Stego Final

Design and Implementation
of
SteganographyTechniques
Project Submitted as Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Diploma Of
Computer Science & Technology
By
SUPARNA NATH Roll No: 15917
TIAS PATRA Roll No: 01807
TRIPTI MAITY Roll No: 01802
WOMEN’S POLYTECHNIC
1/ 1 /2 , GORIAHAT ROAD ,JODHPUR PARK,KOLKATA-700 068
Under
WEST BENGAL STATE COUNCIL OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION
1
DECLARATION
SUPARNA NATH,TIAS PATRA,TRIPTI MAITY students of Diploma in 3rd year (6th

Semester) of WOMEN’S POLYTECHNIC hereby declare that the Project Report
entitled “Design an Implementation of Steganography Techniques” done
by us under the guidance of Prof. Amit Kumar Mistry, H.O.D. of Computer Science
Department, WOMEN’S POLYTECHNIC, is submitted as partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the award of diploma in COMPUTER SCIENCE &
TECHNOLOGY.
DATE: 16th May, 2011.
PLACE: Kolkata
………………………………
(SUPARNA NATH)
…………………………..
(TIAS PATRA)
………………………………
(TRIPTI MAITY)
2
Project Outline
Project Title: Design and Implementation of Steganography Techniques

College/Institute: Women’s polytechnic, Kolkata.
Guide: Prof. Amit Kumar Mistry, Department of Computer
Science and Technology, Women’s Polytechnic
Duration: One year
Students’ Profile: Name: SUPARNA NATH
Roll No: D110054004-15917
Registration No: D091010835
Name: TIAS PATRA
Roll No: D110055005-01807
Name: TRIPTI MAITY
Roll No: D110055005-01802
3rd Year, 6th Semester of Department of Diploma in COMPUTER

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, WOMEN’S POLYTECHNIC, KOLKATA.
3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Developing a project for research analysis is no doubt a scientific step

forward, which has helped us to gain a lot of experience that will put light to our
succeeding career.
In the preparation of this project and its formation it is represented that

there are many to whom we owe our gratitude. We are greatly indebted to Mr. Amit
Kumar Mistry, Mrs. Sharmila Roy, Mrs. Sujata Chakraborty & Mrs. Sanchita
Haldar, our respected Teachers of Institute Women’s Polytecnic, Kolkata for their
valuable suggestions regarding the development of this project.
We are also greatly indebted to Mr.Amit Kumar Mistry, HOD of

Computer Science & Technology in Women’s Polytechnic College,Kolkata.
We are also indebted to all the staffs of our college for their help extended
to us time and again we are also grateful to our friends for their help, without which
this project work could not have taken its shape.
We are ever grateful to our parents and other family members for their
moral support and encouragement without which this project would have never
completed and above all we thank THE ALMIGHTY LORD for HIS help.
Thanking all of them and above all, to HIM.
Suparna Nath
Tias Patra
Tripti Maity
4
WOMEN’S POLYTECHNIC, JODHPUR PARK, KOLKATA
Certificate of approval
The report of the Project entitled ‘Design & Implementation of Steganography

Techniques’ carried out by Suparna Nath, Tias Patra and Tripti Maity has been
prepared under the supervision of signed below for the partial fulfillment of the
requirements for Diploma of Computer Science & Technology awarded by West Bengal
State Council for Technical Education.
_______________________
(Prof. Amit Kumar Mistry)
Dept. of Computer Science & Technology
(Internal Supervisor)
Countersigned by
………………………………………….
(Prof. Amit Kumar Mistry)
Head of the Department
Computer Science & Technology
Women’s Polytechnic, Kolkata – 700 068,
5
INDEX Page No.
1. Abstract ……………………………………………………………….
2. Introduction …………………………………………………………..
3. History of Steganography ……………………………………………
4. Secret Communication Methods ……………………………………
5. Implementation of Steganography …………………………………..
6. Different Types of Steganography……………………………………
7. Image Steganography
7.1. Least Significant Bit Insertion …………………………..
7.2. Masking & Filtering …………………………………….
7.3. Redundant Pattern Encoding……………………………..
7.4. Encrypt and Scatter ………………………………………
8. Image Compression……………………………………………………
9. Image & Transform Domain …………………………………………
10. Image Domain
10.1. LSB & Palette Based Images………………..…………….
11. Transform Domain
11.1. JPEG Compression………………………………………..
11.2. JPEG Steganography ……………………………………..
12. Evaluation of Different Techniques
12.1. Invisibility ………………………………………………….
12.2. Payload Capacity…………………………………………...
12.3. Robustness Against Statistical Attacks...………………….
12.4. Robustness Against Image Manipulation…………………
12.5. Independent of File Format………………………………..
12.6. Unsuspicious Files………………………………………….
12.7. LSB in BMP…………………………………………………
12.8. LSB in GIF….……………………………………………….
12.9. JPEG Compression………………………………………….
12.10. Patchwork……..……………………………………………..
12.11. Spread Spectrum……..……………………………………..
13. Need of Steganography…….…………………………………………..
6
14. Related Work………………………………………………………….
15. Requirement Hardware………………………………………………
16. Problem Formulation
16.1. Steganography Modern Day ..……………………………
16.2. Design & Implementation
16.3. Flowchart……………………………………………………
16.4. General Algorithm to Hide Information an Image File….
16.5. Coding………………………………………………………..
17. Result…………………………………………………………………….
17.1. Snap Shot……………………………………………………...
17.2. Result for image Steganography…………………………...
18. Limitations…………………………………………………………….
19. Advantages…………………………………………………………….
20. Steganography vs. Cryptography……………………………………
21. Steganography vs. Digital watermark………………………………
22. Future Scope…..………………………………...................................
23. Conclusion…………………………………………………………….
24. References……………………………………………………………..
7
Abstract
“The Right to privacy…is the most comprehensive of rights and the right
most valued by civilized man”.
- Justice Louis Brandies, US Supreme Court, 1928.
Steganography refers to the science of ‘secret’ communication. In Steganography

technique data is hidden inside an object that looks like it contain something else.
Several objects are capable to hide information, such as images, sound clip, and
executable file & video etc. Steganography technique makes the job of the intruder
much difficult as the existence of the information is hidden. The basic idea behind our
work is to provide a good, efficient method for hiding the data from intruder or
hackers and sent information to the destination in a safer manner. There are many
different type of Steganography, like Image Steganography, Audio Steganography,
Video Steganography, Text Steganography, & Protocol Steganography, in our work
we mainly discuss about LSB method of all the Steganography. We have also
implemented different Steganography method like image, audio and text with
encrypted information.
KEYWORDS:
Cryptography, Watermark, Steganalysis, JPEG, BMP, Encryption, Covert channels,
Decryption, Least Significant Bit.
8
Introduction
Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516) was a German Abbot. His writing, “Steganographia:
hoe est ars per occultam scripturam animi sui voluntatem absentibus aperiendi certa”
is ostensibly a work describing methods to communicate with spirits. A rough
translation of the Latin title is: “Steganography: the art through which writing is
hidden requiring recovery by the minds of men.” 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.
What is Steganography: Steganography literally means
covered writing or hidden writing i.e., writing that is known
to casual observer, is derived from Greek words ‘steganos’
meaning covered or secret and ‘graphy’ meaning writing or
drawing. This technique includes all methods of secure and
secret communication that conceal the existence of secret
message. From the time of Herodotus in Greece till today, Steganography has been
used in various places. Today the field attains new dimensions with the advent of
digital computer.
When a message is encrypted, it has no meaning, and it’s easy to understand that it
contains sensitive information, a secret – and someone might try to break it.
Steganography solves this problem by hiding the sensitive information in a harmless
file called carrier file. Steganographic software enables information to be hidden in
graphics, sound files. By this technique data can be hidden inside the normal picture
without changing its appearance or size. The hidden messages need not be encrypted
and it can be in plain everyday English. Recent advances in computing and recent
interest in privacy has led to the development of steagnography.
9
History Of Steganography
Through out history Steganography has been used to secretly communicate
information between People. Some examples of use of Steganography in 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 urine, 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 secret message.
3. Another method used in Greece was where someone would peel wax off a tablet that
was covered in wax, write a message underneath the wax then re-apply the wax. The
recipient of the message would simply remove the wax from the tablet to view the
message
10
SECRET COMUNICATION METHODS
The secret communications methods are invisible dots, microdots, character

