Communication in Veil: Enhanced Paradigm for ASCII Text Files

Digitization has a persuasive impact on information and communication technology (ICT) field which can be realized from the fact that today one seldom think to stand in long awaiting queue just to deposit utility bills, buy movie ticket, or dispatch private letters via post office etc. as these and other such similar activities are now preferably being done electronically over internet which has shattered the geographical boundaries and has tied the people across the world into a single logical unit called global village. The efficacy and precision with which electronic transactions are made is commendable and is one of the reasons why more and more people are switching over to e-commerce for their official and personal usage. Via social networking sites one can interact with family and friends at any time of his/her choice. The darker side of this comforting aspect, however, is that the contents sent on/off-line may be monitored for active or passive intervention by the antagonistic forces for their illicit motives ranging from but not only limited to password, ID and social security number theft to impersonation, compromising personal information, blackmailing etc. This necessitated the need to hide data or information of some significance in an oblivious manner in order to detract the enemy as regards its detection. This paper aims at evolving an avant-garde information hiding scheme for ASCII text files a research area regarded as the most difficult in contrast to audio, video or image file formats for the said purpose. Keywords— Embedded Secrets; Hide and Seek; Eccentric way of writing; ASCII Text Steganography; Communication in Veil; Stealth Communication