A Project report on

IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION
The word steganography means covered in hidden writing. The
object of steganography is to send a message through some innocuous
carrier (to a receiver while preventing anyone else from knowing that a
message is being sent to all. Computer based steganography allows changes
to be made to what are known as digital carriers such as images or sounds.
The changes represent the hidden message, but result if successful in
no discernible change to the carrier. The information may be nothing to do
with the carrier sound or image or it might be information about the carrier
such as the author or a digital watermarking or fingerprint.
In steganography information can be hidden in carriers such as
images, audio files, text files, and video and data transmissions. When
message is hidden in the carrier a stego carrier is formed for example a
stego-image. Hopefully it will be perceived to be as close as possible to the
original carrier or cover image by the human senses.
Images are the most widespread carrier medium. The are used for
steganography in the following way. The message may firstly be encrypted.
They are used for steganography in the following way. The message may
firstly be encrypted. The sender embeds the secret message to be sent into a
graphic file. This results in the production of what is called stego-image.
Additional secret data may be needed in the hiding process e.g. a stegokey
etc. This stego-image is then transmitted to the recipient.

The recipient extractor extracts the message from the carrier image.
The message can only be extracted if there is a shared secret between the
sender and the recipient. This could be the algorithm for extraction or a
special parameter such as stegokey. A stegoanalyst or attacker may try to
intercept the stego image.

HISTORY OF STEGANOGRAPHY
Steganography is the dark cousin of cryptography, the use of codes.
While cryptography provides privacy, steganography is intended to provide
secrecy. Privacy is what you need when you use your credit card on the
Internet -- you don't want your number revealed to the public. For this, you
use cryptography, and send a coded pile of gibberish that only the web site
can decipher. Though your code may be unbreakable, any hacker can look
and see you've sent a message. For true secrecy, you don't want anyone to
know you're sending a message at all.
Early steganography was messy. Before phones, before mail, before
horses, messages were sent on foot. If you wanted to hide a message, you
had two choices: have the messenger memorize it, or hide it on the
messenger. In fact, the Chinese wrote messages on silk and encased them in
balls of wax. The wax ball, "la wan," could then be hidden in the messenger.
Herodotus, an entertaining but less than reliable Greek historian,
reports a more ingenious method. Histaeus, ruler of Miletus, wanted to send
a message to his friend Aristagorus, urging revolt against the Persians.
Histaeus shaved the head of his most trusted slave, and then tattooed a
message on the slave's scalp. After the hair grew back, the slave was sent to
Aristagorus with the message safely hidden.
Later in Herodotus' histories, the Spartans received word that Xerxes
was preparing to invade Greece. Their informant, Demeratus, was a Greek in
exile in Persia. Fearing discovery, Demeratus wrote his message on the
wood backing of a wax tablet. He then hid the message underneath a fresh
layer of wax. The apparently blank tablet sailed easily past sentries on the
road.

WHAT IS STEGANOGRAPHY?
Steganography (also known as "steg" or "stego") is "the art of writing
in cipher, or in characters, which are not intelligible except to persons who
have the key; cryptography". In computer terms, steganography has evolved
into the practice of hiding a message within a larger one in such a way that
others cannot discern the presence or contents of the hidden message. In
contemporary terms, steganography has evolved into a digital strategy of
hiding a file in some form of multimedia, such as an image, an audio file
(like a .wav or mp3) or even a video file.

What is Steganography Used for?

Like many security tools, steganography can be used for a variety of
reasons, some good, some not so good.
Legitimate purposes can include things like watermarking images for
reasons such as copyright protection. Digital watermarks (also known
as fingerprinting, significant especially in copyrighting material) are
similar to steganography in that they are overlaid in files, which
appear to be part of the original file and are thus not easily detectable
by the average person.
Steganography can also be used as a way to make a substitute for a
one-way hash value (where you take a variable length input and create
a static length output string to verify that no changes have been made
to the original variable length input).
Steganography can be used to tag notes to online images (like post-it
notes attached to paper files).
Steganography can be used to maintain the confidentiality of valuable
information, to protect the data from possible sabotage, theft, or
unauthorized viewing.