arrangement (other than cryptographic methods of permutation and substitution),
digital signatures, covert channels and spread-spectrum signals.
It’s also notoriously known that there are different ways of hiding writing between the
lines of an ordinary letter. The text or picture that you drew would only appear if you
colored over the written area with a special marker. In this case a chemical reaction
would take place once the two substances touched thus revealing the hidden message.
The common form of invisible writing is through the use of invisible inks whose
sources are milk, vinegar, fruit juices and urine. These darken when heated and they
are easy to decode. With improvements in technology, many sophisticated inks were
developed which react with various chemicals. Some messages had to be ‘developed’
much as photographs are developed with a number of chemicals in processing labs.
The Germans developed microdot technology during World War II which was
referred to as ‘the enemy’s masterpiece of espionage’. Microdots are photographs, the
size of a printed period having the clarity of standard-sized type-written pages. In the
USSR all international mailings were screened in attempt to detect any hostile
activities.
11
IMPLEMENTATION OF
Features five
STEGANOGRAPHY innocent carriers
for hiding: JPEG,
There are ways to hide information in an image, PNG, BMP, HTML
and WAV.
audio and even text files. Moreover, if that message
is in addition encoded then it has one more supplemental level of protection. Computer
steganography is based on two principles. The first one is that the files that contain
digitized images or sound can be altered to a certain extend without loosing their
functionality
An Application
Allows the secure transfer unlike other
Locker to
of passwords between two
types of data password protects
computers using an
any application
encrypted internet line. that have to
installed on your
be exact in
computer.
order to function properly, an example of that would
be a computer program.
If one step is missed or overlooked you cannot continue the process. The other
principle deals with the human inability to distinguish negligible changes in image
color or sound quality, which is especially easy to make use of in objects that contain
redundant information, be it 16-bit sound, 8-bit or even better 24-bit image. This just
meaning that it is very hard to distinguish minor changes in images with the human
eye. Speaking of images, changing the value of the least significant bit of the pixel
color.
Won’t result in any perceivable change of that color. One of the best and most widely
spread steganographic products for Windows95/98/NT is S-Tools.
Background, Evaluation method and Software evaluation which include S-Tools and
Hide and Seek v4.1 are the software packages which were reviewed with respect to
Steganographic manipulation of images. A very useful feature is the status line that
displays the largest message size that can be stored in the carrier file. All the
softwares uses the LSB method to both images and audio files. Steganography allows
you to hide information in five innocent looking files types: JPEG, PNG, BMP, HTML
and WAV.
12
Null ciphers (unencrypted messages) were also used. The real message is
"camouflaged" in an innocent sounding message. Due to the "sound" of many open
coded messages, the suspect communications were detected by mail filters. However
"innocent" messages were allowed to flow through. An example of a message
containing such a null cipher is German Spy in World War II:
“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. ”
Taking the second letter in each word the following message emerges: Pershing sails
from NY June 1.
Different types of Steganography:

There are many different type of Steganography, like:
Image Steganography, Audio Steganography, Video Steganography, Text

Steganography, Protocol Steganography
13
Image steganography
To hide information, straight message insertion may encode every bit of information
in the image or selectively embed the message in “noisy” areas that draw less attention
—those areas where there is a great deal of natural color variation. The message may
also be scattered randomly throughout the image. A number of ways exist to hide
information in digital media. Common approaches include
• Least significant bit insertion

• Masking and filtering
• Redundant Pattern Encoding
• Encrypt and Scatter
Each of these techniques can be applied, with varying degrees of success.
Least significant bit insertion

Least significant bit (LSB) insertion is a common and simple approach to embed
information in an image file. In this method the LSB of a byte is replaced with an M’s
bit. This technique works good for image, audio and video Steganography. To the
human eye, the resulting image will look identical to the cover object [1, 16]. For
example, if we consider image Steganography then the letter A can be hidden in three
pixels (assuming no compression). The original raster data for 3 pixels (9 bytes) may
be
(00100111 11101001 11001000)
(00100111 11001000 11101001)
(11001000 00100111 11101001)
The binary value for A is 10000001. Inserting the binary value for A in the three pixels
would result In
(00100111 11101000 11001000)
(00100110 11001000 11101000)
(11001000 00100111 11101001)
The underlined bits are the only three actually changed in the 8 bytes used. On
average, LSB requires that only half the bits in an image be changed. You can hide
data in the least and second least significant bits and still the human eye would not be
14
able to discern it. The resultant image for the above data insertion and the original
cover image are given below.
Fig. 1: The cover image Fig. 2: The stego-image

(after A is inserted)
Masking and filtering
Masking and filtering techniques are mostly used on 24 bit

and grey scale images. They hide info in a way similar to
watermarks on actual paper and are sometimes used as digital
watermarks. Masking images entails changing the luminance
of the masked area. The smaller the luminance change, the
less of a chance that it can be detected. Observe that the
luminance in Figure 2 is at 15% in the mask region if it was
decreased then it would be nearly invisible. Masking is more
robust than LSB insertion with respect to compression,
cropping, and some image processing. Masking techniques
embed information in significant areas so that the hidden message is more integral to
the cover image than just hiding it in the “noise” level. This makes it more suitable
than LSB with, for instance, lossy JPEG images.
15
Redundant Pattern Encoding
Patchwork and other similar tools do redundant pattern encoding, which is a sort of
spread spectrum technique. It works by scattering the message throughout the picture.
This makes the image more resistant to cropping and rotation. Smaller secret images
work better to increase the redundancy embedded in the cover image, and thus make
it easier to recover if the stego-image is manipulated.
Encrypt and Scatter

The Encrypt and Scatter technique tries to emulate white noise. It is mostly used in
image steganography.White Noise Storm is one such program that employs spread
spectrum and frequency hopping. It does this by scattering the message throughout an
image on eight channels within a random number that is generated by the previous
window size and data channel. The channels then swap rotate, and interlace amongst
each other. Each channel represents one bit and as a result there are many unaffected
bits in each channel. This technique is a lot harder to extract a message out of than an
LSB scheme because to decode you must first detect that a hidden image exists and
extract the bit pattern from the file. While that is true for any stego-image you will
also need the algorithm and stego key to decode the bit pattern, both of which are not
required to recover a message from LSB. Some people prefer this method due to the
considerable amount of extra effort that someone without the algorithm and stego-key
would have to go through to extract the message. Even though White Noise Storm
provides extra security against message extraction it is just as susceptible as straight
LSB to image degradation due to image processing .
16
Image Compression
When working with larger images of greater bit depth, the images tend to become too
large to transmit over a standard Internet connection. In order to display an image in
a reasonable amount of time, techniques must be incorporated to reduce the image’s
file size. These techniques make use of mathematical formulas to analyse and condense
image data, resulting in smaller file sizes. This process is called compression. In images
there are two types of compression: lossy and lossless .Both methods save storage
space, but the procedures that they implement differ. Lossy compression creates
smaller files by discarding excess image data from the original image. It removes
details that are too small for the human eye to differentiate, resulting in close
approximations of the original image, although not an exact duplicate. An example of
an image format that uses this compression technique is JPEG (Joint Photographic
Experts Group).Lossless compression, on the other hand, never removes any
information from the original image, but instead represents data in mathematical
formulas. The original image’s integrity is maintained and the decompressed image
output is bit-by-bit identical to the original image input. The most popular image
formats that use lossless compression is GIF (Graphical Interchange Format) and 8-
bit BMP (a Microsoft Windows bitmap file) .Compression plays a very important role
in choosing which steganographic algorithm to use. Lossy compression techniques
result in smaller image file sizes, but it increases the possibility that the embedded
message may be partly lost due to the fact that excess image data will be removed .
Lossless compression though, keeps the original digital image intact without the
chance of lost, although is does not compress the image to such a small file size.
17
Image and Transform Domain
Domain. Image – also known as spatial – domain techniques embed messages in the
intensity of the pixels directly, while for transform – also known as frequency –
domain, images are first transformed and then the message is embedded in the image.
Image steganography techniques can be divided into two groups: those in the Image
Domain and those in the Transform Image domain techniques encompass bit-wise
methods that apply bit insertion and noise manipulation and are sometimes
characterised as “simple systems”. The image formats that are most suitable for image
domain steganography are lossless and the techniques are typically dependent on the
image format.
Steganography in the transform domain involves the manipulation of algorithms and
image transforms. These methods hide messages in more significant areas of the cover
image, making it more robust. Many transform domain methods are independent of
the image format and the embedded message may survive conversion between lossy
and lossless compression.
In the next sections steganographic algorithms will be explained in categories

according to image file formats and the domain in which they are performed.
Categories of image steganography
18
Image Domain
LSB and Palette Based Images

