Steganography

Khan, Mohammed Minhajuddin

 What is Steganography?
Greek Words:
STEGANOS – “Covered”
GRAPHIE – “Writing”

 Steganography is the art and science

of writing hidden messages in such a Stegosaurus: a covered lizard

way that no one apart from the (but not a type of cryptography)

intended recipient knows of the

existence of the message.

 This can be achieve by concealing the

existence of information within
seemingly harmless carriers or cover

 Carrier: text, image, video, audio,

etc.
Steganography, Cryptography, and
Watermarking
There are two major branches of information hiding, Steganography
and Watermarking

Watermarking:
 Communication in watermarking is the host signal, with the
embedded data providing copyright protection.
 The existence of a watermark is often declared openly.
 Any attempt to remove or invalidate the embedded content
renders the host useless.

Cryptography:
 Doesn’t conceal the communication.
 Scrambles the data to prevent eavesdroppers understanding
the content.
 Cryptography involves various methods and implementations.
 May be considered complementary and orthogonal (unrelated).

Once the presence of hidden information is revealed or even

suspected, the purpose of steganography is defeated.
 History of Steganography
Steganography ancient origins can be traced back to 440 BC, from the Histories of Herodotus

Demeratus sent a warning about a forthcoming attack to Greece by writing it on a

wooden panel and covering it in wax.

Histiaeus, who shaved the head of his most trusted slave and tattooed a message on it.
After his hair had grown the message was hidden. The purpose was to instigate a revolt
against the Persians.

World War II

Invincible inks

Null ciphers (unencrypted messages):

Apparently neutral's protest is thoroughly discounted and ignored. Isman hard hit. Blockade issue affects pretext
for embargo on by products, ejecting suets and vegetable oils.

Sent by a German Spy in WWII, by taking the second letter in each word the following
message emerges:
Pershing sails from NY June 1.

Microdot Technology
Shrinking messages down to the size of a dot became a popular method. Since the
microdot could be placed at the end of a sentence or above a j or an i.
 Modern Steganography Techniques
Masking and Filtering: Is where information is hidden inside of a image
using digital watermarks that include information such as copyright,
ownership, or licenses. The purpose is different from traditional
steganography since it is adding an attribute to the cover image
thus extending the amount of information presented.

Algorithms and Transformations: This technique hides data in

mathematical functions that are often used in compression
algorithms. The idea of this method is to hide the secret message
in the data bits in the least significant coefficients.

Least Significant Bit Insertion: The most common and popular method
of modern day steganography is to make use of the LSB of a
picture’s pixel information. Thus the overall image distortion is kept
to a minimum while the message is spaced out over the pixels in
the images. This technique works best when the image file is
larger then the message file and if the image is grayscale.
Basics of Modern Steganography

fE:     steganographic function "embedding"

fE-1:   steganographic function "extracting"
cover:  cover data in which emb will be hidden
emb:    message to be hidden
key:    parameter of fE
stego:  cover data with the hidden message
 Important Requirement for
Steganographic System
 Security of the hidden communication

 size of the payload

 Robustness against malicious and

unintentional attacks
Steganography Tools
 Detection of Steganographic
Content/Countermeasures
The detection of steganographically encoded
packages is called Steganalysis.

 Visual Analysis tries to reveal the presence of

secret communication through inspection,
either with the naked eye or with the
assistance of a computer.

 Statistical (Algorithmic) Analysis reveals

tiny alterations in an image's statistical
behavior caused by steganographic embedding.
 The nominally universal methods developed to detect
embedded stego-data are generally less effective
than the steganalytic methods aimed at specific types
of embedding.
 Steganography Sample Website

 Here is the link for Sample Steganographic

tool Website:

http://mozaiq.org/
 My Questions

1. Salutations, Mr. Robertson of CIS 5371.

The Florida Society of Math and
Cryptography is proud to present you with
an small exam for qualification into our
society. The key for passing is studying.
Cryptography is rigorous and only those
with patience in themselves pass. We have
an exam PO Box in Tallahassee. But please
submit by 12/12.
 Answer

Salutations, Mr. Robertson of CIS 5371. The

Florida Society of Math and Cryptography
is proud to present you with an small
exam for qualification into our society.
The key for passing is studying.
Cryptography is rigorous and only those
with patience in themselves pass. We have
an exam PO Box in Tallahassee. But
please submit by 12/12.
The Cryptography exam key is in PO Box 1212.
 My Questions

2. Name three methods by which

Modern day Steganography is
accomplished?
Answer:
 Masking and Filtering
 Algorithms and Transformations
 Least Significant Bit Insertion