I see, although that is still about 20x larger than the normal equivalent. What I'm saying is two-fold; with this technique, simply checking the image's metada

I see, although that is still about 20x larger than the normal equivalent. What I'm saying is two-fold; with this technique, simply checking the image's metadata and comparing to the size gives you an easy way to identify interesting images, the ones likely to contain a hidden messages. And second, this kind of "low signal to noise" ratio seems to be applicable to most steganography techniques. If I need to send 50MB of junk (and convincing junk at that) to get 1MB of message through, I'm going to have to question the value the stego provides (since it provides even more data and evidence that there's something to hide, especially if it's easily identifyable, as in this case). Still interesting, just not quite as awesome as everyone seems to think.