qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqw

ertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwert
yuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyui
opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopa
A STUDY OF THE EMERGING
sdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdf
TRENDS IN STEGANOGRAPHY

ghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghj
RESEARCH PAPER

klzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklz
xcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcv
bnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbn
mqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmq
wertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwer
tyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyu
iopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiop
asdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasd SUBMITTED BY
DS GUIDE
fghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfgh
Dr (Mrs) Seema Keshariya Maj Gaurav Sharma

SOATE-36.
jklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklz
FCE,MCTE.

xcvbnmrtyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbn
 A STUDY OF THE EMERGING TRENDS IN STEGANOGRAPHY
by

Maj Gaurav Sharma,SOATE-36

Abstract. Various image steganography techniques have been discussed in this

paper. Diverse steganography techniques and tools have been analyzed. A set of
criteria to analyze and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the presented
techniques is also discussed. The paper is although exhaustive in its contents but
the study has only been restricted to the emerging technologies and not the legacy
Steganography techniques.

INTRODUCTION

1. Similar to cryptography, steganography provides a means of communicating

secret messages. While cryptography scrambles a message so that it cannot be
understood, steganography hides the very existence of the message by hiding it
inside a carrier file of some type. An eavesdropper can intercept a cryptographic
message, but may not even know a steganographic message exists. Encryption and
steganography achieve the same goal via different means. Encryption encodes the
data so that an unintended recipient cannot determine its intended meaning.
Steganography, in contrast attempts to prevent an unintended recipient from
suspecting that the data is there. Combining encryption with steganography allows
for a better private communication. The goal of steganography is to avoid drawing
suspicion to the transmission of the secret message. Steganography and data hiding
are not new concepts. It is believed that steganography was first practiced during the
Golden Age in Greece. An ancient Greek record describes the practice of melting
wax off wax tablets used for writing messages and then inscribing a message in the
underlying wood. The wax was then reapplied to the wood, giving the appearance of
a new, unused tablet. The resulting tablets could be innocently transported without
anyone suspecting the presence of a message beneath the wax. The important
concept from this history lesson is that communication does not have to occur over
standard open channels using well-known methods. The Internet, in its massive,
protocol-laden glory, is a playground for the modern steganographer. For example,
think of an IP packet as the wax tablet previously mentioned. The packet’s data field
is equivalent to the writing in the wax. The headers serve as the wood in this analogy
— who ever looks at an IP packet’s headers, much less the data alignment padding?
Mostly every protocol, language, and data format on the Internet has room for rent.

2. A Steganography system is usually composed of insertion and extraction

subsystems. The insertion system takes a host file, a prepared message file, and
an optional key to insert the message into the host for creating a cover host. This
is referred to as the embedding process. The cover host is then stored or
transmitted. The extraction system operates in reverse. It takes a covert host and
an optional key as input and extracts the message.
 2

STEGANOGRAPHY TECHNIQUES

3. Before we analyze the emerging trends in this method of cryptography it is

mandatory to understand the various forms of Steganography, which are as
follows:

(a) Text-Based Steganography. This involves anything from changing the

formatting of an existing text, changing words within a text or generating
readable texts. It is not clear if a secure and robust steganography is possible
with text messages. For example, a reformat of the text may destroy the
information encoded in the text. Additionally, text messages can be stored in
different formats such as HTML, Postscripts, or PDF; the change from one
format to another might be harmful to the embedded messages. Text hiding
techniques include: The Line-Shift Coding, the word shift coding, feature
coding, syntactic techniques, semantic techniques, and cover generation
techniques.

(b) Audio Steganography. Like text files, sound files may be modified in
such a way that they contain hidden information. Such techniques embed
data in sound files using the properties of the Human Auditory System (HAS).
Examples of audio steganography techniques include least significant bit,
phase coding and echo Hiding.

(c) Steganography in OSI Network Model. Data can be hidden in any of

the OSI layers. For example, the network layer hides information using IP
headers used for routing information. The unused IP header bits (e.g. the DF
and MF bits) or the two unused bits (the least significant bits) in the “Type of
service field” can be used to create a covert channel.
(d) Image Steganography. Compared to other types of steganography,
image
steganography has attracted extensive research as well as popular usability in
recent years. This is due to the fact that huge amounts of data can be hidden
without perceptible impact to the carriers and possibly because of the
popularity of electronic images that have become widely available.

