A Concept of Digital Picture Envelope for Internet Communication

A new concept for computer security is proposed. Digital Picture Enveloping is a technique to embed secret information in some vessel data (a digital picture envelope) such as a BMP formatted image. The purpose of the enveloping is to protect the secret information from being eavesdropped. Digital picture envelope is a conceptual rephrasing of steganography for data storing and Internet communications. The difference between encryption and enveloping is as follows. To encrypt a message is to scramble it into an unreadable form, leaving its presence overt to the public. While digital picture enveloping protects the secret information in a different way. It makes the secret information covert to any human eyes. People see the vessel image as a natural image. Eavesdroppers can see nothing to attack. This paper illustrates what a digital picture envelope is like, shows the difference from cryptography, and discusses its safeness in brief.