Palette based images, for example GIF images, are another popular image file format
commonly used on the Internet. By definition a GIF image cannot have a bit depth
greater than 8, thus the maximum number of colours that a GIF can store is 256. GIF
images are indexed images where the colours used in the image are stored in a palette,
sometimes referred to as a colour lookup table. Each pixel is represented as a single
byte and the pixel data is an index to the colour palette. The colours of the palette are
typically ordered from the most used colour to the least used colours to reduce lookup
time.
GIF images can also be used for LSB steganography, although extra care should be
taken. The problem with the palette approach used with GIF images is that should one
change the least significant bit of a pixel, it can result in a completely different colour
since the index to the colour palette is changed. If adjacent palette entries are similar,
there might be little or no noticeable change, but should the adjacent palette entries be
very dissimilar, the change would be evident.One possible solution is to sort the palette
so that the colour differences between consecutive colours are minimized. Another
solution is to add new colours which are visually similar to the existing colours in the
palette. This requires the original image to have less unique colours than the
maximum number of colours (this value depends on the bit depth used). Using this
approach, one should thus carefully choose the right cover image. Unfortunately any
tampering with the palette of an indexed image leaves a very clear signature, making it
easier to detect.
A final solution to the problem is to use greyscale images. In an 8-bit greyscale GIF
image, there are 256 different shades of grey. The changes between the colours are
very gradual, making it harder to detect.
19
Transform Domain
To understand the steganography algorithms that can be used when embedding data
in the transform domain, one must first explain the type of file format connected with
this domain. The JPEG file format is the most popular image file format on the
Internet, because of the small size of the images.
JPEG compression
To compress an image into JPEG format, the RGB colour representation is first
converted to a YUV representation. In this representation the Y component
corresponds to the luminance (or brightness) and the U and V components stand for
chrominance (or colour). According to research the human eye is more sensitive to
changes in the brightness (luminance) of a pixel than to changes in its colour . This fact
is exploited by the JPEG compression by downsampling the colour data to reduce the
size of the file. The colour components (U and V) are halved in horizontal and vertical
directions, thus decreasing the file size by a factor of 2.
The next step is the actual transformation of the image. For JPEG, the Discrete Cosine
Transform (DCT) is used, but similar transforms are for example the Discrete Fourier
Transform (DFT). These mathematical transforms convert the pixels in such a way as
to give the effect of “spreading” the location of the pixel values over part of the image.
The DCT transforms a signal from an image representation into a frequency
representation, by grouping the pixels into 8 × 8 pixel blocks and transforming the
pixel blocks into 64 DCT coefficients each . A modification of a single DCT coefficient
will affect all 64 image pixels in that block.
The next step is the quantization phase of the compression. Here another biological
property of the human eye is exploited: The human eye is fairly good at spotting small
differences in brightness over a relatively large area, but not so good as to distinguish
between different strengths in high frequency brightness . This means that the
strength of higher frequencies can be diminished, without changing the appearance of
the image. JPEG does this by dividing all the values in a block by a quantization
coefficient. The results are rounded to integer values and the coefficients are encoded
using Huffman coding to further reduce the size.
20
JPEG steganography
Originally it was thought that steganography would not be possible to use with JPEG
images, since they use lossy compression which results in parts of the image data being
altered. One of the major characteristics of steganography is the fact that information
is hidden in the redundant bits of an object and since redundant bits are left out when
using JPEG it was feared that the hidden message would be destroyed. Even if one
could somehow keep the message intact it would be difficult to embed the message
without the changes being noticeable because of the harsh compression applied.
However, properties of the compression algorithm have been exploited in order to
develop a steganographic algorithm for JPEGs.
One of these properties of JPEG is exploited to make the changes to the image
invisible to the human eye. During the DCT transformation phase of the compression
algorithm, rounding errors occur in the coefficient data that are not noticeable [14].
Although this property is what classifies the algorithm as being lossy, this property can
also be used to hide messages. It is neither feasible nor possible to embed information
in an image that uses lossy compression, since the compression would destroy all
information in the process. Thus it is important to recognize that the JPEG
compression algorithm is actually divided into lossy and lossless stages. The DCT and
the quantization phase form part of the lossy stage, while the Huffman encoding used
to further compress the data is lossless. Steganography can take place between these
two stages. Using the same principles of LSB insertion the message can be embedded
into the least significant bits of the coefficients before applying the Huffman encoding.
By embedding the information at this stage, in the transform domain, it is extremely
difficult to detect, since it is not in the visual domain.
Evaluation of different techniques

All the above mentioned algorithms for image steganography have different strong
and weak points and it is important to ensure that one uses the most suitable
algorithm for an application. All steganographic algorithms have to comply with a few
basic requirements. The most important requirement is that a steganographic
algorithm has to be imperceptible. The authors propose a set of criteria to further
define the imperceptibility of an algorithm. These requirements are as follows:
21
Invisibility – The invisibility of a steganographic algorithm is the first and
foremost requirement, since the strength of steganography lies in its ability to be
unnoticed by the human eye. The moment that one can see that an image has been
tampered with, the algorithm is compromised
Payload capacity – Unlike watermarking, which needs to embed only a small

amount of copyright information, steganography aims at hidden communication and
therefore requires sufficient embedding capacity.
Robustness against statistical attacks – Statistical steganalysis is the

practice of detecting hidden information through applying statistical tests on image
data. Many steganographic algorithms leave a ‘signature’ when embedding
information that can be easily detected through statistical analysis. To be able to pass
by a warden without being detected, a steganographic algorithm must not leave such a
mark in the image as be statistically significant.
Robustness against image manipulation – In the communication of a

stego image by trusted systems, the image may undergo changes by an active warden
in an attempt to remove hidden information. Image manipulation, such as cropping or
rotating, can be performed on the image before it reaches its destination. Depending
on the manner in which the message is embedded, these manipulations may destroy
the hidden message. It is preferable for steganographic algorithms to be robust against
either malicious or unintentional changes to the image.
Independent of File Format – With many different image file formats used
on the Internet, it might seem suspicious that only one type of file format is
continuously communicated between two parties. The most powerful steganographic
algorithms thus possess the ability to embed information in any type of file. This also
solves the problem of not always being able to find a suitable image at the right
moment, in the right format to use as a cover image.
Unsuspicious files – This requirement includes all characteristics of a

steganographic algorithm that may result in images that are not used normally and
22
may cause suspicion. Abnormal file size, for example, is one property of an image that
can result in further investigation of the image by a warden.
The following table compares least significant bit (LSB) insertion in BMP and in GIF
files, JPEG compression steganography, the patchwork approach and spread
spectrum techniques as discussed in section 3, according to the above requirements:
LSB in JPEG Spread

LSB in GIF Patchwork
BMP compression spectrum
Invisibility High* Medium* High High High
Payload
High Medium Medium Low Medium
capacity
Robustness
against
Low Low Medium High High
statistical
attacks
Robustness
against
Low Low Medium High Medium
image
manipulation
Independent
of file Low Low Low High High
format
Unsuspicious
Low Low High High High
files
* - Depends on cover image used