4. The various techniques described in brief above are just to acquaint us with the
basic type of Stegnography types. However, in this message hiding technology
has come a long way over the years and has maintained its pace to utilize the
loopholes existing in the contemporary data transfer technologies.
 3

THE EMERGING TRENDS:MODERN DAY STEGANOGRAPHY

A New Method for Real-Time Steganography

5. A new method of real-time steganography[1] that does not need a cover media.
This method is based on real-time steganography on output images displayed by
the instrument. In order to extract information, first the displayed image should be
recorded by photography, filming or another method and then the information be
extracted with the help of the relevant program. This method can be used for
announcing confidential messages in public places. For example, one can hide
information in electronic advertisement billboards, video conferencing and digital
cinemas.

6. The main goal of this method is to hide information on the output image of the
instrument (such as image displayed by an electronic advertising billboard). This
method can be used for announcing a secret message in a public place. In
general, this method is a kind of steganography, but it is done in real time on the
output of a device such as electronic billboard. To this end, we consider each
frame that is shown by the machine at any moment, irrespectively of whether it is
photo, text, or else, as an image. Then we divide the image into small blocks. If
the pixel colors of the blocks are similar, we change the color characteristics of a
number of these pixels to a certain extent. So information is hidden in the image.
Because of showing many frames at a second by the instrument and, on the
other hand, in order to provide the possibility of photographing the image for
extracting information, hide the text recurrently in a large number of frames (e.g.
all the frames displayed for 2 seconds). Also put a sequence number for each
part of information. By using this sequence number one can detect missing parts
of information in case of such event like not making pictures at the proper
interval. In addition, for steganography, we divide the image into two upper and
lower blocks while hiding similar information in each block. In such a case, even if
the camera cannot photograph part of the image, information can still be
extracted from the image. For implementing this method on an electronic
billboard, a special device is added to the billboard. This device gets the
information from the main office, and hides it on the output of the billboard. This
device can be a small computer that receives information from the main office via
regular communication systems and hides them on the billboard screen.

7. To extract information, we act contrarily by first preparing an image of the screen

by using an instrument such as the photography or filming camera. Then we
extract information by carrying out operations contrary to the ones carried out in
steganography (See fig. 1).
 4

Fig 1. The diagram of suggested idea

8. Advantages and Disadvantages. Following are some of the Advantages and

Disadvantages of the proposed system:

Advantages
(a) In this method, there is no need to cover media. Therefore, there is no
cover media containing hidden information to be stolen.
(b) Hidden information is in real-time form.
(c) This method is capable of hiding a large volume of information without
need of any space.
(d) In the usual methods of steganography, information is hidden in cover
media on the server side and then sent to the client. However, in this method,
information is hidden in the displayed output screen on the client side, thus
increasing information security.

Disadvantages
(a) If one cannot take the frame in the intended moment in a certain time,
the hidden information will be lost.
(b) The imaged frame is sensitive to the environmental effects.
(c) If using a camera for taking photographs of the output frame, it needs
an advanced camera.
(d) There is a variety of systems which have a different screen size. So
we should define a definite screen resolution for each system.
 5

Steganography System Using Font Color of the Invisible Characters in

Microsoft Word Documents

9. Microsoft Word is a popular word processing software which comes with

Microsoft Office package. One of the reasons behind its popularity is huge
number of text formatting features. Setting background color and font color is the
simplest of text formatting features. We can set font color by choosing Format
from menu bar, Font menu and then Font color. We can do this work also from
the font color tool from the tool bar. We can choose some predefined colors or
can set RGB values for the desired color by choosing the more color options and
then choosing the custom option. The R, G and B values are of 8 bits, which
means the allowed range is 0 to 255. One of the interesting things is that we can
also set font color of invisible characters such as the space, the tab or the
carriage return characters. Most of the users or viewers never feel interest about
the color values of these invisible characters. So we can very easily hide three
bytes of information in each occurrence of the space or the tab or the carriage
return characters without any risk of exposing the hidden information. More over
this approach takes no extra information to hide the desired bits.

10. The Proposed Technique. The idea behind this technique[2] is very simple.
We can set foreground color for invisible characters as like as any other visible
characters. But the color attribute is not noticed by the users where the font color is
very much likely to be noticed by the user. So we can hide secret information in
invisible characters in form of RGB values without any risk of exposure. For
example consider the following stream
101010110101110101100011010100110011101001001110
01010011100101010110001010 Here we divide the secret bit stream of groups of 8
bits.Groups are represented by alteration of italic and bold fonts.
101011010111010110001101010011001110100100111001010011100101010110
001010 The RGB values of the first three invisible characters of a document should
be {173, 117, 141}, {76, 233, 57}, {78, 85, 138}

