The purpose of steganography is to conceal the very presence of secret information.

剛剛收到的 空中英語教室電子報 200 期, 內容剛好是在討論 very 的形容詞用法, 內容如下:

The U.N.'s Law of the Sea Treaty aims to resolve this very question. (p. 50, line 2)

句中的 very 是形容詞、比較不常見的用法，它有「正是」的強調意味。

例句：

-- The topic you brought up is the very thing we discussed at our last meeting.

-- Barbara realized that her children had done the very thing she feared: they had all moved far from home.

在我的印象中, 我所讀的 steganography papers 中, 的確常常出現這樣的用法:

例如, 在 Jessica Fridrich 所寫的論文 "A New Steganographic Method for Palette-Based Images" 的 Introduction 中, 第二句就是這樣用的:

The purpose of steganography is to conceal the very presence of secret information.

From StegoRN

另外, 在 The Code Breakers 這本書中, Chapter 16 CENSORS, SCRAMBLERS, AND SPIES (P. 513) 中的第一段也有這樣的用法:

CIPHER IS THE LANGUAGE OF SPIES - and usually they must talk in whispers. A spy's success, his very existence, depends on his not being seen or heard. Sending messages in obviously cryptographic form would alert counterespionage to him as effectively as wearing a cloak and dagger. Yet he must transmit, else he is useless. So he eschews the overt methods of secret communications for the covert. He resorts to open codes, hollow heels, invisible inks, microscopically small missives - the steganographic methods that conceal the very fact that a message is being sent. He seeks to communicate unnoticed.

From StegoRN

最近在看的這本書 "Steganography in Digital Media" 中, 第 2 頁的第 2 段, 也是有相同的用法:

Note that the hidden message is unrelated to the content of the letter, which only serve as a decoy or "cover" to hide the very fact that a secret message is being sent. ...

如果你用 "to conceal the very existence" 當關鍵字在 Google 中搜尋, 相信也可以搜尋到許多 steganography 相關的論文或文章呢!