STEGANOGRAPHY IN IMAGES
-VEETHICA SRIVASTAVA 0706331115
STEGANOGRAPHY : DEFINED
Comes from the two greek words steganos -covered graphie writing Steganography is the art & science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one apart from the intended recipient knows of the existence of the message. This can be achieve by concealing the existence of information within seemingly harmless carrier or cover. Carrier- text,image,audio,video
HISTORY
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.
BASIC DEFINITIONS
Cover medium: This is the medium in which we want to hide
data, it can be an innocent looking piece of information for steganography, or some important medium that must be protected for copyright or integrity reasons. Embedded message: This is the hidden message we want to put in the cover. It can be some data for steganography and some copyright information or added content for digital watermarking. Stegokey: This is represented by some secret information, which is needed in order to extract the embedded message from the stegomedium. Stego-medium: This is the final piece of information that the casual observer can see.
Cover-medium + embedded-message = stego-message
BASIC METHOD BEHIND STEGANOGRAPHY
IMAGES
Is an array of numbers that represent light intensities at various points or pixels. Digital images are typically stored in either 24-bit or 8-bit per pixel files.
IMAGE COMPRESSION
LOSSY(JPEG)-Discards excess image data, removes
details that are too small for human eye to differentiate. Lossy compression is frequently used on true-colour images, as it offers high compression rates.
LOSSLESS(BMP,GIF)-Lossless compression
maintains the original image data exactly; hence it is preferred when the original information must remain intact. It is thus more favored by steganographic techniques.
TYPES OF STEG EXPLORED
Least significant bit (LSB) insertion Spread spectrum image steganography Masking and filtering. Algorithms and transformations.
LSB INSERTION
24-bit color: every pixel can have one in 2^24 colors, and these are represented as different quantities of three basic colors: red (R), green (G), blue (B), given by 8 bits (256 values) each. 8-bit color: every pixel can have one in 256 (2^8) colors, chosen from a palette, or a table of colors. 8-bit gray-scale: every pixel can have one in 256 (2^8) shades of gray. LSB insertion modifies the LSBs of each color in 24-bit images, or the LSBs of the 8-bit value for 8-bit images.
LSB TECHNIQUE
The most basic of LSB insertion for 24bit pictures inserts 3 bits/pixel. Since every pixel is 24 bits, we can hide 3
hidden-bits/pixel / 24 data-bits/pixel = 1/8 hidden-bits/data bits.
EXAMPLE OF LSB TECHNIQUE
Given the following 8 carrier bytes 10010101 00001101 11001001 10010110 00001111 11001011 10011111 00010000 Assume we want to insert some payload - the letter G, in ASCII: [Link] resulting bytes are 10010100 00001101 11001000 10010110 00001110 11001011 10011111 00010001 Only half of the available bytes were affected by our insertion. Change is relatively undetectable.
PROBLEMS WITH LSB INSERTION
LSB insertion is very vulnerable to a lot of transformations, even the most harmless and usual ones. Lossy compression, e.g. JPEG, is very likely to destroy it completely. Geometrical transformations, moving the pixels around and especially displacing them from the original grid are likely to destroy the embedded message and the only one that could allow recovery is a simple translation. Any other kind of picture transformation like blurring or other effects, usually will destroy the hidden data.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Encryption of the message, so that who extracts it must also decrypt it before it makes sense. Randomizing the placement of the bits using a cryptographical random function (scattering), so that its almost impossible to rebuild the message without knowing the seed for the random function.
ADVANTAGES OF USING LSB
Quick and easy. There has also been steganography software developed which work around LSB color alterations via palette manipulation. LSB insertion also works well with gray-scale images.
SPREAD SPECTRUM IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY
The core of SSIS is a spread spectrum encoder. These devices work by modulating a narrow band signal over a carrier. To extract the embedded message, the receiver must use the same key and noise generator to tune on the right frequencies and demodulate the original signal.
ADVANTAGES OF USING SSIS
Low detectability. Ease of extraction. High data rate Good robustness
SYSTEM DESIGN
Get a cover image (publicly accessible material). Take the information to be hidden (message or image). Combine cover image with the information to be hidden (we follow LSB algorithm for this). Use any of the filtering methods, ex: wiener filtering for de noising in wavelet domain.
During extraction a password check is provided. If password is matched then extraction of hidden information.
SOFTWARE TOOLS
S-Tools: Includes programs that process GIF and BMP images,
process audio files and will even hide information in the unused areas of the floppy diskettes. StegoDos: Also known as the Black Wolfs Picture Encoder version 0.90a. It works only for 320* 200 images with 256 colors Camouflage: Allows hiding files by scrambling them and then attaching them to the file of your choice. Mp3 Stego: Hides information in MP3 files during the compression process.
STEGANALYSIS
Steganalysis is the practice of detecting hidden messages.
1. 2. 3.
The methods include
Simple inspection Structural oddities Statistical analysis
STEGANOGRAPHY TOOLS
USES OF STEGANOGRAPHY
Information hiding Authentication of documents. Protection of intellectual property. For military purposes.
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