Minor Project Proposal on

STEGANOGRAPHY
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree of Bachelor of Information Technology
under Pokhara University

Submitted by:

Abhiyan Pokhrel: CNR-12456

Amrit Karn: CNR-12456
Jasper Neupane: CNR-12466
Nirajan Pokhrel: CNR-12469
Nabin BC: CNR-12496

Date:
31th Dec 2015

Department of Information Technology

NEPAL COLLEGE OF
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Balkumari, Lalitpur, Nepal
ABSTRACT
Steganography is the art of passing the information in the manner that the very existence
of the message is unknown. The goal of steganography is to avoid suspicion to the
transmission of hidden message, such that it is highly secured. Steganography is the art
of concealing the existence of information within seemingly innocuous carriers.
Steganography can be viewed as akin to cryptography. Both have been used throughout
recorded history as means to protect information. At times these two technologies seem
to converge while the objectives of the two differ. Cryptographic techniques "scramble"
messages so if intercepted, the messages cannot be understood. Steganography, in an
essence, "camouflages" a message to hide its existence and make it seem "invisible" thus
concealing the fact that a message is being sent altogether.
Steganography has its place in security. It is not intended to replace cryptography but
supplement it. Hiding a message with steganography methods reduces the chance of a
message being detected. One of the most commonly used methods is Least Significant
Bit (LSB) algorithm. This deals with the embedding of message along with the image file
where each pixel is of size 3 bytes. Each and every bit of the message is taken and is
embedded along with the bytes of the image file such that, its inclusion does not make a
perceivable change in the message embedded file. Incase of confidential information
that should be sent, provision of security is an inevitable issue which cannot have any
compromise. This algorithm that is commonly used in this field has a major loophole.
That is the ease of cracking the messages that is hidden in the image file.

KEYWORDS

Steganography: The art and science of hidden writing.

Cryptography: The science of writing in secret codes.

Cover Medium: File in which we will hide the hidden data

Plain Text : Data to be hidden.

Cipher Text : The encrypted data to be hidden.

Steno Key : Data is hidden by using this string

Steno Medium : The final resultant file after hiding data.

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Table of Contents
ABSTRACT............................................................................................................................................... i
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................................... iii
1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 STEGANOGRAPHY & CRYPTOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 1
2. SCOPE & LIMITATIONS .......................................................................................................................... 1
2.1 SCOPE .................................................................................................................................................. 1
2.2 LIMITATIONS ....................................................................................................................................... 1
3. PROBLEM STATEMENT .......................................................................................................................... 2
4. OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................................................... 2
5. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT AND TECHNOLOGIES USED .............................................. 2
5.1 Visual Studio.NET version 4.5 / Visual C#.NET .................................................................................... 2
6. ANALYSIS AND DESIGN.......................................................................................................................... 3
6.1 Fig a :CONTEXT DIAGRAM .................................................................................................................. 3
6.2 FIG B : GANTT CHART ......................................................................................................................... 4
7. DATA FLOW DIAGRAM .......................................................................................................................... 5
7.1 Fig c : ENCODING ................................................................................................................................ 5
7.2 Fig d Decoding ..................................................................................................................................... 6
8. Literature Study .................................................................................................................................... 7
8.1 ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL IMAGE .............................................................................................................. 7
9. ALGORITHMS......................................................................................................................................... 9
9.1 ENCODING........................................................................................................................................... 9
9.1.1 ALGORITHM FOR ENCODING ....................................................................................................... 9
9.2 ALGORITHM FOR DECODING ............................................................................................................ 10
10. SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION ....................................................................................................... 11
10.1 FUNCTIONS ..................................................................................................................................... 11
11. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK ................................................................................................. 12
12. REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................... 12

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 LIST OF FIGURES
1. ANALYSIS AND DESIGN.......................................................................................................................... 3
1.1 Fig a :CONTEXT DIAGRAM .................................................................................................................. 3
1.2 FIG B : GANTT CHART ......................................................................................................................... 4
2. DATA FLOW DIAGRAM .......................................................................................................................... 5
2.1 Fig c : ENCODING ................................................................................................................................ 5
2.2 Fig d Decoding ..................................................................................................................................... 6

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1. INTRODUCTION
The word steganography is of Greek origin and means "covered, or
hidden writing". Steganography is the art and science of communicating in a way which
hides the existence of the communication. By contrast, cryptography obscures the
meaning of a message, but it does not conceal the fact that there is a message .