Table 1: Comparison of image steganography algorithms
The levels at which the algorithms satisfy the requirements are defined as high,
medium and low. A high level means that the algorithm completely satisfies the
requirement, while a low level indicates that the algorithm has a weakness in this
requirement. A medium level indicates that the requirement depends on outside
influences, for example the cover image used. LSB in GIF images has the potential of
hiding a large message, but only when the most suitable cover image has been chosen.
The ideal, in other words a perfect, steganographic algorithm would have a high level
in every requirement. Unfortunately in the algorithms that are evaluated here, there is
not one algorithm that satisfies all of the requirements. Thus a trade-off will exist in
23
most cases, depending on which requirements are more important for the specific
application.
LSB in BMP – When embedding a message in a “raw” image, that has not been
changed with compression, such as a BMP, there exists a trade-off between the
invisibility of the message and the amount of information that can be embedded. A
BMP is capable of hiding quite a large message, but the fact that more bits are altered
results in a larger possibility that the altered bits can be seen with the human eye. The
main disadvantage regarding LSB in BMP images is surely the suspicion that might
arise from a very large BMP image being transmitted between parties, since BMP is
not widely used anymore.
Suggested applications: LSB in BMP is most suitable for applications where

the focus is on the amount of information to be transmitted and not on the secrecy of
that information.
LSB in GIF – The strong and weak points regarding embedding information in
GIF images using LSB are more or less the same as those of using LSB with BMP. The
main difference is that since GIF images only have a bit depth of 8, the amount of
information that can be hidden is less than with BMP. GIF images are especially
vulnerable to statistical – or visual attacks – since the palette processing that has to be
done leaves a very definite signature on the image. This approach is dependent on the
file format as well as the image itself, since a wrong choice of image can result in the
message being visible.
Suggested applications: LSB in GIF is a very efficient algorithm to use when

embedding a reasonable amount of data in a greyscale image.
JPEG compression – The process of embedding information during JPEG

compression results in a stego image with a high level of invisibility, since the
embedding takes place in the transform domain.JPEG is the most popular image file
format on the Internet and the image sizes are small because of the compression, thus
24
making it the least suspicious algorithm to use. However, the process of the
compression is a very mathematical process, making it more difficult to implement.
Suggested applications: The JPEG file format can be used for most
applications of steganography, but is especially suitable for images that have to be
communicated over an open systems environment like the Internet.
Patchwork – The biggest disadvantage of the patchwork approach is the small

amount of information that can be hidden in one image. This property can be changed
to accommodate more information but one may have to sacrifice the secrecy of the
information. Patchwork’s main advantage, however, is its robustness against malicious
or unintentional image manipulation. Should a stego image using patchwork be
cropped or rotated, some of the message data may be lost but since the message is
repeatedly embedded in the image, most of the information will survive.
Suggested applications: Patchwork is most suitable for transmitting a small

amount of very sensitive information.
Spread spectrum – Spread spectrum techniques satisfies most requirements and

is especially robust against statistical attacks, since the hidden information is scattered
throughout the image, while not changing the statistical properties.
Suggested applications: Spread spectrum techniques can be used for most

steganography applications, although its highly mathematical and intricate approach
may prove too much for some.
Need of the Steganography
Steganography can be used anytime you want to hide data. There are many reasons to
hide data but they all boil down to the desire to prevent unauthorized persons from
25
becoming aware of the existence of a message. In the business world Steganography
can be used to hide a secret chemical formula or plans for a new invention.
Steganography can also be used for corporate espionage by sending out trade secrets
without anyone at the company being any the wiser. Steganography can also be used
in the noncommercial sector to hide information that someone wants to keep private.
Spies have used it since the time of the Greeks to pass messages undetected. Terrorists
can also use Steganography to keep their communications secret and to coordinate
attacks. It is exactly this potential that we will investigate in the next section. Because
you can hide information without the cover source changing, Steganography can also
be used to implement watermarking. Although the concept of watermarking is not
necessarily Steganography, there are several Steganographic techniques that are being
used to store watermarks in data. The main difference is on intent, while the purpose
of Steganography is hiding information, watermarking is merely extending the cover
source with extra information. Since people will not accept noticeable changes in
images, audio or video files because of a watermark, Steganographic methods can be
used to hide this.
Related Works:
There are many Steganography tools which are capable of hiding data within an
image. These tools can be classified into five categories based on their algorithms:
(1) spatial domain based tools; (2) transform domain based tools; (3) document
based tools; (4) file structure based tools; and (5) other categories such as
video compress encoding and spread spectrum technique based tools. The
spatial domain based Steganography tools use either the LSB or Bit Plane
Complexity Segmentation (BPCS) algorithm. The LSB algorithm uses
either a sequential or scattered embedding schemes for hiding the message
bits in the image. In the sequential embedding scheme, the LSBs of the
image are replaced by the message bit sequentially (i.e. one by one in order,
as mentioned in the introduction). In the scattered embedding scheme, the
message bits are randomly.Scattered throughout the whole image using a
random sequence to control the embedding sequence. Two basic types of
LSB modifications can be used for the embedding schemes . They are LSB
replacement and LSB matching. In LSB replacement, the LSB of the
carrier is replaced by the message bit directly. On the other hand, in LSB
matching if the LSB of the cover pixel is the same as the message bit, then it
remains unchanged; otherwise, it is randomly incremented or decremented
by one. This technique, however, requires both the sender and the receiver
to have the same original image, which makes LSB matching very
26
inconvenient .The current Steganography tools based on the LSB
algorithms include S-Tools, Hide and Seek, Hide4PGP and Secure Engine
Professional. These tools support BMP, GIF, PNG images and WAV audio
files as the carriers [36]. Each of these tools has unique features. S-Tools
reduce the number of colors in the image to only 32 colors. Hide and Seek
makes all the palette entries divisible by four. In addition, it forces the
images sizes to be 320x200, 320x400, 320x480, 640x400 or 1024x3668
pixels.Hide4PGP embeds the message in every LSB of an 8-bit BMP images,
and in every fourth LSB of a 24- bit BMP image. These applications are
flawed because they do not analyze the image file after it has been
embedded with data to see how vulnerable it is to steganalysis. The
transform domain based Steganography tools embed the message in the
transform coefficients of the image. The main transform domain algorithm
is JSteg .These applications can only work with JPGs because most other
image formats do not perform transforms on their data. The document
based steganography tools embed the secret message in document files by
adding tabs or spaces to .txt or .doc files .These applications are limited
because they only work with document files. They also cannot hide much
data because there are a very limited number of tabs or spaces they can
reasonably be added to a document. In addition, they are vulnerable to
steganalysis because it is easy for an attacker to notice a document file that
has been embedded with additional tabs or spaces. The file structure based
steganography tools embed the secret message in the redundant bits of a
cover file such as the reserved bits in the file header or the marker segments
in the file format. These applications cannot hide very large data files
because there are a very limited number of header or marker segments
available for embedding hidden data. There are also steganography tools
based on video compression and spread spectrum techniques. The large size
of video files provides more usable space for hiding of the message. The
spread spectrum technique spreads the energy of embedded message to a
wide frequency band, making the hidden message difficult to detect .These
Steganography tools are inconvenient because they require the users to send
an entire video file every time they want to send hidden data.
Required Hardware & Software
Required Software to implement our work is Visual Basic, and minimum

hardware required is RAM 2 GB, hard disk 500 GB etc.
Problem Formulation
Problem Statement:
27
♦ Alice and Bob are in male/female prisons and want to communicate to make an
escape plan. Willie warden would let them communicate but would monitor the
communication.
♦ Same as in our case if we sent the data by a solution needs to be found out such
that the communication would seem to be innocent to person who is not aware
that “something lies beneath it”. Embedding it into an image, audio or text file,
the interceptor would not able to guess about the embedded data in image.
Steganography – Modern Day
Design and Implementation
28
We have done a method to hide information into an audio file, image file &text file.
We describe this algorithm & flow chart below:
Flowchart:
Sender site Receiver site
Take the stego

object image
Extract data
from stego
object
Take the secret

message
Choose a good Take the data

encryption algorithm
Choose decryption
algorithm
Encrypt the message
Decrypt
message
Merge the
encrypted text send Receive the
with stego object message
General Algorithm to Hide Information into an Image File:
29
We design a modified LSB coding method, which is described below:
The steps of modified LSB (Least significant bit encoding) algorithm are:
Step 1: Convert the image/audio/text file in bit pattern.
Step 2: Then encrypt the message which you want to send, using any encryption
algorithm .
Step 3: Then convert the message in bit pattern.
Step 4: Then replace the LSB bit from image/audio/text file with bit from
character of the message.
Step 5: The process is reversed for message extraction .
CODING
30
Code for splash screen:
Code for Enter bottom:

