Earlier this year, a report published by The New York Times suggested that United States intelligence officers interacted with a Russian spy who offered two interesting things: powerful hacking tools stolen from the National Security Agency and a “sex tape” purportedly showing President Donald Trump cavorting with prostitutes at a Moscow hotel room in 2013.

What is even more interesting than the potential existence of a Trump sex tape and stolen weapons of cyber warfare is how the NSA allegedly communicated with the Russian spy: partially by means of social media updates published on the NSA Twitter account. Tech news website Gizmodo described this method of communications as steganography, which consists of hiding files within other files, and which is something that is not limited to the realm of espionage; in fact, this is something that you can accomplish in Costa Rica with smartphone apps.

Before we get started with Steg-O-Matic, an iPhone app that you can use to conceal files within other files so that only a trusted party will know what you are up to, here’s some background on the aforementioned Trump sex tape and the stolen cyber weapons:

* The sex tape would confirm one of the most salacious points of the infamous Steele dossier, which alleges that Trump interacted with prostitutes during a visit to Moscow for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which he owned at the time. If such tape exists as per the dossier, you probably do not want to watch it because it may feature “golden showers,” a sexual practice that you would have to Google on your own, although you should not do it from a computer at work.

* The hacking tools developed by the NSA were eventually made public by The Shadow Brokers, a shadowy cybercrime outfit believed to be affiliated with the Kremlin. In 2015, The Costa Rica Star reported on the existence of the “Equation Group,” which later turned out to be the Tailored Operations Group of the NSA, and which operated servers in Costa Rica for the purpose of conducting cyber warfare operations. In 2016, we reported that Russian hackers gained access to those servers, which could have stored some of the cyber weapons developed by the NSA. It should be noted that the NSA is believed to operate servers in other Latin American countries known to be U.S. allies.

On to Steg-O-Matic:

We all have secrets; this is something that keeps the NSA, the Russian GRU and nosy individuals in general awake at night. If you wish to hide an electronic message or digital file in plain sight, there are quite a few mobile apps you can use to accomplish your secretive intentions. Steg-o-Matic is an iOS app that includes the following description from its developers:

“Your friends (or confidant!) can simply download the photo, and reveal its secrets by scanning it with the Steg-o-matic! Imagine the possibilities! Embed a map to your secret meeting place – or passwords (save them to your photo library, who’s gonna know??) – pictures of your secret crush – and tons of other uses!

Note: To store really important data, such as bank passwords, be sure and use the password-based encryption capabilities of the D700-EX. For a secret map, you may want to have it “Self Destruct”, available only on the D700-EX.”

The cool aspect about Steg-O-Matic is that its user interface looks like old Enigma machines from World War II, which means that you get gauges, buttons, switches, and dials to make you feel like you are in an old James Bond film from the Sean Connery era.

Keep in mind that steganography only works with trusted parties who must know about the operation, and who have keys to decode messages or files. In the case of the alleged Trump sex tape, you can be sure that steganography would be used to transmit it. If you are looking for similar apps for your Android device, you can try Steganography by Aksel Tórgarð of the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology.