STEGANOGRAPHY

The Art of Message Hiding

 Cryptography: Securing
Information in the Digital Age

Part 1: Introduction to Steganography

Part 2: Hands-on activity: Exchange of Steganographic Messages

Part 3: Research and Practice on Steganalysis

 STEGANOGRAPHY
Steganography is an ancient technique (known from
the Antiquity) for hiding information.
The hidden information can be additionally
encrypted (in the digital age).
A Digital Message (the secret) can be hidden within
- digital images
- audio files
- video files
- … or even other text messages by storing the
secret information within inessential lines of code
(bytes) that don't alter the look or sound of the
original file.
 How Steganography Works

New York Times, August 3rd, 2001 - http://www.nytimes.com/images/2001/10/30/science/sci_STEGO_011030_00.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5boXjbqeFA : How 2 convert binary to colors

 Steganography versus Cryptography 1/2

Although Steganography and Cryptography seem

to be practically closely related they are technically
different

Steganography hides the existence of a secrete

message,
whereas
Cryptography only scrambles the original message
(plain text) so it cannot be understood
 Steganography versus Cryptography 2/2

Steganography cannot replace cryptography, because the

containers must have a much larger size than the
embedded “secret” message

Steganography necessitates the transmission of the

encoding key, and possibly more information to decode
the message.
The transmission of this vital information must be
accomplished using a different communication channel

Note: Asymmetric Encryption (e.g. PGP), does not require

the transmission of a secret key.
 Terminology of Steganography

Cover data (a.k.a: Carrier, Container)

– The original, innocent message, be it audio, video, text
or an image

Embedded data (a.k.a: Secret)

– The data that is to be hidden with the ccarrier

Stego data
– A message that includes both the cover and embedded
data
 Historical Forms of Steganography

- Tattoos ( Herodotus)
- Invisible Inks (lemon juice, milk, urine, …)
- Microdots in paper
- Text
– Can one man pace up to empty rooms?
– Can One Man Pace Up To Empty Rooms?
http://blog2life.com/steganography-the-secret-tool/
http://ladyastridslaboratory.com/tag/invisible-ink/
http://www.pinewswire.net/article/new-steganography-technique-relies-on-letter-shapes/
 Modern Steganography
Types of covers (carriers) include

– Text
– Images
– Audio files
– Video files

 Details and Examples

 Steganography in TEXT
Examples of Encoding Algorithms

• Line-shift coding
– Moving lines of text up and down by 1/300th of an
inch
• Word-shift coding
– Moving words left and right
• Feature coding
– Changing the heights of letters
• Other methods
 Steganography in Images

• Least significant bit insertion (GIF, BMP)

– Changing the least significant bit in order to
store other data

• Discreet Cosine Transform (JPG)

– Applying a Cosine function to approximate
hidden data

Examples 
 Steganography in Audio
Examples of Encoding Algorithms

• Low bit encoding

– Similar to Least Significant bit insertion
• Phase encoding
– Similar to Discreet Cosine Transform function
• Spread Spectrum
– Using entire bandwidth to encrypt data. Number
of jumps determines amount of data able to hide.
• Echo Data Hiding
– Next slide 
 Several Free Steganography Programs are
available on the Internet

- S-tools

- OpenPuff (Free, Open-Source and Portable) 

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