Private Sub Command1_Click()
LOG.Show
Splash.Hide
End Sub
Code for Exit bottom:

Unload Me
End Sub
Code for Login Form:

Code for Admin Login bottom:
db.Open
Set rs = db.Execute("SELECT * FROM login where username='" & txt_username.Text &
"'")
If (txt_password = "" And txt_username = "") Then
MsgBox "Login not possible"
Else
If Not rs.EOF() Then
If (rs(1) = txt_password.Text) Then
MsgBox "Login Successful"
Form5.Show
Unload Me
Else
MsgBox "Login not success"
31
End If
Else
MsgBox "EOF Reached"
End If
End If
db.Close
End Sub
Code for Cancel bottom:

Unload Me
End Sub
Code for manage user , steganogrphy tool & Log out:

Code for manage user:
USERREG.Show
Unload Me
End Sub
Code for user registration form:

Code for common code:
Private Sub CLEARCONTROLS()
USERIDCMB.Visible = False
REGFRAME.Visible = True
USERTYPEADD
USERIDTXT.Text = ""
PASSTXT.Text = ""
32
REPASSTXT.Text = ""
USERNAMETXT.Text = ""
USERIDTXT.SetFocus
End Sub
Code for UserId Add:

Private Sub USERIDADD()
USERIDCMB.Clear
Set RS1 = db.Execute("SELECT USERID FROM VALIDATION")
While RS1.EOF = False
USERIDCMB.AddItem RS1(0)
RS1.MoveNext
Wend
End Sub
Code for User Type:

Private Sub USERTYPEADD()
USERTYPECMB.Clear
USERTYPECMB.AddItem "ADMINISTRATOR"
USERTYPECMB.AddItem "OPERATOR"
End Sub
Code for ADD OPTION:

Private Sub ADDOPT_Click()
CLEARCONTROLS
End Sub
Code for BACK bottom:

Private Sub Back_Click()
33
Form5.Show
Unload Me
End Sub
Code for DELETE OPTION:

Private Sub DELOPT_Click()
REGFRAME.Visible = False
Label7.Visible = True
USERIDCMB.Visible = True
USERIDADD
End Sub
Code for Form Load:

Private Sub Form_Load()
db.Open
Me.Width = Screen.Width
PASSTXT.PasswordChar = "^"
REPASSTXT.PasswordChar = "^"
REGFRAME.Visible = False
USERIDCMB.Visible = False
Label7.Visible = False
End Sub
Code for MODIFY OPTION:
Private Sub MODOPT_Click()
CLEARCONTROLS
End Sub
Code for REGISTER bottom:
34
Private Sub REGBTN_Click()
If DELOPT.Value = True Then
db.Execute ("DELETE FROM VALIDATION WHERE USERID='" & USERIDCMB.Text
& "'")
MsgBox "Record Deleted."
Unload Me
ADDOPT_Click
End If
If ADDOPT.Value = True Then
Set RS1 = db.Execute("SELECT USERID,UserName FROM VALIDATION")
If RS1!UserID = USERIDTXT.Text Or RS1!UserName = USERNAMETXT.Text Then
MsgBox "SELECT DIFFERENT USERID!"
ADDOPT_Click
Exit Sub
End If
RS1.MoveNext
Wend
db.Execute ("INSERT INTO VALIDATION VALUES('" & USERIDTXT.Text & "','" _
& USERNAMETXT.Text & "','" & PASSTXT.Text & "','" & USERTYPECMB.Text &
"')")
MsgBox "RECORD SAVED"
ADDOPT_Click
End If
If MODOPT.Value = True Then
Dim FOUND As Boolean
FOUND = False
Set RS1 = db.Execute("SELECT USERID FROM VALIDATION")
If RS1!UserID = USERIDTXT.Text Then
35
FOUND = True
End If
RS1.MoveNext
Wend
If FOUND = True Then
db.Execute ("DELETE FROM VALIDATION WHERE USERID='" & USERIDTXT.Text
& "'")
db.Execute ("INSERT INTO VALIDATION VALUES('" & USERIDTXT.Text & "','" _
& USERNAMETXT.Text & "','" & PASSTXT.Text & "','" & USERTYPECMB.Text &
"')")
Else
MsgBox "USERID NOT FOUND"
End If
End If
End Sub
Private Sub REPASSTXT_LostFocus()
If REPASSTXT.Text <> PASSTXT.Text Then
MsgBox "PASSWORD DOES NOT MATCH"
PASSTXT.Text = ""
REPASSTXT.Text = ""
PASSTXT.SetFocus
Exit Sub
End If
End Sub
Code for stego tool:
Form1.Show
Unload Me
End Sub
Code for Steganography Tool:
36
Private Declare Function OSGetPrivateProfileInt Lib "kernel32" Alias
"GetPrivateProfileIntA" (ByVal lpApplicationName As String, ByVal lpKeyName As
String, ByVal nDefault As Long, ByVal lpFileName As String) As Long
Private Declare Function OSGetPrivateProfileSection Lib "kernel32" Alias
"GetPrivateProfileSectionA" (ByVal lpAppName As String, ByVal lpReturnedString As
String, ByVal nSize As Long, ByVal lpFileName As String) As Long
Private Declare Function OSGetPrivateProfileString Lib "kernel32" Alias
"GetPrivateProfileStringA" (ByVal lpApplicationName As String, ByVal lpKeyName As
Any, ByVal lpDefault As String, ByVal lpReturnedString As String, ByVal nSize As Long,
ByVal lpFileName As String) As Long
Private Declare Function OSWritePrivateProfileSection Lib "kernel32" Alias

"WritePrivateProfileSectionA" (ByVal lpAppName As String, ByVal lpString As String,
ByVal lpFileName As String) As Long
Private Declare Function OSWritePrivateProfileString Lib "kernel32" Alias
"WritePrivateProfileStringA" (ByVal lpApplicationName As String, ByVal lpKeyName As
Any, ByVal lpString As Any, ByVal lpFileName As String) As Long
Private Declare Function OSGetProfileInt Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetProfileIntA" (ByVal
lpAppName As String, ByVal lpKeyName As String, ByVal nDefault As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function OSGetProfileSection Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetProfileSectionA"
(ByVal lpAppName As String, ByVal lpReturnedString As String, ByVal nSize As Long)
As Long
Private Declare Function OSGetProfileString Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetProfileStringA"
(ByVal lpAppName As String, ByVal lpKeyName As String, ByVal lpDefault As String,
ByVal lpReturnedString As String, ByVal nSize As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function OSWriteProfileSection Lib "kernel32" Alias
"WriteProfileSectionA" (ByVal lpAppName As String, ByVal lpString As String) As Long
Private Declare Function OSWriteProfileString Lib "kernel32" Alias "WriteProfileStringA"
(ByVal lpszSection As String, ByVal lpszKeyName As String, ByVal lpszString As String)
As Long
'Private Const nBUFSIZEINI = 1024
'Private Const nBUFSIZEINIALL = 4096
Private Const nBUFSIZEINI = 10000
Private Const nBUFSIZEINIALL = 10000
Private Function SaveSettings(Optional IfEncypted As Boolean)
Dim fFile As Integer, str(11) As String, i, tt As Double
fFile = FreeFile
37
If CheckIfAlready = True Then Exit Function
Open fl For Append As fFile
Print #fFile, vbCrLf
Print #fFile, "[x]"
If IfEncypted = True Then
Print #fFile, "me=" & Mess
DoEvents
Else
Print #fFile, "to=" & Text1.Text
Print #fFile, "su=" & Text2.Text
Print #fFile, "bo=" & Text3.Text
DoEvents
End If
Close fFile
MsgBox "The information has been successfully written in the file!", vbInformation,
"Done"
End Function
Private Function SaveSettingsSection(ByVal NewSectionName As String, Optional
IfEncypted As Boolean)
Dim fFile As Integer, str(11) As String, i, tt As Double
fFile = FreeFile
Open fl For Append As fFile
Print #fFile, vbCrLf
Print #fFile, "[" & NewSectionName & "]"
If IfEncypted = True Then
Print #fFile, "me=" & Mess
DoEvents
Else
Print #fFile, "to=" & Text1.Text
Print #fFile, "su=" & Text2.Text
38
Print #fFile, "bo=" & Text3.Text
DoEvents
End If
Close fFile
MsgBox "The information has been successfully written in the file!", vbInformation,
"Done"
End Function
Private Function CheckIfAlready() As Boolean

