Internet and simple to use.

Audio and video files are among those that can be modified to carry hidden data.

SARC’s first task was to begin compiling a database of the information- hiding programs and the computer files associated with them. By knowing the tools that criminals use to conceal data, Wingate

said, investigators will be better able to detect the presence of digital steganography in media they examine. Some 230 programs and 15,000 files have been collected in the database to date.

Seeking out additional ones, and tracking changes to those already in hand, will be a focus of SARC’s efforts in the coming year.

The team also will continue to research techniques for extracting hidden information once it is detected. Like the database, the results of that research will be shared with local, state and federal lawenforcement authorities.

"Digital communication is a new and expanding frontier, and curbing the ability of criminals to exploit it for unlawful purposes must be a national priority," Mollohan said.

"I’m pleased that members of our West Virginia high- tech community have taken a lead role in digital steganography research. Like them, I am hopeful that this work results in useful new tools for our law enforcement professionals," he said.

Mollohan obtained funding for the SARC initiative through his position as top Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Justice Department.