 Steganography can also be used for illegitimate reasons.

If someone was trying to steal data, they could conceal it in another
file or files and send it out in an innocent looking email or file
transfer.

LIMITATIONS
There are limitations on the use of steganography. As with encryption, if
Alice wants to communicate secretly with Bob they must first agree on
the method being used. Demeratus, a Greek at the Persian court, sent a
warning to Sparta about an imminent invasion by Xerxes by removing
the wax from a writing tablet, writing the message on the wood and then
covering it in wax again. The tablet appeared to be blank and fooled the
customs men but almost fooled the recipient too since he was unaware
that the message was being hidden.
With encryption, Bob can be reasonably sure that he has received a
secret message when a seemingly meaningless file arrives. It has either
been corrupted or is encrypted. It is not so clear with hidden data, Bob
simply receives an image, for example, and needs to know that there is a
hidden message and how to locate it.
Another limitation is due to the size of the medium being used to hide
the data. In order for steganography to be useful the message should be
hidden without any major changes to the object it is being embedded in.
This leaves limited room to embed a message without noticeably
changing the original object. This is most obvious in compressed files
where many of the obvious candidates for embedding data are lost. What
is left is likely to be the most perceptually significant portions of the file
and although hiding data is still possible it may be difficult to avoid
changing the file.
Simple spread spectrum techniques are able to survive amplitude
distortion and noise addition but are vulnerable to timing errors.
Synchronization of the chip signal is required in order for the technique

to work so adjusting the synchronization can cause the embedded data to

be lost.

Need Of Proposed System

The previously had many drawbacks such as more manual processing of
data which resulted in a time consuming process. Besides this cost of
maintaining a manually was more as compared to the computerized process.
Besides this there were complexities but not the least there was minimal
amount of data security.

OBJECTIVE
It is complete and automatic system for Data Security.
Designing a system that gives us information about data security.
Hide important information by unauthorized person while sending
information to receiver.
With the help of an image to hide an information and provide security
to important information.
Unauthorized person not guess about information is hidden in an
image.

USERS
Sender

Sender who make a stegano image. Sender is an authorized

person who sends important information with the help of an image
to receiver.
Receiver
Receiver is an authorized person who extracts important
information from image in a secure way. Receiver receives
information from sender.

SCOPE OF STEGANOGRAPHY
Encryption
The object file which is supposed to be proceeding will be encrypted
in some binary codes. This binary code depends on the nature of the object
file. This encryption is different for different files. As, example the
encryption is made of text file which is absolutely different from any audio
file or image files.
Data Chucking
In this process the encrypted file is chunked in various parts and then
this file is to Be proceed for the further streganography. The aim of this step
is to reduce the stenography time and increase the effectiveness of this
procedure.
Steganography
In this process the steganography is done on the chunked encrypted
files. In this Process the binary codes of the encrypted files are to be changed
by any of the method as mentioned below. Specific method changes the
specific binary numbers.
Sending the chunked files

In this process this chunked files are supposed to be sent to the

receiver and this Files will be in the hidden form. This all files are received
by the receiver and then are proceed to get the original data.
File recombination
In this process the chunked files are supposed to be recombined to get
the whole File and this procedure are done on the receiver end, so the
receiver must have the stego-key or any secret information from the sender
so that the receiver can get the original file.

Data Decryption
In this process the previously recombined file is to be decrypted so
that the Receiver can get the original file which is sent from the sender. And
now by entering the secret information the receiver is supposed to get the
original file which is sent by the receiver. This procedure ends the whole
procedure.
Thus the whole procedure is carried out by following the above steps.
EXAMPLE

This is the example of the steganography procedure which is explained below:-

In this procedure the file which is in the binary form and it is now
embedded in some form and now this file is in the hidden format and any

secret information is added by the sender and if the receiver wants to get the
original image then he needs to extract the embedded image with the help of
the secret information provided by the sender. When the receiver will
receive the file will be in the embedded form and by extracting it he can use
or read the original object file which is sent by the sender.
This embedding of the binary code is different for the different types of
the files.