On Error Resume Next
Dim st As String, i As Integer, n As Integer
Open fl For Input As 1
OpenTheFile fl, st, 1
For i = 1 To Len(st)
n = InStr(1, st, "[x]")
Next
If n <> 0 Then
If MsgBox("This file already contains hidden information. Do you want to view it now or
reset it?", vbInformation + vbOKCancel, "Found") = vbOK Then
Command2_Click
CheckIfAlready = True
Else
'delete data
For i = n To Len(st)
Regenerate "c:\x.bmp", n, ""
Next
CheckIfAlready = True
MsgBox "The file has been reset. It can now be used!"
'Exit Function
End If
39
Else
MsgBox "No Information Found! The file can be used!"
CheckIfAlready = False
End If
Close fl
End Function
Public Sub OpenTheFile(ByVal TheFilename As String, Storage As String, Optional Mode

As Integer)
If Mode = 2 Then
test = ""
If TheFilename = "" Then Exit Sub
Open TheFilename For Output As 1
'Write #1, ""
Print #1, " "
Close 1
Exit Sub
Else
If Mode = 1 Then
test = ""
If TheFilename = "" Then Exit Sub
Open TheFilename For Input As 1
While Not EOF(1)
Line Input #1, test
Storage = Storage & test 'Replace(RTrim(test), Chr(34), "")
Wend
Close 1
Exit Sub
End If
40
End If
'TrapIt: ' MsgBox err.Description, vbCritical, " Error"
End Sub
Private Function Regenerate(ByVal FileName As String, ByVal byteLocation As Long,
ByVal SaveData As String)
'On Error Resume Next
Dim txt$, Fls As New FileSystemObject
'Fls.CreateTextFile FileName, True
txt$ = SaveData
Open (FileName) For Binary As #1
Put #1, byteLocation, ""
Close #1
End Function
Private Sub Combo1_Click()

c1.FileName = ""
If Combo1.ListIndex = 0 Then
c1.DialogTitle = "Select a text file or document..."
c1.Filter = "All Doc's |*.txt;*.doc;*.ppt"
c1.ShowOpen
image1.Picture = LoadPicture()
image1.Cls
image1.Print "TEXT FILE"
Else
c1.DialogTitle = "Select an image file..."
c1.Filter = "All Image Files |*.bmp;*.jpeg;*.jpg;*.gif;*.png;*.tiff"
c1.ShowOpen
image1.Cls
41
image1.Picture = LoadPicture(c1.FileName)
Else
c1.DialogTitle = "Select a video file..."
c1.Filter = "All Video Files |*.avi;*.mpeg;*.mpg"
c1.ShowOpen
image1.Cls
image1.Print "VIDEO FILE"
Else
c1.DialogTitle = "Select a File..."
c1.Filter = "All Files *.*|*.*"
c1.ShowOpen
image1.Cls
image1.Print "ARBITRARY FILE"
End If
End If
End If
End If
fl = c1.FileName
Mess = ""
End Sub
If Mess <> "" Then
If MsgBox("Are you sure you want to add the following encrypted information into the
selected file ? " & vbCrLf & Mess, vbInformation + vbOKCancel, "Save Data") = vbOK
Then
SaveSettings True
42
Exit Sub
End If
Else
Mess = ""
If MsgBox("Are you sure you want to add the Entered information into the selected file ? "
& vbCrLf & Mess, vbInformation + vbOKCancel, "Save Data") = vbOK Then
SaveSettings False
Exit Sub
End If
End If
End Sub

Dialog1.Show
End Sub
Dim tt, s As String
Dim m As String
Dim n(3) As String
m = GetPrivateProfileString("x", "me", "", fl)
Mess = m
If m = "" Or m = " " Then
n(1) = GetPrivateProfileString("x", "to", "", fl)
n(2) = GetPrivateProfileString("x", "su", "", fl)
n(3) = GetPrivateProfileString("x", "bo", "", fl)
Dialog2.Text1.Text = "To \ from : " & n(1) & vbCrLf & "Subject : " & n(2) & vbCrLf &
"Body : " & n(3)
Dialog2.Show
MsgBox "The information has been successfully retrieved!", vbInformation, "Information"
Exit Sub
43
Else
If Left(m, 4) = "**0*" Then
MsgBox "This file is encrypted! You must enter a password to authorize...", vbInformation,
"Encrypted File"
decryptit
Exit Sub
End If
End If
End Sub
Public Function decryptit()

Dim x As Integer
Dim EncStr As String
Dim EncKey As String
Dim TempEncKey As String
Dim EncLen As Integer
Dim EncPos As Integer
Dim EncKeyPos As Integer
Dim tempChar As String
Dim TA As Integer, TB As Integer, TC As Integer
TempEncKey = InputBox("Enter the Password to access this file!", "Enter Password!",
"")
If TempEncKey = "" Then Exit Function
EncStr = ""
EncPos = 1
EncKeyPos = 1
For x = 1 To Len(TempEncKey)
EncKey = EncKey & Asc(Mid$(TempEncKey, x, 1))
Next
EncLen = Len(EncKey)
44
For x = 6 To Len(Mess) Step 8
TB = Asc(Mid$(EncKey, EncKeyPos, 1))
EncKeyPos = EncKeyPos + 1
If EncKeyPos > EncLen Then EncKeyPos = 1
tempChar = Mid$(Mess, x, 8)
TA = BintoDec(tempChar)
TC = TB Xor TA
EncStr = EncStr & Chr$(TC)
Next
Mess = EncStr
Dialog2.Text1.Text = Mess
Dialog2.Show
End Function
CheckIfAlready
End Sub

SavePicture image1.Picture, App.Path & "\test.bmp"
Dialog.Show
End Sub

Mess = ""
Mess = Mess & vbCrLf & _
"To \ From - " & Text1.Text & vbCrLf & _
"Subject - " & Text2.Text & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
"Body - " & Text3.Text & vbCrLf & _
"End of Message"
45
If MsgBox("Are you sure you want to encrypt the following information ? " & vbCrLf &
Mess, vbInformation + vbOKCancel, "Save Data") = vbOK Then
Dim x As Integer
Dim tempTxt
'**0*
If Left(m, 4) = "**0*" Then
MsgBox "The file is already encrypted!", vbInformation, "File already encrypted!"
Exit Sub
End If
Dim EncStr As String
Dim EncKey As String, TempEncKey As String
Dim EncLen As Integer
Dim EncPos As Integer
Dim EncKeyPos As Integer
Dim tempChar As String
Dim TA As Integer, TB As Integer, TC As Integer
TempEncKey = InputBox("Enter the Password", "Password!")
If TempEncKey = "" Then Exit Sub
EncStr = ""
EncPos = 1
EncKeyPos = 1
For x = 1 To Len(TempEncKey)
EncKey = EncKey & Asc(Mid$(TempEncKey, x, 1))
Next
EncLen = Len(EncKey)
For x = 1 To Len(Mess)
TB = Asc(Mid$(EncKey, EncKeyPos, 1))
EncKeyPos = EncKeyPos + 1
If EncKeyPos > EncLen Then
EncKeyPos = 1
46
End If
TA = Asc(Mid$(Mess, x, 1))
TC = TB Xor TA
tempChar = GetBinary(TC)
EncStr = EncStr & tempChar
Next
Mess = ""
Mess = "**0* " & EncStr
Else
Exit Sub
End If
End Sub

