Through the long history of cryptography, steganography was developed and flourished.While steganography hides the presence of a secret communication, cryptography leaves it palpable. They eventually found their answer: steganography.Cryptography and steganography also contribute to Computer Science. As Vawtrak spread to computers across the globe, laying waste to everything in its path, researchers puzzled over how it managed to spread secretly, evading capture and virus scans. Worse still, it keeps adapting, remaining out of reach of virus scanners.
It is very old way of hiding secret data, but it changes a lot with the introduction of new technologies.Even though the term steganography was invented in the early 16 th century, the use of secret communication dates back a couple of millennia. Steganography is an art of hiding data inside data.Steganography is a form of security technique which is used to hide secret messages in various types of files, including digital images, audio and video. Nevertheless, this article will tackle steganography as a distinct way of ensuring information security.INTRODUCTION STEGANOGRAPHY. Some scholars treat steganography as a method of encryption.
History of SteganographyThroughout history, individuals have been concealing messages through numerous approaches and variations. On the other hand, linguistic steganography hides a message in a transport medium in a manner that is hard to detect (Cheong et al., 2014). The experimental methods include microdots, invisible ink, and other size-reduction mechanisms. There are two main categories of steganography technical and linguistic steganography (Cheong et al., 2014).Technical steganography applies experimental techniques to conceal a communication. The parties may use a steganography key to encrypt the concealed message or randomize the scheme. Development, Definition of fingerprint, History of Fingerprint.The clandestine communication is attached to the carrier to create the steganography medium.
The recipient of the message had to trim the messenger’s hair to retrieve the communication. Once the hair grew back, it was hard for people to notice the message. It was hard for other people to suspect that a wax-coated tablet contained significant information (Chiew & Pieprzyk, 2010).Another ingenious method was to “shave the head of a messenger and tattoo a message or image on the messenger’s head” (Fridrich, Goljan, & Hogea, 2012, p. To relay a secreted message, an individual would scrap wax off a tablet, engrave a communication and conceal it using wax.
The need for hiding sensitive information led to the invention of the microdot technology (Fridrich et al., 2012). Later, technological development made it easy for third parties to recognize concealed messages.Consequently, people had to look for alternative methods of relaying clandestine messages. It was hard for a third party to detect a signal included in a message. The inks enabled people to encrypt a message in an apparently innocent letter.
Indeed, the present development of computer technology has resulted in a revolution in steganography.People continue to store massive and sensitive information in computers and broadcast it over networks. Some information security experts have built on ancient steganographic methods. It made it easy for government agencies and criminal groups to relay information undetected.As computer experts continue to develop programs that can detect hidden communications, people are developing novel steganographic applications.
(2012) hold that steganography offers some quite valuable and economically essential roles in the digital universe. Nevertheless, most messages are transmitted in the form of audio and image files.Hamid et al. Today, there are steganographic applications that enable people to hide any form of a binary file in other records.
(2006) posit, “Steganography continued to be seen as another aspect of the internet until the September 11 th attack against the United States” (p. Hernandez-Castro, Blasco-Lopez, Estevez-Tapiador and Ribagorda-Garnacho (2006) claim that steganography has been crucial in information warfare throughout history.Hernandez-Castro et al. Even though both digital watermarking and steganography use similar concepts, the former has singular technical objectives.The contemporary steganography allows people to conceal data in varied formats like text, images, internet protocol (IP) headers, and email. If other parties take the work and claim it to be theirs, the real owner can retrieve the watermark to substantiate their claims. 177).An artist, for instance, can publish their creative work on a website without fear that another person might steal it. Digital watermarking enables an author to “embed a hidden message in a file to safeguard the integrity of the content” (Hamid et al., 2012, p.
Consequently, the internet civil libertarians call for the law enforcers to institute stringent rules to govern encryption and steganography (Hernandez-Castro et al., 2006). Today, many people are apprehensive that terrorists may use steganography to stage a devastating cyber attack. They further noted that terrorists could entrench messages into pornographic image files, websites, notice boards, and chat rooms (Hernandez-Castro et al., 2006).However, it was hard for the media outlets to substantiate their claims since they never produced evidence.
Such an assumption helps to ensure that the communicating parties are cautious when concealing and relaying messages. Individuals sending messages through steganography should always presume that a third party is aware of the concealed message. Another principle is that the image or object used to hide information should remain unchanged (Hmood et al., 2010).People should not see changes in the stego-object as this might stir nosiness. A successful steganography is one that upholds the integrity and quality of the secret information. One of the principles is that the integrity of the concealed message must not change during and after concealment.In other words, the meaning and purpose of the hidden message should remain intact. Nonetheless, all the techniques and regulations must meet several principles for steganography to be useful.
History Of Steganography Before Computers Code Entire Message
The methods include feature, word shift, and line shift coding (Lin & Tsai, 2008). 407).Apart from the steganographic techniques used to conceal messages in images, individuals use numerous methods to hide messages in texts. The most conventional steganographic techniques used in images include “masking and filtering, least significant bit (LSB) insertion and transform techniques” (Lin & Tsai, 2008, p. Besides, some experts distribute a message haphazardly all over the image. According to Lin and Tsai (2008), IT experts have come up with multiple ways of entrenching messages in images such that it is hard to detect them.The experts encode entire message or segments of a message in “noisy” regions that are hard to detect. Over the years, information technology (IT) experts have come up with diverse techniques of embedding covert information in multimedia objects.
According to Luo (2010), the application uses EZStego tools to organize the palette and minimize the chances of arranging colors that differ so much close to one another. Changing an image may have significant repercussions on the concealed message.The least significant bit (LSB) insertion technique uses a steganographic application that packages LSB insertion to ensure that it is hard for a third party to detect a concealed message. The primary disadvantage of LSB is that it is susceptible to even a minor image change. The method entails attaching a message to a cover file.
The S-Tools facilitates minimization of the number of colors without affecting the quality of an image. For the 24-bit images, altering the least significant bit of the pixels may result in new colors. The S-Tools are different from the EZStego tools as the former require drastic palette changes (Luo, 2010). The method works fine in images with associated colors.Apart from EZStego tools, LSB technique also uses the S-Tools.
Unlike traditional steganography that hides information, the masking and filtering technique conceals messages by extending the information and assuming a characteristic of the cover image. Watermarking systems are more incorporated into the picture.Therefore, the system ensures that the quality of an image is not lost due to lossy compressions. The technique conceals messages by “marking an image in a manner similar to paper watermarks” (Papapanagiotou et al., 2007, p. Masking and FilteringPapapanagiotou, Kellinis, Marias, and Georgiadis (2007) allege that masking and filtering technique is useful in gray-scale and 24-bit images.
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