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SECURITY THROUGH OBSCURITY:STEGANOGRAPHY 
V.Santhosh Kumar, P.V.U.Mahesh,
Department of Computer Science & Department of Computer Science &Systems Engineering, Engineering,Andhra University. Gayatri Vidya Parishad.Email: welcome.santhosh@gmail.comEmail: welcome.mahesh@gmail.com
◙ ABSTRACT
As the information age is growing rapidly and data becomes highly valuable andsensitive, methods need to be discovered to protect and secure sensitive data. One suchmethod that transfers data over network securely is Steganography. Many different carrier fileformats can be used, but digital images are the most popular because of their frequency on theInternet.
 
Different applications have different requirements of the steganography techniqueused. For example, some applications may require absolute invisibility of the secretinformation, while others require a larger secret message to be hidden. This paper gives a clear overview of usage of Steganographic methods to hide the data in images, and deals with someof the steganographic techniques for hiding information in Images and TCP/IP protocol thatare used frequently in the open-systems environment such as
internet.
1. INTRODUCTION
"Steganography is the art and science of communicating in a way which hidesthe existence of the communication”
[1]
. This basically comes down to using unnecessary bits inan innocent file to store your sensitive data. The techniques used make it impossible to detectthat there is anything inside the innocent file, but the intended recipient can obtain the hiddendata. This way, one can not only hide the message itself, but also the fact that he is sending thismessage
[2]
.
 
 
1.1 GOAL OF STEGANOGRAPHY :
In contrast to Cryptography, where the enemy isallowed to detect, intercept and modify messages without being able to violate certain security premises guaranteed by a cryptosystem, the goal of Steganography is to hide messages insideother harmless messages in a way that does not allow any enemy to even detect that there is asecond message present"
[3]
.
2. A DETAILED LOOK AT STEGANOGRAPHY
This section discusses Steganography at length and deals with the differenttypes of Steganography generally used in practice today along with some of the other  principles that are used in Steganography and some of the Steganographic techniques in usetoday. This is where one can look at the nuts and bolts of Steganography and all the differentways one can use this technology.Let’s look at what a theoretically perfect secret communication. To illustratethis concept, consider three fictitious characters named Amy, Bret and Crystal. Amy wants tosend a
secret message
(M) to Bret using a random (R) harmless message to create a
cover
(C)which can be sent to Bret without raising suspicion. Amy then changes the cover message (C)to a
stego-object
(S) by embedding the secret message (M) into the cover message (C) byusing a
stego-key
(K). Amy should then be able to send the stego-object (S) to Bret without being detected by Crystal. Bret will then be able to read the secret message (M) because heknows the stego-key (K) used to embed it into the cover message (C)
[3]
.
 
 
Fig 2.1
 
A simple Steganographic System
[8]
steganography_medium = secret_message + cover_message + key
[11]
As Fabien A.P. Petitcolas
[10]
 
 points out, "in a 'perfect' system, a normal cover should not bedistinguishable from a stego-object, neither by a human nor by a computer looking for statistical patterns." In practice, however, this is not always the case. In order to embed secretdata into a cover message, the cover must contain a sufficient amount of redundant data or noise. This is because the embedding process Steganography uses actually replaces thisredundant data with the secret message. This limits the types of data that one can use withSteganography.In practice there are three types of steganography protocols used. They are
Pure Steganography, Secret Key Steganography and Public Key Steganography
.
2.1 Pure Steganography :
It is defined as a steganographic system that does not require theexchange of a
 
cipher such as a stego-key
[2]
. This method of Steganography is the least securemeans by which to
 
communicate secretly because the sender and receiver can rely only uponthe presumption that
 
no other parties are aware of this secret message. Using open systemssuch as the Internet, this is not the case at all
[14]
.
2.2 Secret Key Steganography :
It is defined as a steganographic system that requires theexchange of a secret key (stego-key) prior to communication. Secret Key Steganography takesa cover message and embeds the secret message inside of it by using a secret key (stego-key).
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