Faculty of Engineering Cairo University

Steganography
By Team: Ripped Pi-ceps / EECE (2020 Class) MTH217

Introduction Text Steganography

There are many image steganographic techniques. In our
report, we focus on LSB technique. Text streganography mainly depends on conveying the
Can you guess the hidden message?
“Hey mother, sorry it took me so long but I am fine Secret Message secret message within a cover message, either written or
in a digital format.
now, have no worries. Everything went as planned and it 01001010 This type of steganography is considered to be the
is almost time I'm back on my ship to set sail. Like I said most tough and less common to be implemented due to its
before, don't let jimmy take the medicine he found. ASCII to Binary
complications and more susceptibility to raise suspicions
Probably it would hurt more than heal. My apologies Cover Image Stego-Image Text Steganography
again for the late reply. Elian will be back with me as well 1st Pixel: 1st Pixel: Techniques
so be prepared”. (11101010 11101000 11001011) (11101010 11101000 11001011)
2nd Pixel: 2nd Pixel: Format-Based
Now, before you go ahead and try, let us explain to (01100110 11001010 11101000)
Linguistic Random and
(01100110 11001010 11101000) Steganography Steganography statistical generation
you some of the basics. Steganography is a form of 3rd Pixel: 3rd pixel:
encryption where a secret message can be sent in a way (11001001 00100101 11101001) (11001001 00100101 11101001) Format-Based:
that no one, but the receiver and sender, can figure out. It • That is considered to be the most simple type of steganography,
Hiding the letter (J) as a Secret Message inside an Image of 3 pixels (Each pixel
depends on and quote: “Security by obscurity”. However, has 3 Bytes) its basis can be almost guessed by intuition
unlike cryptography, it doesn’t depend on secret codes, • Depends on modifying the text itself to achieve some degree of
anonymity
and thus, it won’t raise suspicion once seen. In LSB technique, we have two main processes: Data
Steganography has existed since the very beginning but Embedding Process and Data Extraction Process For example:
we never knew it until recently. Hello there, I just wanted to Hello there, I just wanted to
This unique field of expertise was then utilised heavily LSB Technique check out on checkout on
both in time of peace and war, spies used and depended you, is everything alright? you, is every thing alright?
Don’t forget to send me your /Don’t forget to send me your
on it as much as the general in a battleground did. The reply reply
forms of steganography are numerous and endless, Data Extraction Data Extraction
however, we will try our best and mention the most famous Process Process • At first glance it might seem normal, but looking closely, weird spaces
forms and techniques. are noticed among “check” and “out” as well as “everything”; two
spaces have been left after the second comma and a weird special
And here are some of the legends who mastered Secret Stego- Stego- Secret character is placed in between; in addition to a different line spacing
steganography at their time: Data Image Image Data between the two phrases.
• A special encoding software is used to engrave bits according to
these formats (e.g. one normal space means “00” . Two spaces “11”.
Histiaeus Velvalee Dickinson Demaratus Special character insertion “10”. Double jump line “01” ), these bits
Data Embedding Process: are then translated using a decoding software at the recipient side
• Extract the pixels of the cover image.
• Extract the characters of the Stego-key. Linguistic Steganography:
• Extract the characters of the text file and convert every character into its • It is considered to be the most complex technique, requiring lots
ASCII code. Then, convert the ASCII code of this character into its of 3rd party stegencoding techniques
binary representation controlled by the Stego-Key. • Real text modifications are being involved while reserving all
• Choose a pixel and replace the LSB of every byte inside it with one of grammar rules and the real nature of the text.
the bits of the secret message.
• Repeat step no. 3 till embedding every bit of the characters of the secret Lexical Linguistic
message inside the least-significant bits of the bytes of the pixels of the Steganography
cover image to have the Stego-Image.
Adding Repeat for all Decoding and running
ASCII to synonyms Required words combinations
Secret LSB
Message Binary Encoder
The man who The female spy Finding best Huffman Compression
The man who
hide a who sent Stego- Replacement in Words (only in case of long
saved his cover message messages)
message on information as Key Stego-
country with a
a head. doll factory Image
wooden tablet.
business. Cover Dividing the hidden Less amount
Image message into words of bits

