Showing papers on "Steganography tools published in 2003"

Hide and seek: an introduction to steganography

Abstract: Although people have hidden secrets in plain sight-now called steganography-throughout the ages, the recent growth in computational power and technology has propelled it to the forefront of today's security techniques. Essentially, the information-hiding process in a steganographic system starts by identifying a cover medium's redundant bits (those that can be modified without destroying that medium's integrity). The embedding process creates a stego medium by replacing these redundant bits with data from the hidden message. This article discusses existing steganographic systems and presents recent research in detecting them via statistical steganalysis. Here, we present recent research and discuss the practical application of detection algorithms and the mechanisms for getting around them.

Model-Based Steganography

Abstract: This paper presents an information-theoretic method for performing steganography and steganalysis using a statistical model of the cover medium The methodology is general, and can be applied to virtually any type of media It provides answers for some fundamental questions which have not been fully addressed by previous steganographic methods, such as how large a message can be hidden without risking detection by certain statistical methods, and how to achieve this maximum capacity Current steganographic methods have been shown to be insecure against fairly simple statistical attacks Using the model-based methodology, an example steganography method is proposed for JPEG images which achieves a higher embedding efficiency and message capacity than previous methods while remaining secure against first order statistical attacks

Image Steganography and Steganalysis: Concepts and Practice

Abstract: In the last few years, we have seen many new and powerful steganography and steganalysis techniques reported in the literature. In the following paper we go over some general concepts and ideas that apply to steganography and steganalysis. Specifically we establish a framework and define notion of security for a steganographic system. We show how conventional definitions do not really adequately cover image steganography and an provide alternate definition. We also review some of the more recent image steganography and steganalysis techniques.

Hiding in Plain Sight: Steganography and the Art of Covert Communication

Abstract: From the Publisher: These days, encryption of confidential data and communications is an increasingly important part of doing business. But steganography can take data confidentiality to a whole new level, since it hides encrypted messages in ordinary-looking data files, making the very existence of the messages practically undetectable. Although steganography is not a new field and has played a critical part in secret communication throughout history, few people understand exactly how it works today. This detailed, practical guide changes that -- whether your goal is to add an extra level of security to business or government communications or to detect and counter steganography when it's used by criminals or terrorists.

Information hiding using steganography

Abstract: Due to advances in ICT, most information is kept electronically. Consequently, the security of information has become a fundamental issue. Besides cryptography, steganography can be employed to secure information. Steganography is a technique of hiding information in digital media. In contrast to cryptography, the message or encrypted message is embedded in a digital host before passing it through the network, thus the existence of the message is unknown. Besides hiding data for confidentiality, this approach of information hiding can be extended to copyright protection for digital media: audio, video, and images.