FEASIBILITY STUDY
A feasibility study is a test of a system proposal according to its workability,
impact on the organization, ability to meet user requirements and effective
use of resource. The objective of feasibility study is not to the problem but to
acquire a sense of its scope. During this study, the problem definition is
crystallized and aspects of the problem to be included in the system are
determined. Consequently, cost and benefits are estimated with greater
accuracy at this stage. The key considerations involved in Feasibility
Analysis are:
Economic Feasibility: Economic Analysis is the most frequently used
method for evaluating the effectiveness of a proposed system. More
commonly known as cost-benefit analysis, the procedure is to
determine the benefit & savings that are expected from a proposed
system and compare them with costs. If the benefits are more than the
costs, then the decision is made to design and implement the system,
otherwise not.
An economic feasibility study of the proposed Student administration
system reveals that the software's proposed to be used for the system
viz., Windows 98 are easily available and affordable.
Technical Feasibility: Technical Feasibility centers on the existing
hardware, software and to what extent it can support the proposed
system or whether the new application could overload the system or

require additional hardware, which require financial considerations to

accommodate technical enhancements.
The running costs of the proposed system, when adopted will claim
down with respect to the present operational cost of evaluating
growths and profits. With full automation of the entire management
and information system, the entire cost of maintenance, running
application will come down to half of the existing total operational
cost and will increase efficiently by almost 50%.
Operational Feasibility: Operational or behavioral feasibility
determines how much effort will go into the system in educating and
training the user staff on a candidate system. As is evident in many
real life situations, people are inherently resistant to changes, and
computers have been to facilitate changes. An estimate should be
made of how strong is the reaction the user staff is likely to have
towards the development of the computer system. It is a common
knowledge the computer installations have something to do with
turnover, transfers, retraining and changes in employee job status.
Therefore, it is understandable that the introduction of a proposed
system requires special efforts to educate, sell and train staff on new
ways of conducting business.

Sr.no. Product Name

1 Pentium-IV-2.4GHz
Processor
2 Pc/AT 533
3 865 Intel Mother
Board

Number of Cost/Unit Total

Requirement
(Rs.) Cost
1

3000/-

3000/-

1
11

500/4000/-

500/2000/-

4 64MB RAM

100/-

100/-

5
6
7
8
9

1
1
1
1
1

500/3000/400/500/4000/-

500/3000/400/500/2000/-

80 GB Hard Disk
15 Monitor
Optical Mouse
108-Keys Keyboard
Microsoft Windows
XP

10 Java Development
Kit (jdk):1.4, 1.5

1000/-

Total

SYSTEM REQUIREMENT

Software Requirement
Microsoft windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7 etc
Java Development Kit (jdk):1.4, 1.5

Hardware Requirements
Pc/AT 533 and above with MMX
64 MB RAM and above
Mouse or Pointing Devices
Minimum of 80 MB Hard Disk Space
P-II, P-III, P-IV, Dual Core Processor

1000/-

13000/-

USER CHARACTERISTICS
Sender who make a stegano image. Sender is an authorized person who
sends important information with the help of an image to receiver. Receiver
is an authorized person who extracts important information from image in a
secure way. Receiver receives information from sender

USER PROBLEM STATEMENT

Slow retrieval of data
Too much paper work
Repetition of work
Inconsistency of data
Lack of security

UML DIAGRAM

Use Case Diagram

Create
Stegno
SENDER
Extract
Object
Secret
File

Class Diagram

RECEIVER

Sender

Encrypt

Name=Character
ID=Alphanumeric

1..*

Message

Decryp
t

Name= Alphanumeric
Type=Image or Text

1..*

Receiver
Name=Character
ID=Alphanumeric

Object Diagram
Company: Receiver
Name=SIOM
ID=SIOM010
Company: Sender

Private: Message

Name=SIBAR

Name=PM11AN

ID=SIBAR001

Type=Image-Text

Company: Receiver
Name=SIMCA
ID=SIMCA020

 Sequence Diagram

Sender

Stegno Create For

Stegno Object Controller

Create Stegnography ()

