Steganography Research Paper
Steganography: The Modern Day Invisible Ink
Liza Bowlin
CINT 106
Professor Carole Bachmann
Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana
As a child, were you intrigued by the idea of sending a secret message to your best friend? Perhaps you were fascinated by the thought of using an invisible ink pen. If so, then I suggest learning about steganography. According to the online Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of steganography is the art or practice of concealing a message, image, or file within another message, image, or file (Merriam-Webster, 2011). People can use many different techniques for steganography, using it for a variety of reasons. Steganography has been used for many years in forms such …show more content…
as invisible ink, microdots, and even tattooing a message on someone’s bald head and then letting the hair grow back out. Today’s increasing use of computers, though, has made sending a secret message easier than you could ever imagine. There are different reasons someone may want to use steganography.
Governments may want to use it to for covert missions. They can let their troops in a different area know what the next move should be in a war. Criminals might also use steganography. Some people think that steganography may have been a tool used by the people that planned the attacks on 9-11. Also, some people think there may have been hidden messages in the videos that were circulating that Osama bin Laden appeared in (Kessler, 2001). Appallingly, child pornographers may use steganography to hide files. A positive use for steganography would be for artists and photographers who want to make sure their copyrighted materials do not get stolen is to add a watermark to their …show more content…
images.
Files that you can hide secret messages in include JPEG, BMP, WAV, PNG, HTML, and MP3 and MP4. It is better to use it in a file that uses lossless compression. Ways you can use steganography include covert channels, hidden in web pages, null ciphers (such a certain letters or words within a whole body of text), plain sight (for instance, saved with a filename that resembles a system filename), deliberate misspelling, small changes in spacing, and LSB (Least Significant Bit is the last place in a hex string) (Kessler, 2001). Now you may be thinking, isn’t steganography the same as cryptology? Cryptology is moving text around so that it seems like gibberish; steganography is actually hiding the text. Steganography can be used along with cryptology to make something even more concealed so that not only does someone have to find the message, but they will also have to descramble it with the use of algorithms and a password.
There are many different tools and programs available to make steganography easy. Some examples include Invisible Secrets, which hides your private data into innocent looking files such as pictures or web pages and uses a wide variety of encryption algorithms. JPHide is another program that uses the least significant bit to hide a file in a way that makes it impossible to prove that the host file contains a hidden image at all. Snow is a program that appends whitespace to the end of lines. Datamark Technologies has four products; StegComm, StegMark, StegSafe and StegSign (Steganography Tools, 2003).
In addition to products that make steganography easy, there are also products used for the detection of steganography.
Steganalysis is the art of detecting and breaking steganography (Kessler, 2001). One such program is StegDetect, created by Niels Provos. This program will only detect data in JPG files, making it extremely limited (Steganography, 2001). There is also a website that can help detect isolated examples at www.guillermito2.net. With so many programs available to use to hide data, it makes it extremely difficult to detect the hidden data. The first step in steganography detection is to have suspicion that there is even a hidden message in the data at all. Next you need to find the right software to find the hidden message. And finally knowing the encryption algorithm used in the first place. As you can see, steganalysis is not an easy task.
The increase in the use of computers has made it extremely easy to send a secret message. Much easier than finding someone who will let you shave their head and tattoo their scalp! With so many options to hide a message, let us just hope that more people use it for the right reasons, rather than the wrong
ones.
References
Fogle, Seth. (2004, March 1). Steganography. Security Reference Guide. Retrieved October 5, 2011 from http://www.informit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=security&seNum=103 Kessler, G. C. (2001, September) Steganography: Hiding Data in Data. Retrieved Oct. 6, 2011 from http://www.garykessler.net/library/steganography.html Merriam-Webster. (2011). Retrieved October 5, 2011 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/steganography?show=0&t=1317610302 Steganography Tools. (2003). Retrieved October 6, 2011 from http://www.cotse.com/tools/stega.htm
Liza Bowlin
CINT 106
Professor Carole Bachmann
Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana
As a child, were you intrigued by the idea of sending a secret message to your best friend? Perhaps you were fascinated by the thought of using an invisible ink pen. If so, then I suggest learning about steganography. According to the online Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of steganography is the art or practice of concealing a message, image, or file within another message, image, or file (Merriam-Webster, 2011). People can use many different techniques for steganography, using it for a variety of reasons. Steganography has been used for many years in forms such …show more content…
as invisible ink, microdots, and even tattooing a message on someone’s bald head and then letting the hair grow back out. Today’s increasing use of computers, though, has made sending a secret message easier than you could ever imagine. There are different reasons someone may want to use steganography.
Governments may want to use it to for covert missions. They can let their troops in a different area know what the next move should be in a war. Criminals might also use steganography. Some people think that steganography may have been a tool used by the people that planned the attacks on 9-11. Also, some people think there may have been hidden messages in the videos that were circulating that Osama bin Laden appeared in (Kessler, 2001). Appallingly, child pornographers may use steganography to hide files. A positive use for steganography would be for artists and photographers who want to make sure their copyrighted materials do not get stolen is to add a watermark to their …show more content…
images.
Files that you can hide secret messages in include JPEG, BMP, WAV, PNG, HTML, and MP3 and MP4. It is better to use it in a file that uses lossless compression. Ways you can use steganography include covert channels, hidden in web pages, null ciphers (such a certain letters or words within a whole body of text), plain sight (for instance, saved with a filename that resembles a system filename), deliberate misspelling, small changes in spacing, and LSB (Least Significant Bit is the last place in a hex string) (Kessler, 2001). Now you may be thinking, isn’t steganography the same as cryptology? Cryptology is moving text around so that it seems like gibberish; steganography is actually hiding the text. Steganography can be used along with cryptology to make something even more concealed so that not only does someone have to find the message, but they will also have to descramble it with the use of algorithms and a password.
There are many different tools and programs available to make steganography easy. Some examples include Invisible Secrets, which hides your private data into innocent looking files such as pictures or web pages and uses a wide variety of encryption algorithms. JPHide is another program that uses the least significant bit to hide a file in a way that makes it impossible to prove that the host file contains a hidden image at all. Snow is a program that appends whitespace to the end of lines. Datamark Technologies has four products; StegComm, StegMark, StegSafe and StegSign (Steganography Tools, 2003).
In addition to products that make steganography easy, there are also products used for the detection of steganography.
Steganalysis is the art of detecting and breaking steganography (Kessler, 2001). One such program is StegDetect, created by Niels Provos. This program will only detect data in JPG files, making it extremely limited (Steganography, 2001). There is also a website that can help detect isolated examples at www.guillermito2.net. With so many programs available to use to hide data, it makes it extremely difficult to detect the hidden data. The first step in steganography detection is to have suspicion that there is even a hidden message in the data at all. Next you need to find the right software to find the hidden message. And finally knowing the encryption algorithm used in the first place. As you can see, steganalysis is not an easy task.
The increase in the use of computers has made it extremely easy to send a secret message. Much easier than finding someone who will let you shave their head and tattoo their scalp! With so many options to hide a message, let us just hope that more people use it for the right reasons, rather than the wrong
ones.
References
Fogle, Seth. (2004, March 1). Steganography. Security Reference Guide. Retrieved October 5, 2011 from http://www.informit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=security&seNum=103 Kessler, G. C. (2001, September) Steganography: Hiding Data in Data. Retrieved Oct. 6, 2011 from http://www.garykessler.net/library/steganography.html Merriam-Webster. (2011). Retrieved October 5, 2011 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/steganography?show=0&t=1317610302 Steganography Tools. (2003). Retrieved October 6, 2011 from http://www.cotse.com/tools/stega.htm