Major Project Report

On
IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF
8TH SEM. FOR


Degree Of
B. TECH.
In
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY





Under the Guidance of Submitted By
Mr. Ratandeep Aneja Rupesh NagpaI
Assistant Professor (.T.) 2807349

PANIPAT INSTITUTE OF ENGG. & TECHNOLOGY, SAMALKHA
(AffiIiated to Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra)
70KM MiIestone, NH-1, ViIIage PattikaIyana, SamaIkha-132102 (Panipat)
Website: www.piet.co.in Phone: 0180-2569700, 2567799 Fax: 0180-2569800

Session 2007-2011
CONTENTS


S. No. Page No.


. Candidate's Declaration..............................................................
2. Acknowledgement.....................2
3. Project ntroduction....................3 to 3
4. Scope of the Project..................4
5. Hardware And Software Requirements...........
6. Platform Description....................
7. Data Base Designing.....................
8. DFD (Data Flow Diagram)...................
9. Front End Designing....................
0. Coding...........................
. Future Scope of the Project..................
2. Limitation of the Project...................
3. References..........................

CANDIDATE'S DECLARATION


e hereby certify that the work which is being presented in the Major Project Report
entitled "IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY" by "RUPESH NAGPAL" in partial fulfillment
of requirements for the award of degree of B.Tech(IT) submitted in the Department
of Information TechnoIogy at Panipat Institute of Engg. & TechnoIogy,
SamaIkha under KURUKSHETRA UNIVERSITY, KURUKSHETRA is an authentic
record of our own work carried out under the supervision of Mr. RATANDEEP
ANEJA.


Rupesh Nagpal


This is to certify that the above statement made by the candidate is correct to the
best of my/our knowledge



Mr. Ratandeep Aneja Sh. Harish Chugh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Many individuals have contributed for the completion of this project. For their
invaluable guidance, comments and suggestions, we wish to express our deep
sense of indebtedness and sincerest gratitude to our guide, "Mr. Ratandeep
Aneja", Department of Information TechnoIogy, Panipat Institute of Engg. &
TechnoIogy, SamaIkha for his invaluable guidance and constructive criticism
throughout this Project. He has displayed unique tolerance and understanding at
every step of progress and encouraged us incessantly. e deem it our privilege to
have carried out our Project work under his able guidance.

e are obliged to Dr. A. K. Shah, Director, Panipat Institute of Engg. &
TechnoIogy, SamaIkha for providing all the facilities, help and encouragement for
carrying out the project work. e also express our sincere thanks to Sh. Harish
Chugh, Head of Department of Information TechnoIogy, Panipat Institute of
Engg. & TechnoIogy, SamaIkha for his advice and moral support at every step.

As a final personal note, we are grateful to our parents, who are inspirational to us in
their understanding, patience and constant encouragement.



Rupesh Nagpal (2807349)