Select Image ()
Receive Stegno ()
Extract ()

Invalid

Collaboration Diagram

1. Create Stegnography ()

3. Receive Stegno ()

2. Select Image ()
5. Invalid

SIBAR: Sender

Activity Diagram

4. Extract ()

SENDER

RECEIVER

Create
Stegno
Object
Encrypt
Secrete
File

Send

Receive
Secrete
File

If

Passwor
d

Correc
t
Yes

Decrypt
Secrete
File

No

Password
Incorrect

WORKING & DESIGN OF PROJECT

STEPS FOR ENCODING

On first form, there are total 5 tabs namely encode, decode, Help,
About us, Home.
When user clicks on encode tab, this form display.
To select a file which is to be hide in BMP image, user has to click
Open source button.
When user clicks on Open source button, a dialog box will open
from which user can select a file with any extension for hiding.
After selecting a particular file, the file will open another window.
For selecting BMP image in which file has to be hide, user has to
click on button Open BMP.
For encoding, user has to give 8 character password which is also
encoded/hided in BMP image.
In a text field in front of every button, path of the particular file
will be displayed.
In front of Test File label, you have to give the path for storing
encoded image.
For actual processing, user should click on Processing button.

Processing will be done in following manner

a. Image must be 3 times greater than original file which is to be
hide.
b. If password is not of eight character, it will give an error.

 Flow Chart for Encoding

Start

File to be hided and image

Password

Is it of 8
characters
?
Processing
Image is placed
Encoding
Encoded image
Stop

STEPS FOR DECODING

After encoding both the images that is before hiding and after hiding,
will be displayed in two separate windows.
For decoding, user should close both the window and click on Decode
tab.
For opening images with hidden file, click on Open BMP button and
follow the same path where encoded image is stored. Complete path
will displayed in text box which is in front of DestFile button.
The text box which is in front of Original button, the name and path of
retrieved file is stored.
Same password must be given by user at decoding code also.
When user clicks on Decoding button, actual decoding starts and
original file will be opened into separate images.

 Flow Chart of Decoding

Start

Destination
Password
No
Is it of 8
characters
?
Yes
Processing
Original File which is hidden
Stop

GUI SCREEN

COMPARATIVELY
Image before encryption

Image after encryption

TEST PLAN
1. General Information
1.1 Summary: - Testing working of Image Steganography. Sender
Encrypt the information in an image and set a password to an encrypted
image. Receiver Decrypt the information from image. Important information
is protected by unauthorized access.
1.2 Objective: - This Test Plan for the image steganography have
following test objective: Encrypted image work properly.
Password is set to encrypted image in a alphanumeric.
Password is in minimum 8 characters.
Encrypted image is work properly when receiver decrypted
that image.

2. Plan
2.1 Software Description:2.1.1Oven working:Input
Set a cover image.
Working of image
steganography.

Decryption Process.

Take a text or image

which is set in a
cover image.

Output

Encrypted
image is created.

Set a password during

encryption process.
Decrypt the encrypted Extract information

image.

from encrypted image.

2.2 Test Team:-The test team will consist of A Project Manager

A Test Lead
A Tester
Product user
Project Manager

Responsible for Project schedules

and the overall success of the
project. Participate on CCB.

Test Lead

Ensures the overall success of the

test cycles. He/she will coordinate
weekly
meetings
and
will
communicate the testing status to
the project team. Participate on
CCB.

Testers

Responsible for performing the

actual system testing.

User

Responsible for performing testing

at user end.