Investigator's Guide to Steganography

Abstract: INTRODUCTION A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF STEGANOGRAPHY What is Steganography? The Differences Between Steganography and Cryptography The Differences Between Steganography and Watermarking The Prisoner's Problem Microdots One-time Pads Semagrams Null Ciphers Anamorphosis Acrostics Type Spacing and Offsetting Spread Spectrum Invisible Ink Newspaper Code Jargon Code Grille's - Cardano's Grille HISTORY The Egyptians The Greeks Aeneas the Tactician The Chinese Gaspar Schott Johannes Trithemius Giovanni Porta Girolamo Cardano Blaise de Vigenere Auguste Kerchoffs Bishop John Wilkins Mary Queen of Scots The Culpers and George Washington The Pigeon Post into Paris Civil War Rugs World War I World War II The USS Pueblo The Vietnam War US/USSR Nuclear Arms Treaties Margaret Thatcher STEGANOGRAPHY IN DEPTH Steganography Techniques The Six Categories of Steganography Types of Steganography Embedding Methods Steganography Applied to Different Media Attacks WATERMARKING History Classification of Watermarks Types of Watermarks Reasons for Invisible Watermarking Specific Watermarking Technologies Requirements of a Robust Digital Watermark Suitable Methods for Watermarking Watermarks and Compression Attacks Fingerprinting Summary STEGANOGRAPHY TOOLS Anahtar BackYard Blindside BMP Secrets bProtected(R) 2000 BuryBury Camera/Shy Camouflage Cloak Contraband - Hell Edition Courier Crypto 123 Dark Files Data Stash Digital Picture Envelope Disk Hide Dound DPT 32 DriveCrypt Drive Hider Easy File & Folder Protector EasyMemo EmptyPic EncryptPic EzStego F5 FFEncode File Protector Folder Guard(TM) GhostHost Gif-it-up Gifshuffle GZSteg Hide It Hide4PGP Hide Drive Hide Drives Hide Folders Hide In Picture Hide Me Hide-Seek v.50 Info Stego InPlainView InThePicture Invisible Files 2000 Pro Invisible Secrets JP Hide and Seek Jsteg Shell KPK File Magic Folders MASKER MergeStreams MP3 Stego NICETEXT NookMe OutGuess Palm Tree Paranoid PC FileSafe Phototile Picture Messenger Point Lock PRO PRETTY GOOD ENVELOPE Private Info Protector RightClickHide Sam's Big Playmaker SandMark Scramdisk Secret Space SecurDesk Snow Spammimmic StealthDisk Steghide Steganosaurus StegoTif StegoWav S-Tools SysCop Texto WbStego White Noise Storm Latest and Greatest Hydan PRODUCTS AND COMPANIES Alpha-Tech Ltd AlpVision BlueSpike Compris CenturionSoft Central Research Laboratories Data Dot Technologies Ltd DataMark Technologies Digimarc eWatermarking Intertrust Macrovision MarkAny MediaSec Technologies MTL Systems, Inc SealTronic Technology, Inc. Signum Technologies Spectra Systems Corporation Verance WetStone Technologies - Stego Watch REAL-WORLD USES Medical Records Workplace Communication DNA Microdots Monitoring of Radio Advertisements PKI and Steganography Digital Music Intellectual Property Protection Systems Digital Rights Management Systems Intertrust The Madison Project Cryptolope MagicGate and OpenMG Systems Built on Encrypted MP3 files MJuice M-Trax Key2Audio Super Audio CD and DVD Audio Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) The MUSE Project Steganography and the Internet Terrorism and Foreign Interest The Movie Industry Steganographic File Systems DETECTION AND ATTACKS Detection Attacks THE FUTURE GLOSSARY

A mathematical framework for active steganalysis

Abstract: A mathematical framework for steganalysis is presented in this Paper, with linear steganography being the main focus. A mathematically formal definition of steganalysis is given. Then active steganalysis, defined as the extraction of a hidden message with little or no a priori information, is formulated as a blind system identification problem within this framework. Conditions for identifiability (i.e., successful steganalysis) are derived. A procedure to systematically exploit any available spatial and temporal diversity information for efficient steganalysis is also discussed. Experimental results are given for steganalysis of Gaussian distributed, spread spectrum image steganography and watermarking. The proposed technique is observed to produce impressive results for a variety of performance measures. Based on the results we conclude that a common belief, namely, spread spectrum steganography/watermarking, is secure because the low strength, noise-like message carrier is no longer valid within the current context. Therefore, new questions regarding steganography security that differ from the standard information theoretic notion are raised and some answers are provided.

An Evaluation of Image Based Steganography Methods.

Abstract: Steganography is a process that involves hiding a message in an appropriate carrier for example an image or an audio file. The carrier can then be sent to a receiver without anyone else knowing that it contains a hidden message. This is a process, which can be used for example by civil rights organisations in repressive states to communicate their message to the outside world without their own government being aware of it. Less virtuously it can be used by terrorists to communicate with one another without anyone else's knowledge. In both cases the objective is not to make it difficult to read the message as cryptography does, it is to hide the existence of the message in the first place possibly to protect the courier. The initial aim of this study was to investigate steganography and how it is implemented. Based on this work a number of common methods of steganography could then be implemented and evaluated. The strengths and weaknesses of the chosen methods can then be analysed. To provide a common frame of reference all of the steganography methods implemented and analysed used GIF images. Seven steganography methods were implemented. The methods were chosen for their different strengths in terms of resistance to different types of steganalysis or their ability to maximise the size of the message they could store. All of the methods used were based on the manipulation of the least significant bits of pixel values or the rearrangement of colours to create least significant bit or parity patterns, which correspond to the message being hidden.