PROJECT INTRODUCTION

Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that
no-one apart from the sender and intended recipient even realizes there is a hidden
message. By contrast, cryptography obscures the meaning of a message, but it does
not conceal the fact that there is a message. Today, the term steganography includes
the concealment of digital information within computer files.
For example, the sender might start with an
ordinary-looking image file, then adjust the
color of every 00th pixel to correspond to a
letter in the alphabeta change so subtle
that someone who isn't actively looking for it
is unlikely to notice it.
Generally, a steganographic message will appear to be something else: a picture, an
article, a shopping list, or some other message. This apparent message is
the .4;07909. For instance, a message may be hidden by using invisible inkbetween
the visible lines of innocuous documents The advantage of steganography over
cryptography alone is that messages do not attract attention to themselves, to
messengers, or to recipients. An unhidden coded message, no matter how
unbreakable it is, will arouse suspicion and may in itself be incriminating, as in
countries where encryption is illegal Often, steganography and cryptography are used
together to ensure security of the covert message.
Steganography used in electronic communication include steganographic coding
inside of a transport layer, such as a file, or a protocol, such as UDP. Usually, files
meant for nternet means are put into media types that are lossless, such as FLAC,
AV, PNG etc.
A steganographic message (the plaintext) is often first encrypted by some traditional
means, producing a cipher text. Then, a covertext is modified in some way to contain
the ciphertext, resulting in stegotext. For example, the letter size, spacing, typeface, or
other characteristics of a covertext can be manipulated to carry the hidden message;
only the recipient (who must know the technique used) can recover the message and
then decrypt it. Francis Bacon developed Bacon's cipher as such a technique.
Steganography applications conceal information in other, seemingly innocent media.
Steganographic results may masquerade as other file for data types, be concealed
within various media, or even hidden in network traffic or disk space. e are only
limited by our imagination in the many ways information and data can be exploited to
conceal additional information.
For many years nformation Hiding has captured the imagination of
researchers. Digital watermarking and steganography techniques are used to address
digital rights management, protect information, and conceal secrets. nformation hiding
techniques provide an interesting challenge for digital forensic investigations.
nformation can easily traverse through firewalls undetected. Research into
steganalysis techniques aids in the discovery of such hidden information as well as
leads research toward improved methods for hiding information.

HISTORY
The earliest recordings of Steganography were by the Greek historian Herodotus in
his chronicles known as "Histories" and date back to around 440 BC. Herodotus
recorded two stories of Steganographic techniques during this time in Greece. The
first stated that King Darius of Susa shaved the head of one of his prisoners and wrote
a secret message on his scalp. hen the prisoner's hair grew back, he was sent to
the Kings son in law Aristogoras in Miletus undetected. The second story also came
from Herodotus, which claims that a soldier named Demeratus needed to send a
message to Sparta that Xerxes intended to invade Greece. Back then, the writing
medium was text written on wax-covered tablets. Demeratus removed the wax from
the tablet, wrote the secret message on the underlying wood, recovered the tablet with
wax to make it appear as a blank tablet and finally sent the document without being
detected.
Romans used invisible inks, which were based on natural substances such as fruit
juices and milk. This was accomplished by heating the hidden text, thus revealing its
contents.
nvisible inks have become much more advanced and are still in limited use today.
During the 5th and 6th centuries, many writers including Johannes Trithemius
(author of Steganographia) and Gaspari Schotti (author or Steganographica) wrote
on Steganagraphic techniques such as coding techniques for text, invisible inks, and
incorporating hidden messages in music.

Between 883 and 907, further development can be attributed to the publications of
Auguste Kerckhoff (author of Cryptographic Militaire) and Charles Briquet (author of
Les Filigranes). These books were mostly about Cryptography, but both can be
attributed to the foundation of some steganographic systems and more significantly
to watermarking techniques.

During the times of and , significant advances in Steganography took
place.
Concepts such as null ciphers (taking the 3rd letter from each word in a harmless
message to create a hidden message, etc), image substitution and microdot (taking
data such as pictures and reducing it to the size of a large period on a piece of
paper) were introduced and embraced as great steganographic techniques.
n the recent digital world of today, namely 992 to present, Steganography is being
used all over the world on computer systems. Many tools and technologies have
been created that take advantage of old steganographic techniques such as null
ciphers, coding in images, audio, video and microdot. ith the research this topic is
now getting we will see a lot of great applications for Steganography in the near
future.

