[nobody271]

> Steganographic communication as a substitute for encrypted text is a baffling misinterpretation of the reason for encryption in a chat program.

> I agree with you, but couldn't you say the same thing about using end-to-end encryption in a chat program as a substitute for messaging that's just encrypted in transit?

I just want to point out, again, that this is not an argument that I tried to make.

[code_duck]

But what are you saying people should do? Only communicate information that I don’t mind being public using traditional non-secure messaging systems, and use stegonagraphy whenever one wants to communicate private information?

[nobody271]

Steganography+encryption has a number of use cases. The one I think is most interesting is being able to store encrypted data locally with ease. Right now if I want to encrypt some text I have a number of options.

I can encrypt the hard drive. I can encrypt a text file to a binary encrypted file. I can encrypt a text file to a text file with something like pgp. But none of those are what I would call user friendly. But through the magic of steganography you could do all that and save it to an image file. Now we have something that people might be comfortable using.

As for secure chat idk. I wouldn't trust Windows, iOS, Android, my ISP, my VPN, the NSA (and whoever else), the spyware my mom has installed on her computer that neither of us know about, etc. I'd probably just google for something but I wouldn't be under any illusion that it's totally secure.

[code_duck]

Can you elaborate on the logic of why saving encrypted text to an image file is more user-friendly than saving it to a text file? Why would that make people more comfortable?

[nobody271]

Because people are more comfortable dealing with image files than .enc files or whatever extension one might use. Plus you dont just have to encode text. You can encode any file type. Look, I don't know what this is to the various participants in this thread but to me it's been really sad. I feel like I'm arguing politics. I don't think I've said anything unduly disrespectful or even incorrect yet I've been arguing about this with people who apparently think they know better but consistently get basic facts wrong or appear to be disingenuous to help win a debate. I'm not here to connect every dot for you. You're not holding my ideas up to the light of truth or whatever you think you may be doing. I really regret logging on to hackernews today.

[code_duck]

I’m discussing ideas. Sorry you’re not prepared to do that.

Typically, files on a phone don’t have an extension that is presented to the user.