Steganography in JPEG2000 compressed images

Abstract: Information hiding in JPEG2000 compressed images is investigated in this research. The challenges of covert communication in this state-of-the-art image codec are analyzed and a steganographic scheme is then proposed to reliably embed high-volume data into the JPEG2000 bit-stream. A special mode of JPEG2000 is employed, and its usage and functions are explained and justified. Experimental results are given to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Steganography capacity: a steganalysis perspective

Abstract: Two fundamental questions in steganography are addressed in this paper, namely, (a) definition of steganography security and (b) definition of steganographic capacity. Since the main goal of steganography is covert communications, we argue that these definitions must be dependent on the type of steganalysis detector employed to break the embedding algorithm. We propose new definitions for security and capacity in the presence of a steganalyst. The intuition and mathematical notions supporting these definitions are described. Some numerical examples are also presented to illustrate the need for this investigation.© (2003) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Code Wars: Steganography, Signals Intelligence, and Terrorism

Abstract: This paper discusses the process of secret communication known as steganography. The argument advanced here is that terrorists are unlikely to be employing digital steganography to facilitate secret intra-group communication as has been claimed. This is because terrorist use of digital steganography is both technically and operationally implausible. The position adopted in this paper is that terrorists are likely to employ low-tech steganography such as semagrams and null ciphers instead.

Searching For Hidden Messages: Automatic Detection of Steganography

Abstract: Steganography is the field of hiding messages in apparently innocuous media (e.g. images), and steganalysis is the field of detecting these covert messages. Almost all steganalysis consists of hand-crafted tests or human visual inspection to detect whether a file contains a message hidden by a specific steganography algorithm. These approaches are very fragile ‐ trivial changes in a steganography algorithm will often render a steganalysis approach useless, and human inspection does not scale. We propose a machine learning (ML) approach to steganalysis. First, a media file is represented as a canvas ‐ the available space within the file to hide a message. Those features that can distinguish clean from stegobearing files are then selected. We use ML algorithms to distinguish clean and stego-bearing files. The results reported here show that ML algorithms work in both content- and compression-based image formats, outperforming at least one current hand crafted steganalysis technique in the latter. Our current work can detect previously seen (trained on) steganography techniques, and we discuss extensions that we believe will be able to detect steganography using more sophisticated algorithms, as well as the use of previously unseen steganography algorithms.

ABS-based speech information hiding approach

Abstract: An approach for speech information hiding based on the analysis by synthesis algorithm is presented. This approach can embed dynamic secret speech information data bits into original carrier speech data, with good efficiency in steganography and good quality in output speech. It is superior to classical algorithms, e.g., least significant bit, which can only embed fixed 1, 2 and 4 bit data into original carrier speech individually.

Active steganalysis of spread spectrum image steganography

Abstract: We propose two active steganalysis schemes for spread spectrum image steganography. One is a simple estimate and subtract type algorithm that does not exploit higher order statistics while the other one is more sophisticated. We present conditions for successful steganalysis along with experimental results. Experiments show that the second method can extract up to 70% of message bits for large message sizes while the simple scheme saturates at 45%.

Novel steganography detection using an artificial immune system approach

Abstract: Research in steganalysis is motivated by the concern that communications associated with illicit activity could be hidden in seemingly innocent electronic transactions. By developing defensive tools before steganographic communication grows, computer security professionals may be better prepared for the threat. This research investigated an artificial immune system approach to novel steganography detection for digital images. The results show promising detection and false positive rates.

Towards robust steganography using T-codes

Abstract: Steganography is the art of hiding messages within some cover media. The word steganography derives from Greek, and literally means covered writing. Messages can be hidden in any media. Typical media include digital images, sound, and video. Unfortunately, the hidden message is not resistant to media operations. For example, cropping an image that has a hidden message can result in corrupting the entire message beyond recognition. This paper proposes a scheme that permits hidden messages to withstand some simple media operations.

A testbed for evaluating security and robustness of steganography techniques

Abstract: This paper proposes a testbed environment for evaluating the security and robustness of the major steganography techniques. The testbed environment allows the embedding of messages into still images, preprocessing to detect the hidden messages and a post processing stage to perform further analysis on an image. The environment was used to test the survivability of stego-images. This was achieved by using cover images and hidden messages of different formats and sizes. A large set of images were subjected to a wide range of steganography tools. The output of the pre-processing stage achieved a high success rate in indicating the presence of hidden messages in the tested images.

