Digital Steganography

With the widespread penetration of the internet, communication between distant parties has become effortless and now occurs on a much larger scale. Given the open access of the internet, the secure communication of sensitive information is a prevailing concern for the medium’s users. As a result, steganography, the art of hiding information within a communiqué, has entered the digital age. Digital steganography entails the encoding of sensitive information within inconspicuous files, typically media files like pictures, audio clips, or video clips. However common steganography tactics used on pictures create statistical anomalies foreign to natural pictures, making the existence of hidden messages detectable. I have created a new steganography system for pictures intended to be resistant to current detection algorithms. This system includes both a steganographic algorithm and functioning application that can hide a message within an image and also extract a message from an encoded image. A secure steganographic system would be applicable in fields varying from espionage to communication under oppressive governments to copyright protection. RELATED WORK The earliest recorded use of steganography occurred in the 5 century B.C. Greek historian Herodotus wrote of the captive king Histiaeus, who needed to send a message to his army. Histiaeus shaved the head of a slave, tattooed the message to the slave’s scalp, and sent the slave to his army when the hair grew back. Over time steganography has changed with technology. Methods have included writing in special fluids that appeared invisible unless heated, writing with special coding tables, and using microfilm. During