CRYPTOGRAPHY
Cryptography (or cryptology; derived from Greek kpu krypts "hidden," and the
verb ypo grfo "write" or /sysiv legein "to speak") is the study of message
secrecy. n modern times, cryptography is considered to be a branch of both
mathematics and computer science, and is affiliated closely with information theory,
computer security, and engineering. Cryptography is used in applications present in
technologically advanced societies; examples include the security of ATM cards,
computer passwords, and electronic commerce, which all depend on cryptography.
Until modern times, cryptography referred almost exclusively to encryption, the
process of converting ordinary information (plaintext) into unintelligible gibberish (ie,
ciphertext). Decryption is the reverse, moving from unintelligible ciphertext to
plaintext. A cipher (or cypher) is a pair of algorithms which perform this encryption
and the reversing Decryption.
Cryptography is the study of message secrecy. Cryptography referred almost
exclusively to encryption, the process of converting ordinary information
(plaintext) into unintelligible gibberish (i.e., cipher text).
Generally, a steganographic message will appear to be something else: a
picture, an article, a shopping list, or some other message. This apparent
message is the cover text. For instance, a message may be hidden by using
invisible ink between the visible lines of innocuous documents .
Cryptography is the study of message secrecy. Cryptography referred almost
exclusively to encryption, the process of converting ordinary information (plaintext)
into unintelligible gibberish (i.e., cipher text).
STEGANPGRAPHY OVER CRYPTOGRAPHY
O The advantage of steganography over cryptography alone is that messages
do not attract attention to themselves, to messengers, or to recipients. An
unhidden coded message, no matter how unbreakable it is, will arouse
suspicion and may in itself be incriminating, as in countries where encryption
is legal
O Steganography's goal is to keep the presence of a message secret, or hide
the fact that communication is taking place
O Cryptography's goal is to obscure a message or communication so that it
cannot be understood.

DETAILS ABOUT STEGANPGRAPHY

Steganography or Stego as it is often
referred to in the T community, literally
means,"Covered writing" which is
derived from the Greek language.
Steganography is defined by Markus
Kahn [5] as follows, "Steganography is
the art and science of communicating in
a way which hides the existence of the
communication.

Direct Interaction refers to the user's ability to simply reach out and touch the
interface of an application in order to interact with it, without the need for a mouse or
keyboard. A person can use the system by the direct approuch user can draw the
pictures directly on the table that Picture can stored directly to the hard disk Users
can interact with the machine by touching or dragging their fingertips and objects
such as paintbrushes across the screen, or by placing and moving tagged objects.
To start, lets look at what a theoretically perfect secret communication
(Steganography) would consist of. To illustrate this concept, we will use three
fictitious characters named Amy, Bret and Crystal. Amy wants to send a secret
message (M) to Bret using a random (R) harmless message to create a cover (C)
which can be sent to Bret without raising suspicion. Amy then changes the cover
message (C) to a stego-object (S) by embedding the secret message (M) into the
cover message (C) by using a stego-key (K). Amy should then be able to send the
stegoobject (S) to Bret without being detected by Crystal. Bret will then be able to
read the secret message (M) because he knows the stego-key (K) used to embed it
into the cover message (C). As Fabien A.P. Petitcolas [2] points out, "in a 'perfect'
system, a normal cover should not be distinguishable from a stego-object, neither by
a human nor by a computer looking for statistical patterns." n practice, however, this
is not always the case. n order to embed secret data into a cover message, the
cover must contain a sufficient amount of redundant data or noise. This is because
the embedding process Steganography uses, actually replaces this redundant data
with the secret message. This limits the types of data that we can use with
Steganography.


n practice, there are basically three types of steganographic protocols used. They
are
O Pure Steganography, Secret Key Steganography and PubIic Key
Steganography

Pure Steganography is defined as a steganographic system that does not require
the exchange of a cipher such as a stego-key. This method of Steganography is the
least secure means by which to communicate secretly because the sender and
receiver can rely only upon the presumption that no other parties are aware of this
secret message. Using open systems such as the nternet, we know this is not the
case at all.

Secret Key Steganography is defined as a steganographic system that requires the
exchange of a secret key (stego-key) prior to communication. Secret Key
Steganography takes a cover message and embeds the secret message inside of it
by using a secret key (stego-key). Only the parties who know the secret key can
reverse the process and read the secret message. Unlike Pure Steganography
where a perceived invisible communication channel is present, Secret Key
Steganography exchanges a stego-key, which makes it more susceptible to
interception. The benefit to Secret Key Steganography is even if it is intercepted,
only parties who know the secret key can extract the secret message.