Lexical steganography depends on dividing the hidden message into

Data Extraction Process:
Features of Steganography • Extract the pixels of the Stego-Image.
words or even letters, and assigning bits according to the alphabetical
order
• Extract the characters of the Stego-key from each pixel (Every pixel has A cover message is then used including words that have lots of
its own Stego-Key characters). synonyms, these synonyms are put into a table having a corresponding
 Embedding Capacity: The amount of data that can be hidden • Under the control of the Stego-key: binary meaning
in the cover compared to the size of the cover. - if the extracted key matches with the entered key by the receiver,
extract the secret message bits from the Least-Significant Bits of the For Example: L.Code Synonym 1 Synonym 2 Synonym 3 Synonym 4

bytes of the pixels of the Stego-Image. Cover Message: “I have a clever

 Invisibility: It measures the amount of distortion to the cover. And
000 Boring Brave Dark Clever

- If not, the extraction process will fail and the secret data will remain friend. His name is Ahmed. He has a 001 Deadening Courageous Black Artful

it’s tied to human visual hidden. car. Its color is black.” 010 Dull Fearless Pitch-black Smart

After Replacement 011 Irksome Desperate- Caliginous Intelligent

 Undetectability: An algorithm is considered undetectable if a New Message: “I have adroit friend. 100 Slow Heroic Cimmerian Adroit

person can’t detect hidden data by computing certain properties of the Stego- His name is Ahmed. He has a car. Its 101 Tedious Gallant Crepuscular Ingenious

file and comparing them to what is expected to be found in that type Image color is dark.” 110 Tiresome Stalwart Lightless Cagey

of file. LSB Secret After Decoding 111 Wearisome Valiant Unlighted Canny

Decoder First set of letters corresponding to 1000 Boring Valorous Dusky Apt

Message adroit: {e, o, z} 1001 Deadening Brave Darkling Cunning

 Tamper Resistance: A measure to how much the algorithm resist Second set of letters corresponding to 1010 Dull Courageous Dark Clever

the attempts to change the hidden data dark: {a, k, v} 1011 Irksome Fearless Black Artful

Stego-Key Running possible combinations 11000 Slow Desperate Pitch-black Smart

 Robustness: This feature measures the ability of the algorithm to Hidden Message: “OK” 1101

------
Tedious

----
Heroic

----
Caliginous

----
Intelligent

----

retain the hidden data.

For example: The picture of the 2 red parrots already has 11001(26) ---- ---- ---- ----

 Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR): The ratio between the signal the picture of the orange parrot encoded inside it using the
and noise but since in steganography the cover is actually the noise, LSB method which was explained above. But for human Syntactic Linguistic
low SNR is perfect to hide the signal. eyes, it would be impossible to guess what is hidden there or Steganography
if there was already something hidden in that picture or not. Depends on Grammatical phenomena to hide the message

Applications Swapping Relativisers Complementisers

For Example:
 It can be used to hide the information of an invention The theory that you refer to is discredited (restrictive)
After swapping: The theory which you refer to is discredited
• John, [who you met yesterday], can’t come
 Army can use audio steganography to make its
communications secret. = (non-restrictive) (no alternation is allowed)
• The management indicated
[that they had no idea what they were doing]
(the word (that) can be dropped from the complementary phrase)
 Steganographic file systems can be used to hide
information between files.

+ Parsing the system

with XTAG OR
PENNTREEBANK
Combine it to
Lexical
steganography
Decoding and getting
the message in trits

Image Steganography
Using penn Complementisers / Is swapping available?
treebankII as an Relativisers
Image steganography (which is one of many types of Although we can hide any image inside any other image, input
steganography), we use an image as a cover medium to there is always a limit for the size of the image. The hidden
hold and hide our secret message. This secret message image size should be maximum 1/8 of the original image
Coding secret Insert or drop the
can be a plain text, another digital image file or any other size. And that because if you want to hide a byte using LSB message using conjunction word
type of data. method u will need another 8 bytes. trits system

References: - “Ei Nye in Chan Wai, May Aye Khine, Syntactic Bank-based Linguistic Steganography Approach, Yangon”.
- “Sangita Roy /. M. Manasmita, A Novel Approach to Format Based Text Steganography, 2006”.
- “Jessica Fredrich, Miroslav Goljan, and Rui Du , Detecting LSB Steganography in Color and Gray-Scale Images, New York, Binghamton”.