Steganography

INTRODUCTION
Steganography is the art and science other, seemingly harmless messages. unused data in regular computer files disks ) with bits of different, invisible cipher text, or even images. of hiding information by embedding messages within Steganography works by replacing bits of useless or (such as graphics, sound, text, HTML, or even floppy information. This hidden information can be plain text,

Steganography and encryption are both used to ensure data confidentiality. However the main difference between them is that with encryption anybody can see that both parties are communicating in secret. Steganography hides the existence of a secret message and in the best case nobody can see that both parties are communicating in secret. This makes steganography suitable for some tasks for which encryption arent, such as copyright marking. Adding encrypted copyright information to a file could be easy to remove but embedding it within the contents of the file itself can prevent it being easily identified and removed. Steganography sometimes is used when encryption is not permitted. Or, more commonly, steganography is used to supplement encryption. An encrypted file may still hide information using steganography, so even if the encrypted file is deciphered, the hidden message is not seen. The advantage of steganography over cryptography alone is that messages do not attract attention to themselves. Plainly visible encrypted messages will arouse suspicion, and may in themselves be incriminating in countries where encryption is illegal. Therefore, whereas cryptography protects the contents of a message, steganography can be said to protect both messages and communicating parties.

Steganography Media files are ideal for steganographic transmission because of their large size. As a simple example, a sender might start with an innocuous image file and adjust the colour of every 100th pixel to correspond to a letter in the alphabet, a change so subtle that someone not specifically looking for it is unlikely to notice it.

History of Steganography:
Through out history Steganography has been used to secretly communicate information between people. Some examples of use of Steganography is past times are: 1. During World War 2 invisible ink was used to write information on pieces of paper so that the paper appeared to the average person as just being blank pieces of paper. Liquids such as milk, vinegar and fruit juices were used, because when each one of these substances are heated they darken and become visible to the human eye. 2. In Ancient Greece they used to select messengers and shave their head, they would then write a message on their head. Once the message had been written the hair was allowed to grow back. After the hair grew back the messenger was sent to deliver the message, the recipient would shave off the messengers hair to see the secrete message. 3. Another method used in Greece was where someone would peel wax off a tablet that was

Steganography is a technique for transmitting information without detection. It has been used in drug cartels and other organizations to avoid detection of their illicit communication. Steganography relies on the fact that it is difficult to detect in order to remain secure. It uses parts of an image that do not strongly influence the colors shown to embed data. Where embedding is most practical varies with different image formats, but one technique that works well across formats is least significant bit embedding. Other algorithms, such as Jsteg, exploit the design of a specific image file format to embed without detection. The general principle of steganography is that perturbing a particular value in an image using a value from the data will create a small difference in the original image. The image created by this process is a stego object. The stego object contains data from the cover and information about the data that was used to perturb the cover image. The stego object can then be decoded by the intended recipient(s) and the hidden message retrieved. Because the values in the original image are only

Steganography changed slightly, an observer will struggle to visually detect that an embedding has taken place. Through this series of minor perturbations based on the messages contents the data is hidden in the cover image. A third party will have to analyze the image in order to determine if an embedding has taken place. The development of different analyses has led to an arms race between those developing steganographic algorithms and those trying to detect embeddings. From this point forward, it is assumed that the cover and data to hide are both images.
LSB EMBEDDING

Least Significant Bit (LSB) embedding is a simple strategy to implement steganography. Like all steganographic methods, it embeds the data into the cover so that it cannot be detected by a casual observer. The technique works by replacing some of the information in a given pixel with information from the data in the image. While it is possible to embed data into an image on any bit-plane, LSB embedding is performed on the least significant bit(s). This minimizes the variation in colors that the embedding creates. For example, embedding into the least significant bit changes the color value by one. Embedding into the second bit-plane can change the color value by 2. If embedding is performed on the least significant two pixels, the result is that a color in the cover can be any of four colors after embedding. Steganography avoids introducing as much variation as possible, to minimize the likelihood of detection. In a LSB embedding, we always lose some information from the cover image. This is an effect of embedding directly into a pixel. To do this we must discard some of the covers information and repl ace it with information from the data to hide. LSB algorithms have a choice about how they embed that data to hide. They can embed losslessly, preserving all information about the data, or the data may be generalized so that it takes up less space.

Steganography

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System Analysis
The goal of system analysis is to obtain a clear understanding of the current system and its shortcomings and to determine opportunities for improvement. It is an in-depth study of end user information needs that produces functional requirements to be used as the basis for the design of the proposed system. System analysis involves a detailed study of: * The information needs of the organization and end users. *The activities, resources, and products of the presently used system and * The system capabilities required to meet the information needs, and those of other end user. System analysis can be seen as a whole or maybe broken into the following

Organizational analysis:
This is done to know about the organization, its management structure, its people, its business activities, the environmental systems it deals with, and its current system.

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Functional requirements analysis:

This is done to specify the system capabilities required to meet the information needs of users, which are not tied to the hardware, software, and people resources that the end user presently use or might use in the new system.

System Investigation
Before any changes can be made to systems, or a new one developed, an investigation of the current system must be made to determine problems, opportunities and objectives. Questions like do we have a business problem (or opportunity)? What is causing the problem? Would a new or improved system help solve the problem? What would be a feasible

information system solution to our problem? Have to answered in the system investigation stage. The system investigation stage requires a preliminary study called a "feasibility study to determine the information needs of prospective users and determine the resource requirements, costs, benefits, and feasibility of the proposed information system .Then the feasibility study should be evaluated in terms of four major categories:

I. Organizational feasibility:
How well the proposed system supports the strategic objectives of the organization. II. Economic feasibility: Cost savingsIII. Technical feasibility: Hardware & Software capability, reliability & availability.

IV. Operational feasibility:

End user acceptance , management support and customer requirements.

Feasibility study:

Steganography The software is required to determine whether it is feasible or not. It is required to determine whether the software is technically feasible, economically feasible, and operationally feasible. Feasibility study is required to carry out before requirement analysis.

TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY
Technical feasibility is required so as to determine whether the technology used forDeveloping software is old or just recently launched. If it is recently launched then it is required to determine whether it is feasible to use it to develop the software.

Economical feasibility:
Its is required to determine weather the development of software is economically feasible or not i.e. weather cost of not developing the software should be undertaken, also the profit obtained by developing the software should be reasonably good. .

OPERATIONALFEASIBILITY
It is also required to determine whether software is operationally feasible or not. It is required to determine whether there would be any resistance from the user's side to use the system. If the system is developed then would it be used by the users easily.