Public Key Steganography takes the concepts from Public Key Cryptography as
explained below. Public Key Steganography is defined as a steganographic system
that uses a public key and a private key to secure the communication between the
parties wanting to communicate secretly. The sender will use the public key during
the encoding process and only the private key, which has a direct mathematical
relationship with the public key, can decipher the secret message. Public Key
Steganography provides a more robust way of implementing a steganographic
system because it can utilize a much more robust and researched technology in
Public Key Cryptography. t also has multiple levels of security in that unwanted
parties must first suspect the use of steganography and then they would have to find
a way to crack the algorithm used by the public key system before they could
intercept the secret message.

O Encoding Secret Messages in Text
Encoding secret messages in text can be a very challenging task. This is because
text files have a very small amount of redundant data to replace with a secret
message. Another drawback is the ease of which text based Steganography can be
altered by an unwanted parties by just changing the text itself or reformatting the text
to some other form (from .TXT to .PDF, etc.). There are numerous methods by
which to accomplish text based Steganography. will introduce a few of the more
popular encoding methods below.Line-shift encoding involves actually shifting each
line of text vertically up or
down by as little as 3 centimeters. Depending on whether the line was up or down
from the stationary line would equate to a value that would or could be encoded into
a secret message.

ord-shift encoding works in much the same way that line-shift encoding works,only
we use the horizontal spaces between words to equate a value for the hidden
message. This method of encoding is less visible than line-shift encoding but
requires that the text format support variable spacing.Feature specific encoding
involves encoding secret messages into formatted text by changing certain text
attributes such as vertical/horizontal length of letters such as b, d, T, etc. This is by
far the hardest text encoding method to intercept as each type of formatted text has
a large amount of features that can be used for encoding the secret message.

O Encoding Secret Messages in Images
Coding secret messages in digital images is by far the most widely used of all
methods in the digital world of today. This is because it can take advantage of the
limited power of the human visual system (HVS). Almost any plain text, cipher text,
image and any other media that can be encoded into a bit stream can be hidden in a
digital image. ith the continued growth of strong graphics power in computers and
the research being put into image based Steganography, this field will continue to
grow at a very rapid pace.Before diving into coding techniques for digital images, a
brief explanation of digital image architecture and digital image compression
techniques should be explained.As Duncan Sellars [7] explains "To a computer, an
image is an array of numbersthat represent light intensities at various points, or
pixels. These pixels make up the images raster data." hen dealing with digital
images for use with Steganography, 8-bit and 24-bit per pixel image files are typical.
Both have advantages and disadvantages, as we will explain below.

8-bit images are a great format to use because of their relatively small size. The
drawback is that only 256 possible colors can be used which can be a potential
problem during encoding. Usually a gray scale color palette is used when dealing
with 8-bit images such as (.GF) because its gradual change in color will be harder to
detect after the image has been encoded with the secret message. 24-bit images
offer much more flexibility when used for Steganography. The large numbers of
colors (over 6 million) that can be used go well beyond the human visual system
(HVS), which makes it very hard to detect once a secret message, has been
encoded. The other benefit is that a much larger amount of hidden data can be
encoded into a 24-bit digital image as opposed to an 8-bit digital image. The one
major drawback to 24-bit digital images is their large size (usually in MB) makes
them more suspect than the much smaller 8-bit digital images (usually in KB) when
sent over an open system such as the nternet.
Digital image compression is a good solution to large digital images such as the
24-bit images mentioned earlier. There are two types of compression used in digital
images, lossy and lossless. Lossy compression such as (.JPEG) greatly reduces the
size of a digital image by removing excess image data and calculating a close
approximation of the original image. Lossy compression is usually used with 24-bit
digital images to reduce its size, but it does carry one major drawback. Lossy
compression techniques increase the possibility that the uncompressed secret
message will lose parts of its contents because of the fact that lossy compression
removes what it sees as excess image data. Lossless compression techniques, as
the name suggests, keeps the original digital image in tact without the chance of
loss. t is for this reason that it is the compression technique of choice for
steganographic uses. Examples of lossless compression techniques are (.GF and
.BMP). The only drawback to lossless image compression is that it doesn't do a very
good job at compressing the size of the image data.