Dim st As String, i As Integer, n As Integer
Dim m As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer
Dim ia(50) As Integer, ib(50) As Integer, r As Integer
Dim tempS(100) As String, tempSa As String
OpenTheFile fl, st, 1
'Number of sections and encypted 1's
If Mid(st, i, 1) = "[" Then
n=n+1
Else
End If
Next
If Mid(st, i, 1) = "me= " Or Mid(st, i, 1) = "me=" Then
47
m=m+1
Else
End If
Next
'Name of various sections
r=1
If Mid(st, i, 1) = "[" Then
ia(r) = i
r=r+1
Else
End If
Next
r=1
If Mid(st, i, 1) = "]" Then
ib(r) = i
r=r+1
Else
End If
Next
For k = 1 To r
tempS(k) = Mid(st, ia(k), (ib(k) - ia(k)) + 1)
tempSa = tempSa & vbCrLf & tempS(k)
Next
MsgBox "The following information was retrieved :" & vbCrLf & _
"Number of sections : " & n & vbCrLf & _
"Number of Encrypted Sections: " & m & vbCrLf & _
"Number of Non Encrypted Sections: " & (n - m) & vbCrLf & _
48
"Name of the various Sections: " & tempSa, vbInformation, "Data Hider"
End Sub

Dialog3.Show
End Sub

If Mess <> "" Then
If MsgBox("Are you sure you want to add the following encrypted information into the
selected file ? " & vbCrLf & Mess, vbInformation + vbOKCancel, "Save Data") = vbOK
Then
SaveSettingsSection InputBox("Enter a section name here.Make sure you donot enter s
name that is already there in the file.. : ", "New Section", "New Section"), True
Exit Sub
End If
Else
Mess = ""
If MsgBox("Are you sure you want to add the entered information into the selected file ? "
& vbCrLf & Mess, vbInformation + vbOKCancel, "Save Data") = vbOK Then
SaveSettingsSection InputBox("Enter a section name here.Make sure you donot enter s
name that is already there in the file.. : ", "New Section", "New Section"), False
Exit Sub
End If
End If
End Sub
Private Sub Form_Load()

'On Error Resume Next
End Sub
49
Public Function GetPrivateProfileString(ByVal szSection As String, ByVal szEntry As
Variant, ByVal szDefault As String, ByVal szFileName As String) As String
' *** Get an entry in the inifile ***
Dim szTmp As String
Dim nRet As Long
If (IsNull(szEntry)) Then
' *** Get names of all entries in the named Section ***
szTmp = String$(nBUFSIZEINIALL, 0)
nRet = OSGetPrivateProfileString(szSection, 0&, szDefault, szTmp,
nBUFSIZEINIALL, szFileName)
Else
' *** Get the value of the named Entry ***
szTmp = String$(nBUFSIZEINI, 0)
nRet = OSGetPrivateProfileString(szSection, CStr(szEntry), szDefault, szTmp,
nBUFSIZEINI, szFileName)
End If
GetPrivateProfileString = Left$(szTmp, nRet)
End Function
Private Function GetProfileString(ByVal szSection As String, ByVal szEntry As
Variant, ByVal szDefault As String) As String
' *** Get an entry in the WIN inifile ***
Dim szTmp As String
Dim nRet As Long
If (IsNull(szEntry)) Then
' *** Get names of all entries in the named Section ***
szTmp = String$(nBUFSIZEINIALL, 0)
nRet = OSGetProfileString(szSection, 0&, szDefault, szTmp, nBUFSIZEINIALL)
Else
' *** Get the value of the named Entry ***
szTmp = String$(nBUFSIZEINI, 0)
nRet = OSGetProfileString(szSection, CStr(szEntry), szDefault, szTmp, nBUFSIZEINI)
50
End If
GetProfileString = Left$(szTmp, nRet)
End Function
Private Sub Image1_Click()

'c1.Filter = "All Files *.*|*.*"
End Sub
Code for LOG OUT:

LOG.Show
Unload Me
End Sub
SNAP SHOT
51
SPLASH SCREEN (WELCOME SCREEN TO THE PROJECT)
LOGIN SCREEN (USER AUTHENTICATION)
52
LOGIN SCREEN AFTER SUCCESSFUL LOGIN
(VALID USER AUTHENTICATION)
ADMINISTRATIVE MENU SCREEN AFTER SUCCESSFUL LOGIN
MANAGE USER FORM
53
NEW USER REGISTRATION FORM
54
STEGANOGRAPHY TOOL FORM
ENCRYPTING THE MESSAGE FOR IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY
55
ENCRYPTING THE MESSAGE FOR IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY
THE GENERATED BIT STREAM FOR THE PLAIN TEXT
56
THE CARRIER FILE (IMAGE SELECTED) IS MESSAGE FREE
PLAIN TEXT HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY EMBEDED IN IMAGE
57
MESSAGE RETRIEVAL FROM IAMGE WITH PALIN TEXT
MESSAGE RETRIEVAL FROM IAMGE WITH PALIN TEXT
58
MESSAGE RETRIEVED FROM IAMGE WITH PALIN TEXT
Result
Result for image Steganography
For a picture with different Message length, to encrypt and decrypt a message the time
needed to execute will be different. And its corresponding graph is as follows:-
M e s s a g e s iz e v s E n c ry p t tim e M e s s a g e le n g th V s . D e c ry p t tim e
50 40
4 5 .0 6 7 3 7.667
35 35.067
40 40 .667
3 5 .0 9 2 30
30 29.8 75 25
Decrypt time(s)
Encrypt time(s)
23.092
20 19.875
20 15
10 10
5
0 0
6 9 12 18 1 2 3 4
m e ssa g e si z e (c h a re c te r) M e ssa g e le n g th (b y te )
59
Limitations
There are limitations on the use of steganography 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. Detecting hidden data remains an active area of research.
How do you protect against malicious Steganography?
Unfortunately, all of the methods mentioned above can also be used to hide illicit,
unauthorized or unwanted activity. What can be done to prevent or detect issues with
steganography? Other uses for steganography range from the trivial to the abhorrent,
including Criminal communications, Fraud, Hacking, Electronic payments, Gambling,
pornography, Harassment, Intellectual property offensesViruses,Pedophilia.
Advantages
Attempting to detect the use of steganography is called Steganalysis (the task of

detecting and possibly disabling steganographic information) and can be either
passive, where the presence of the hidden data is detected, or active, where an attempt
is made to retrieve the hidden data it is not infallible. But it considerably increases the
work of any experienced code-breaker, who must identify first the right carrier,
extract the sensitive data from it, and only after that (if he gets this far) – the hard
work of breaking the code. Today, less painful but more cryptic methods could be used
to hide information in publicly available web site images. The image is visibly
indiscernible even to a trained eye. The only hope is to enlist science to see past the
pixels, but is this possible?
60
STEGANOGRAPHY vs CRYPTOGRAPHY
Cryptography Hides your

sensitive data
into innocent
(i) Message is not hidden.
files, so nobody
(ii) Enemy can intercept the message. can find them.
(iii) Enemy can decrypt the message.

