STEGANOGRAPHY By Aman Arora

Steganography is the act of hiding or concealing a text, image, file or video within

another text, image, file or video.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CRYPTOGRAPHY AND STEGANOGRAPHY ?

Steganography takes Cryptography (The act of encrypting a message with an intent of protecting the content of message) to a next level such that it is nearly impossible to know that a secret message is being sent.

The most important advantage of Steganography over cryptography is that it doesn’t seek attention. An encrypted message – no matter how unbreakable will arouse interest and attract people. Steganography on the other end is also concerned with the fact that nobody knows that a secret message is being sent.

BASIC PRINCIPLE OF STEGANOGRAPHY

Steganography generally works by replacing or modifying the bits of the useless or unused data in the files (Images, Video, text etc).

Any type of information - encrypted or non-encrypted, text or image can be hidden using Steganography.

Steganography is generally used along with the encryption for better security. Also an Encrypted file may also have hidden information using Steganography so that even if the data is decrypted the information is still safe.

This is an era of digital Steganography in which we hide the digital data using Steganography but Steganography is an old practice that has been in use for years now.

Steganography plays a crucial role when we need to send a message across the internet. Media files are generally used for steganographic purposes because of their large size so that it becomes difficult for the third party to interpret the message. Example of simple Steganography –

The sender may adjust the color of every 50th pixel of an image in such a way that each 50th pixel corresponds to an alphabet. The changes are made in such a way that the changes are not visible, that is the hidden information now wouldn’t be visible to person who is not specifically looking for it.

Other ways can also be used for Steganography; most common techniques are –

Delay in packets sent across the network can be used encode data. Making text the same color as background in images Concealing the data in the puzzles. One need to firstly solve the puzzle then find

the hidden data and then decrypt it in order to get the original data.

APPLICATIONS OF STEGANOGRAPHY

Steganography is used by modern printers. The printers add yellow dots that are barely visible to each page. These dots not only contain printer serial number but also contain the date and time of printing.

Used by intelligence services to send information to agents stationed in other countries.