Algorithm-1: Hiding secret bits

Input: Cover Microsoft Word document, secret bit stream
Output: Stego Microsoft Word document
Step-1: Arrange the secret bit stream in group of 8 bits from the right side of the
stream. If there are less number of bits in the last group pad 0s to complete 8 bits.
Have number of groups multiple of 3. If the number of group is not multiple of 3 add
additional 0s to left of the stream so that number of groups are multiple of 3.
Step-2: Group each three group to construct a super group.
Step-3: Convert the binary value of each group to the equivalent decimal value.
Step-4: For each invisible character in the cover document repeat steps 5 to 8.
Step-5: Set R value of the color to the first decimal value of the super group.
Step-6: Set G value of the color to the second decimal value of the super group.
Step-7: Set B value of the color to the third decimal value of the super group.
Step-8: Choose the next super group of secret bits for the next invisible character.

Algorithm-2: Extracting bits from the received Microsoft Word document

Input: Stego Microsoft Word document
Output: extracted secret bit stream
Step-1: For each invisible character in the Stego document repeat step 2.
Step-2: Get the RGB value of the font color and add them to the extracted hidden
data in sequence of R, G and B
Step-3: Convert every decimal value to the equivalent binary value to form the secret
bit stream.

Text Steganography Using Hindi Letters and its Diacritics

11. With the development of Computer and its expansion, and use in different
areas of life and work, the issue of securing information has gained special
significance. The advantage to prefer Text Steganography over other media is its
smaller memory occupation and simpler communication. Different Languages
and their structures make differences in the preferred Steganographic system.
Normally no single technique is to be used for all languages.
12. We all know that every Language has its own characteristics. Mostly all Indian
Languages are built with similar Vowels and Consonant structures. The method
what has been proposed for Hindi Language[3], as well suits with the other
Indian Languages perfectly. Normally information is transferred in the form of bit
streams. We are introducing a new algorithm which encodes the bit 0 with vowel
and consonant letters. In the same way letter diacritics and compound letters
encode with bit 1. To implement this method, all we need is a message for
example, a word like “Steganography”. This word consists of 13 English
Characters. By encoding in ASCII we get 104 bits. Replace each bit in the bit
stream i.e., a ‘0’ bit by a Letter and a ‘1’ bit by Letter diacritic. The resulted text
consists of 104 Hindi letters with some meaningful information. Now we transfer
this Hindi Text to our counterparts in other place, so that they can decode this
message by applying the algorithm in the reverse way. This is very tedious and it
takes a lot of time to decode because he gets perplexed with this type of
irrelevant text, which is transferred on the network. Nevertheless to decode the
information one should have a full command on the respective Language and its
structure. Here, there is an example, which works on the above principle.
Figure

Figure 2. “Hindi Text Steganography using Hindi Letters and

its Diacritics.”
 7

13. Furthermore to strengthen this algorithm, at the first stage we can apply any
cryptographic algorithm like DES to get the corresponding Cipher Text and we
can apply the above algorithm on this Cipher Text.

14. To implement this algorithm, we have to take a message, which in turn

converts in a binary scheme. Here we encode all vowels and Consonants with a
specific Numerical code. The idea of assigning numerical codes is based on
Vedic Numerical Codes in Indian Theology. We have slightly modified this
numerical code to fit all the Vowels and Consonants in a 4 bit binary. The
assigned numerical code is shown below. First we start with Vowels by assigning
the least frequently occurring letter with 0. Similarly based on the priority we
assign codes continuously.

Figure 3. “Vowel Encoding Scheme.”

Figure 4 “Consonant Encoding Scheme”

 8

15. Bold font letters are not taking part in coding scheme. In the following
example we take the word “Steganography”, and here we are showing the result
for the few bits in the word i.e, Steganog.

Figure 5. “Steganography with Numerical Code”

16. Generally each Letter represents 8-bit binary value. But according to the
proposed Hindi Numerical Code, each Letter represents four bit binary value. We
encode each four-bit stream with the starting letter of the word. This resembles
like the word ATTACK from 1. All the Temples are centrally knowledge.

Steganography in MMS

17. Steganography can be used in the context of MMS[4] because image is more
common for sending in MMS messages and also image sizes in MMS can be up
to 100kB and therefore can hide more data, so usually the steganography in
MMS messages are only applied to images. The MMS messages can be
combined of different media such as images, text, and audio. Many MMS
messages, in addition to image, containing a text message. Therefore here we
use the MMS messages which are containing both image and text for hiding data.
In our method the data is broken into two parts with the proper sizes and the
parts are hidden in the image and text part of MMS message. It is common to
hide data only in the image part of MMS, but here aim is to hide the data in two
media, text and image.
 9

18. The Proposed Method. First the data is broken into two parts. Each part
size is
proportionate to the capacity of the text and the image for hiding data. For example if
the text has 10 bits capacity and the image has more than 200 bits capacity for
hiding data, and the data which we want to hide is 60 bits, then we hide the data as
follows:

(a) First we save the size of information which is stored in the MMS in the
image, because knowing the size of the information is necessary for decoding
correctly the information. Then we hide the first bit in the text. After that we
hide 5 next bits in the image. Then we hide the 7th bit in the text. After that we
hide 5 next bits in the image again. We do this loop until reach the end of
data.