Several strong encryption
Steganography algorithms (AES - Rijndael,
Blowfish, Twofish, GOST,
(i) Message is hidden. Cast128, RC4, etc.).
(ii) Enemy must discover the medium.
File encryption is based on encryption algorithms - a process capable of translating

data into a secret code. In Cryptography, encrypted message is sent. If it is
intercepted, the interceptor knows that the text is an encrypted message. In
Steganography, the fact that the message is being sent is unknown. So, the interceptor
may not know the object contains a message. Steganography is not intended to replace
Cryptography but supplement it, Cryptography + Steganography = Secured
Steganography.
STEGANOGRAPHY vs DIGITAL WATERMARK
Digital watermark
Digital watermarks are employed in an attempt to provide proof of ownership and

identify illicit copying and distribution of multimedia information. The role of digital
watermarking as a means of aiding in copyright and ownership issues. Alternatives to
digital watermarking techniques are explored as countermeasures to distortion attacks
against carrier. Despite, Steganography may have nothing to do with the cover which
is the object of communication.
Future Scope:
61
In future we can use other stronger encoding and decoding & stronger encryption &
decryption algorithm to provide more security to send the message.
This project has been developed for embedding image files into “jpg” files &audio files
into “wav” files & text into “txt” file. In the near future, this may be extended to hide
any type of file into any other type of file. Enhancements should be made to
contemplate video and other files.
The methods used in the science of steganography have advanced a lot over the past
centuries, especially with the rise of the computer era. Although the techniques are
still not used very often, the possibilities are endless. Many different techniques exist
and continue to be developed, while the ways of detecting hidden messages also
advance quickly.
Conclusion
Although only some of the main image steganographic techniques were discussed in
this paper, one can see thatthere exists a large selection of approaches to hiding
information in images. All the major image file formats have different methods of
hiding messages, with different strong and weak points respectively. Where one
technique lacks in payload capacity, the other lacks in robustness. For example, the
patchwork approach has a very high level of robustness against most type of attacks,
but can hide only a very small amount of information. Least significant bit (LSB) in
both BMP and GIF makes up for this, but both approaches result in suspicious files
that increase the probability of detection when in the presence of a warden.
Thus for an agent to decide on which steganographic algorithm to use, he would have
to decide on the type of application he want to use the algorithm for and if he is willing
to compromise on some features to ensure the security of others.
List of references
62
[1] Moerland, T., “Steganography and Steganalysis”, Leiden Institute of Advanced
Computing Science, www.liacs.nl/home/ tmoerl/privtech.pdf
[2] Silman, J., “Steganography and Steganalysis: An Overview”, SANS Institute, 2001
[3] Jamil, T., “Steganography: The art of hiding information is plain sight”, IEEE
Potentials, 18:01, 1999
[4] Wang, H & Wang, S, “Cyber warfare: Steganography vs. Steganalysis”,
Communications of the ACM, 47:10, October 2004
[5] Anderson, R.J. & Petitcolas, F.A.P., “On the limits of steganography”, IEEE
Journal of selected Areas in Communications, May 1998
[6] Marvel, L.M., Boncelet Jr., C.G. & Retter, C., “Spread Spectrum Steganography”,
IEEE Transactions on image processing, 8:08, 1999
[7] Dunbar, B., “Steganographic techniques and their use in an Open-Systems
environment”, SANS Institute, January 2002
[8] Artz, D., “Digital Steganography: Hiding Data within Data”, IEEE Internet
Computing Journal, June 2001
[9] Simmons, G., “The prisoners problem and the subliminal channel”, CRYPTO, 1983
[10] Chandramouli, R., Kharrazi, M. & Memon, N., “Image steganography and
steganalysis: Concepts and Practice”, Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop
on Digital Watermarking, October 2003
[11] Currie, D.L. & Irvine, C.E., “Surmounting the effects of lossy compression on
Steganography”, 19th National Information Systems Security Conference, 1996
[12] Handel, T. & Sandford, M., “Hiding data in the OSI network model”,
Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Information Hiding, June 1996
[13] Ahsan, K. & Kundur, D., “Practical Data hiding in TCP/IP”, Proceedings of the
Workshop on Multimedia Security at ACM Multimedia, 2002
[14] Johnson, N.F. & Jajodia, S., “Exploring Steganography: Seeing the Unseen”,
Computer Journal, February 1998
[15] “Reference guide: Graphics Technical Options and Decisions”,
http://www.devx.com/projectcool/Article/19997
[16] Owens, M., “A discussion of covert channels and steganography”, SANS Institute,
2002
[17] Johnson, N.F. & Jajodia, S., “Steganalysis of Images Created Using Current
Steganography Software”, Proceedings of the 2nd Information Hiding Workshop, April
1998
[18] Venkatraman, S., Abraham, A. & Paprzycki, M., “Significance of Steganography
on Data Security”, Proceedings of the International Conference on Information
Technology: Coding and Computing, 2004
63
[19] Krenn, R., “Steganography and Steganalysis”,
http://www.krenn.nl/univ/cry/steg/article.pdf
[20] Lee, Y.K. & Chen, L.H., “High capacity image steganographic model”, Visual
Image Signal Processing, 147:03, June 2000
[21] Provos, N. & Honeyman, P., “Hide and Seek: An introduction to steganography”,
IEEE Security and Privacy Journal, 2003
[22] Bender, W., Gruhl, D., Morimoto, N. & Lu, A., “Techniques for data hiding”,
IBM Systems Journal, Vol 35, 1996
[23] Petitcolas, F.A.P., Anderson, R.J. & Kuhn, M.G., “Information Hiding – A
survey”, Proceedings of the IEEE, 87:07, July 1999
[24] T Morkel, JHP Eloff and MS Olivier, "An Overview of Image Steganography," in
Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Information Security South Africa Conference
(ISSA2005), Sandton, South Africa, June/July 2005 (Published electronically)
64

Stego Final

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Исходное описание:

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Stego Final

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Design and Implementation

Project Submitted as Partial Fulfillment of the

SUPARNA NATH,TIAS PATRA,TRIPTI MAITY students of Diploma in 3rd year (6th

Project Title: Design and Implementation of Steganography Techniques

3rd Year, 6th Semester of Department of Diploma in COMPUTER

Developing a project for research analysis is no doubt a scientific step

In the preparation of this project and its formation it is represented that

We are also greatly indebted to Mr.Amit Kumar Mistry, HOD of

Thanking all of them and above all, to HIM.

The report of the Project entitled ‘Design & Implementation of Steganography

(Prof. Amit Kumar Mistry)

Dept. of Computer Science & Technology

(Prof. Amit Kumar Mistry)

Head of the Department

Computer Science & Technology

Women’s Polytechnic, Kolkata – 700 068,

most valued by civilized man”.

- Justice Louis Brandies, US Supreme Court, 1928.

Steganography refers to the science of ‘secret’ communication. In Steganography

Cryptography, Watermark, Steganalysis, JPEG, BMP, Encryption, Covert channels,

Decryption, Least Significant Bit.

What is Steganography: Steganography literally means

covered writing or hidden writing i.e., writing that is known

to casual observer, is derived from Greek words ‘steganos’

meaning covered or secret and ‘graphy’ meaning writing or

drawing. This technique includes all methods of secure and

secret communication that conceal the existence of secret

The secret communications methods are invisible dots, microdots, character

“Apparently neutral's protest is thoroughly discounted

Different types of Steganography:

Image Steganography, Audio Steganography, Video Steganography, Text

• Least significant bit insertion

Least significant bit insertion

Fig. 1: The cover image Fig. 2: The stego-image

Masking and filtering

Masking and filtering techniques are mostly used on 24 bit

Encrypt and Scatter

In the next sections steganographic algorithms will be explained in categories

Categories of image steganography

LSB and Palette Based Images

Evaluation of different techniques

Payload capacity – Unlike watermarking, which needs to embed only a small

Robustness against statistical attacks – Statistical steganalysis is the

Robustness against image manipulation – In the communication of a

Unsuspicious files – This requirement includes all characteristics of a

LSB in JPEG Spread

Invisibility High* Medium* High High High

* - Depends on cover image used

Suggested applications: LSB in BMP is most suitable for applications where

Suggested applications: LSB in GIF is a very efficient algorithm to use when

JPEG compression – The process of embedding information during JPEG

Patchwork – The biggest disadvantage of the patchwork approach is the small

Suggested applications: Patchwork is most suitable for transmitting a small

Spread spectrum – Spread spectrum techniques satisfies most requirements and

Suggested applications: Spread spectrum techniques can be used for most

Need of the Steganography

Required Hardware & Software

Required Software to implement our work is Visual Basic, and minimum

Steganography – Modern Day

Design and Implementation

Sender site Receiver site

Take the stego

Take the secret