2.3 Schedule:Sr Event

no
1
Introduction of the product
2
Training on the testing
Software which are used
in testing

Date
1/4/2012
2/4/2012 6/4/2012

Budget

3
4

Testing for module

Encryption Working.
Testing for module
Decryption Working

8/4/2012
14/7/2012

3. Specification
3.1 Business Function: - Image Steganography Working.
3.1.1 Encryption Process: - In encryption
process in which sender hide an information
(Text/Image) in a cover image and done the
encryption after setting a password. Then
encrypted image is send to authorized person.
3.1.1.1 Testing following functionality: Checking default configuration
parameter
Password should be minimum 8
characters.
Hidden image size is less than
cover image.
Operation Correctness
All option should work as per
specification.
When password is incorrect than
it display an error message.
When cover image size is less
than hidden image than encrypted image is
damage.
3.1.1.2 Testing Type and Methodology:Checked following
Quality parameter
Correctness
Ease of use

Following Type of
Testing will be
performed on it
Unit Testing
Usability Testing
Performance Testing

Following Method
is used for testing
White Box
Black Box

Performance

Recover Testing

Black Box

3.1.2 Decryption Process:-In decryption process in

which receiver receive encrypted image from
authorized person and write a password which
is given by authorized person. Receivers
decrypt the given image and extract
information.
3.1.2.1 Testing following functionality: Checking default configuration
parameter

Entered password should be

correct.
Operation Correctness
All option should be properly
used.
3.1.2.2 Testing Type and Methodology :Checked following
Quality parameter
Correctness
Ease of use
Performance

Following Type of
Testing will be
performed on it
Unit Testing
Usability Testing
Performance Testing
Recover Testing

Following Method
is used for testing
White Box
Black Box
Black Box

4. Test Descriptions
4.1. Encryption:Control: - Take proper cover image should be taken as
per size of image/text.
Input:-

4.1.1 Encrypting Process

Cover image is sufficient size.
4.1.2 Starting
Encrypt the image.
Set password.
4.1.3 Stopping
Encrypted image ready.
Send to authorized person.
4.2 Decryption:4.1.1 Decrypting Process
Software should be installed in
computer.
4.1.2 Starting
Copy encrypted image.
Password is known.
Decrypt the image.
4.1.3 Stopping
Extract information.

TEST CASE

Business
Structural
Function
Function
Image
Encryption
Steganography

Quality
parameter
Correctness
Ease of use
Performance
Decryption Correctness
Ease of use
Performance

Type of Testing
Unit Testing
Usability Testing
Performance Testing
Unit Testing
Usability Testing
Performance Testing

Strategy of
testing
White Box
Black Box
Black Box
White Box
Black Box
Black Box

CONCLUSION
As all the of the methods evaluated required either colour reduction of
the original images palette or colour substitution in the stegoed image, they
all had their own weaknesses as the stegoed image inevitably suffered some
distortion from the steganography process.
Steganography is a fascinating and effective method of hiding data
that has been used throughout history. Methods that can be employed to
uncover such devious tactics, but the first step are awareness that such
methods even exist. There are many good reasons as well to use this type of
data hiding, including watermarking or a more secure central storage method
for such things as passwords, or key processes. Regardless, the technology is
easy to use and difficult to detect. The more that you know about its features
and functionality, the more ahead you will be in the game.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS/PAPERS
1.

Java, The complete Reference, - Patrick Naughton

2.

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, - Denis Howe

3.

Applied Cryptography, Bruce Schneier, John Wiley and Sons Inc.,

1996.

4.

Steganography: Hidden Data, by Deborah Radcliff, June 10, 2002,

WEBSITES
1.
2.
3.
4.

www.ggogle.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/java
http://www.jjtc.com/stegdoc/sec202.html
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=steganography

5.

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,
71726,00.html

Sr no

Topic name

Page no

1
2
3
4

Project Report
Acknowledgement
Certificate
Software Requirement Specification
Introduction
Existing System
Limitations of Existing System
Need of purposed System
Goal & Objective
Statement of scope
Feasibility Study
User Characteristic
User Problem Statement
Development Operating and Maintenance Environment
Development Environment
System Features(Uml Diagram)
Use case Diagram
Class Diagram
Object Diagram
Sequence Diagram
Collaboration Diagram
Activity Diagram
Flow Chart
Input/output screen
Test Plan

1
2
3
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7
9
10
11
12
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14

5
6

8
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12

Conclusion and future enhancement

Bibliography / References

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