CSR: Small: A Multi-Layered Deniable Steganographic File System

University Of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz CA

Investigators

Abstract

Journalists, aid workers, and democracy advocates all put themselves in harm's way for the benefit of others. Yet, there is a glaring need for them to store data securely. Typically, secret data is protected with encryption that is assumed unbreakable. Yet, if those in a hostile environment are caught with encrypted data, they could be forced to comply through coercion or threats of bodily harm. The investigators propose to secure data in plain sight by hiding it so that the operating system does not even know it is there. Therefore, the owner can completely deny the existence of the data. The Steganographic file system operates through the use of an external virtual block device driver. It utilizes secret sharing, external entropy sources, and erasure coding to store data deniably and reliably within the unallocated space of an existing file system. A set of data blocks to be hidden are combined with entropy blocks through erasure coding to produce a set of obfuscated carrier blocks that are then indistinguishable from other pseudorandom blocks on the disk. A subset of these blocks is then required to reconstruct the data. The system is information theoretically secure without knowledge of the entropy blocks. This system will be the first fully deniable, secure, and tunable steganographic file system. All previous attempts might attain security or performance but sacrifice deniability. The project will not only push the boundaries of modern steganography, but the investigators will build a fully working system that can survive intensive forensic examination. This will allow users in the field to have a reliable, secure means of carrying information where the presence of that information does not endanger their lives. The investigators plan to maintain the project well beyond the project period through publicly available sources such as Bitbucket or Github, as well as on the Storage and Systems Research Center's web page. At some point the investigators intend to include the system in the Linux source tree. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.