Bit-plane decomposition steganography combined with JPEG2000 compression

Abstract: This paper presents a steganography method based on JPEG2000 lossy compression scheme and bit-plane complexity segmentation (BPCS) steganography. In JPEG2000 compression, wavelet coefficients of an image are quantized into a bit-plane structure and therefore BPCS steganography can be applied in the wavelet domain. The proposed JPEG2000-BPCS steganography was implemented using JJ2000 Java software of JPEG2000 compression, with which the program module for BPCS steganography was integrated. The proposed steganography enables us to use JPEG2000 lossy compressed images as dummy files for embedding secret data. Embedding rates of around 15% of the compressed image size were achieved for pre-embedding 1.0bpp compressed images with no visually noticeable degradation in image quality.

Research on the Algorithm of Text Steganography

Abstract: A new algorithm of text steganography is proposed.The main idea of the algorithm is to transform the text signal without redundancy into redundant signal.The text steganography is then implemented on the redundant signals.By using this algorithm,a secret text can be replaced by a pubilic text.The algorithm can survive from communication noise.

Steganography For Embedding Data In Digital Image

Abstract: The growth of the World Wide Web (WWW) has enabled the personal computer to be used as a general communications tool. As in the case of other forms of communication there is a wish for security and privacy. With literally millions of images moving on the Internet each year, it is safe to say that digital image Steganography is of real concern to many in the IT security field. Digital images could be used for a number of different types of security fear. In the business world, the sending of a harmless looking bitmap file could actually hide the latest company secrets. Steganography (literally, covered writing) is concealing of a secret message within another seemingly innocuous message, or carrier. Digital carriers include email, audio, and images. Steganography, like cryptography, is a means of providing secrecy. Steganography does so by hiding the very existence of the communication, while cryptography does so by scrambling a message so it cannot be understood. A cryptography message can be intercepted by an eavesdropper, but the eavesdropper may not even know the existence of a steganographic message. This thesis discusses the issues regarding Steganography and its application to multimedia security and communication, addressing both theoretical and practical aspects, and tackling both design and attack problems. In the fundamental part, we identify a few key elements of Steganography through a layered structure. Data hiding is concerned to be as a communication problem where the embedded data is the signal to be transmitted. The tradeoff for two major categories of embedding data using spatial domain and frequency domain will be discussed. In addition, we have found that unevenly distributed embedding capacity brings difficulty in data hiding. We propose a complete solution to this problem, addressing considerations for choosing constant or variable embedding rate and enhancing the performance for each case. In the design part, we present new data hiding algorithms for binary images, grayscale and color images, covering such applications as annotation, fingerprinting, and ownership protection.

Steganography: Secret Steganography Techniques Revealed

Abstract: Steganography presents an ongoing challenge to those responsible for forensic analysis of seized data or the inspection of traffic at boundary controls. In this article we review steganographic techniques, especially those that may be less well known, considering their effectiveness and applicability.

Steganography in Images: An Overview

Abstract: This paper gives an overview of the steganography process and reviews different steganalysis methods for images. Steganography involves sending a message through some innocuous carrier, for example an image or an audio file, to a receiver while preventing anyone else from knowing that a message is being sent at all. Computer based steganography allows changes to be made to digital carriers e.g. an image. These changes represent the hidden message but result, if successful, in no discernible change to the carrier. In both cases the objective is not to make it difficult to read the message as cryptography does, but to hide the existence of the message in the first place. To investigate image-based steganography six common methods of steganography were implemented and their strengths and weaknesses were evaluated. To provide a common frame of reference, all of the steganography methods were implemented and analysed using GIF images. The methods were chosen for their different strengths in terms of resistance to different types of steganalysis or their ability to maximise the size of the message they could store. All of the methods used were based on the manipulation of the least significant bits of pixel values or the rearrangement of colours to create least significant bit or parity bit patterns that correspond to the message being hidden. The stegoed image inevitably suffered some distortion from the steganography process. In the case of manipulation of the least significant bits of pixel values there were strong indications of steganography in the palette also. Overall the colour rearrangement technique appears to be the most resistant to detection if suitable images are chosen. Techniques which attempt to maximise the message size they can store appear to be the least resistant to detection.