e will now discuss a couple of the more popular digital image encoding
techniques used today. They are :

1. Least significant bit (LSB) encoding
2. Masking and fiItering techniques.

Least significant bit (LSB) encoding is by far the most popular of the coding
techniques used for digital images. By using the LSB of each byte (8 bits) in an
image for a secret message, you can store 3 bits of data in each pixel for 24-bit
images and bit in each pixel for 8-bit images. As you can see, much more
information can be stored in a 24-bit image file. Depending on the color palette used
for the cover image (i.e., all gray), it is possible to take 2 LSB's from one byte without
the human visual system (HVS) being able to tell the difference. The only problem
with this technique is that it is very vulnerable to attacks such as image changes and
formatting (i.e., changing from .GF to .JPEG).

HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

HARDWARE ENVIRONMENT:
Minimum:
.6 GHZ CPU, 52 MB RAM, 5400 RPM hard drive
SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT:
OPERATNG SYSTEM: NDO XP Sp2
ENVRONMENT: Net Beans 6.0















FUTURE SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

n this project, many relevant issues were presented, from a technical point of view.
However, little has been done to motivate these studies. A more detailed
investigation of applications, and a comparison with current techniques in
steganography has been interesting. For example, a thorough evaluation of the
advantages natural language-based techniques can offer over image-based
techniques.
An important contribution of this project to natural language steganography is the
linguistic sophistication of the model for word-substitution put forward. The lexical
models employed in current substitution-based systems were often criticised and
their inadequate behavior usually described with respect to language theory. These
phenomena could have been demonstrated by example, showing texts and
inadequate replacements carried out by current stegosystems. A more detailed
analysis of how common these critical situations really are in typical text could have
given clues for the construction of such systems, to decide whether the additional
complexity introduced by statistical word-sense disambiguation is worth the effort.
The steganographic aspects were then covered by information-theoretic models..
A central part of the problem motivating this project was that there are no models
formalizing the design and analysis of natural language stegosystems. Although the
present project somewhat improves the situation, by providing a systematic
investigation of the topic, there is still no system to build upon for making formal
claims about security or robustness in the natural language scenario.








LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT

The limitations of steganography are caused due to the medium used to hide the
data. The major changes to the original file should be avoided. Thus only limited
room is left for the user to embed the message.
The least significant bit (LSB) steganography that replaces the least significant bits
of the host medium is a widely used technique with low computational complexity
and high insertion capacity. Although it has good perceptual transparency, it is
vulnerable to steganalysis which is based on histogram analysis. n all the existing
schemes detection of a secret message in a cover image can be easily detected
from the histogram analysis and statistical analysis. Therefore developing new LSB
steganography algorithms against statistical and histogram analysis is the prime
requirement.


















REFERENCES

) N.F.Johnson. Steganography.
www:http://\vww.jjtc.com/stegdoc/. George Mason University
2) Petitcolas, Fabien A.P., "nformation Hiding: Techniques for Steganography and
Digital atermarking., 2000.
3) StegoArchive, "Steganography nformation, Software and News to enhance your
Privacy, 200, URL:www.StegoArchive.com
4) l.M.Kuhn.
www:Http://wwwjjtcxom/Steganography/steglist.htm, 995.
Private Site, Hamburg. Germany
5) Johnson, Neil F., "Steganography, 2000, URL:
http://www.jjtc.com/stegdoc/index2.html
6) The EPN Store, "Steganography (Hidden riting), 995,
URL:http://www.wepin.com/pgp/stego.ht ml
7) Sellars, D., "An ntroduction to Steganography,
URL:http://www.cs.uct.ac.za/courses/CS400/NS/papers99/dsellars/st ego.ht ml
8) Bender, ., "Techniques for Data Hiding, BM Systems Journal, Vol. 35, Nos
3+4, Pgs 33-336, 99