(b) For hiding data in the text part of MMS message, the text
steganography method is used; and for hiding the data in image part of MMS
message, the image steganography method is used. Both of these methods
are written by J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) programming language. J2ME is a
version of Java programming language specially developed for small devices
such as pocket PCs, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistance) and mobile phones.
Therefore this method is written by J2ME language. It is seen that an MMS
message contains an image and a text. In this MMS a data, which is broken
into two parts, is hidden in both image and text part of MMS. It is common to
hide data only in the image part of MMS, but here we hide the data in two
media, text and image; so this method is more resistant. Also text
steganography is not very common and therefore there are less attacks to it.

(c) Since in this method the data are hidden in two parts, but the order of
hidden data is not continuous, therefore the possibility of breaking this method
is low. Because at first there is need to know the data are hidden in both parts
and then there is need to know the patterns of breaking data into two
parts.Hence,this steganography method is very robust. This method also can
be implemented using other steganography methods. For example instead of
PNG image, the data can be hidden in a JPEG image using F5 algorithm.
 10
Limitations

19. Steganography is constrained by the same assumption that exists for

encryption. If Alice wants to send an image with a hidden message to Bob, she
must first privately agree with Bob on a method of steganography. Under the
encryption model, Bob can be fairly sure when he’s got some ciphertext.
However, in the steganography model, it will be difficult for Bob to know when an
image is just an image. Consider the scenario in which Alice borrows Bob’s digital
camera and neglects to tell him to pay special attention to every 73rd byte in the
images she sends him. Because Bob is ignorant of Alice’s steganographic efforts,
the large number of pictures he receives from her will only decrease the chance
that Bob will let Alice borrow his digital camera again. The amount of data that
can be effectively hidden in a given medium tends to be restricted by the size of
the medium itself. The fewer constraints that exist on the integrity of the medium,
the more potential it has for hiding data. For example, this paragraph is
constrained by the rules of the English language and a specific topic of
discussion. It would be difficult for anyone to hide a secret message in this
paragraph due to the limited number of ways one can reasonably alter this text
under those constraints. In contrast, consider a large uncompressed image of
television static. A significantly greater proportion of data could be embedded in
such an image without causing suspicion, aside from the fact that pictures of
television static are of questionable value in the first place.

CONCLUSION

20. The purpose of steganography is not to keep others from knowing the hidden
information it is to keep others from thinking that the information even exists. If a
steganography method causes someone to suspect the carrier medium, then the
method has failed. Steganography’s success thus relies heavily on the naïveté of
human beings; for example, when did you last check your e-mail headers for
hidden messages? Encryption and steganography achieve separate goals.
Encryption encodes data such that an unintended recipient cannot determine its
intended meaning. Steganography, in contrast, does not alter data to make it
unusable to an unintended recipient. Instead, the steganographer attempts to
prevent an unintended recipient from suspecting that the data is there. Those
who seek the ultimate in private communication can combine encryption and
steganography. Encrypted data is more difficult to differentiate from naturally
occurring phenomena than plain text is in the carrier medium. Several existing
steganography tools can encrypt data before hiding it in the chosen medium.
What has been discussed in this paper just talks about the emerging trends in
last two years, however, the list is unending as development of steganography
methods in various fields has occurred few years down the line, which is also
very interesting and it would be difficult to cover each and every technique in
detail.
 REFERNCES

[1] A New Method for Real-Time Steganography, by Mohammad Shirali-

Shahreza, Computer Science Department, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran,
IRAN.

[2] A Novel Text Steganography System Using Font Color of the Invisible
Characters in Microsoft Word Documents, by Md. Khairullah, Department of
Computer Science and Engineering Shahjalal University of Science and Technology,
Sylhet, Bangladesh.

[3] An Evolution of Hindi Text Steganography,by Kalavathi.Alla , Christu Jayanthi

Jubilee College, Dr. R. Siva Rama Prasad, Acharya Nagarjuna University.

[4] Steganography in MMS, by Mohammad Shirali-Shahreza, Computer Science

Department Sharif University of Technology Tehran, IRAN