1.1 STEGANOGRAPHY & CRYPTOGRAPHY

Cryptography — the science of writing in secret codes — addresses all of the elements
necessary for secure communication over an insecure channel, namely privacy,
confidentiality, key exchange, authentication, and non-repudiation. But cryptography
does not always provide safe communication.
The advantage of steganography over cryptography alone is that messages do not
attract attention to themselves, to messengers, or to recipients. Whereas the goal of
cryptography is to make data unreadable by a third party, the goal of steganography is
to hide the data from a third party. Often, steganography and cryptography are used
together to ensure security of the covert message.

2. SCOPE & LIMITATIONS

2.1 SCOPE
Steganography is a very interesting and advantageous science these days and has
following uses:
 Digital Watermarking
 Map making, add fictional names to mailing lists Radio and TV messages
 Steganography is used by some modern printers, including HP and Xerox

2.2 LIMITATIONS
 Multiple Steganography

 Auto Compression : when any picture is steganography then the text incorporated
within it increases the size of picture and hence auto compression is needed.

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 3. PROBLEM STATEMENT

To create a way/app in which image or audio file can integrate text or other hidden
messages within it by using interactive audio/visual environment.

4. OBJECTIVES

1. To create a way/app in which image or audio file can encode text or other hidden
messages within it by using interactive audio/visual environment.
2. To decode a hidden messages from audio/picture file.
3. Compare original file with the tempered file.

5. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT AND

TECHNOLOGIES USED

The final product will be a desktop application to encode a message in a photo and
password protect it. Encryption and Decryption both are done within the application. All
the coding is done in Visual C#.NET.

5.1 Visual Studio.NET version 4.5 / Visual C#.NET

C# is an object-oriented programming language developed by Microsoft as part of the

.NET initiative and later approved as a standard by ECMA (ECMA- 334) and ISO
(ISO/IEC 23270).
In this project all the framework has been designed in C#. It deals with the main
Algorithms of this project.

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 6. ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

6.1 Fig a :CONTEXT DIAGRAM

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6.2 FIG B : GANTT CHART

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 7. DATA FLOW DIAGRAM

7.1 Fig c : ENCODING

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7.2 Fig d Decoding

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 8. Literature Study

8.1 ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL IMAGE

An image file is merely a binary file containing a binary representation of the color or light
intensity of each picture element (pixel) comprising the image.Images typically use either
8-bit or 24-bit color.When using 8-bit color, there is a definition of up to 256 colors forming
a palette for this image, each color denoted by an 8-bit value.

A 24-bit color scheme, as the term suggests, uses 24 bits per pixel and provides a much
better set of colors. In this case, each pixel is represented by three bytes, each byte
representing the intensity of the three primary colors red, green, and blue (RGB),
respectively. The color orange, for example, would be displayed with red set to 100%
green set to 50% and no blue .

The size of an image file, then, is directly related to the number of pixels and the
granularity of the color definition. A typical 640x480 pix image using a palette of 256
colors would require a file about 307 KB in size (640 • 480 bytes), whereas a 1024x768
pix high-resolution 24-bit color image would result in a 2.36 MB file (1024 • 768 • 3 bytes).

To avoid sending files of this enormous size, a number of compression schemes have
been developed over time, notably Bitmap (BMP), Graphic Interchange Format (GIF),
and Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) file types. Not all are equally suited to
steganography, however.GIF and 8-bit BMP files employ what is known as lossless
compression, a scheme that allows the software to exactly reconstruct the original
image. JPEG, on the other hand, uses lousy compression, which means that the
expanded image is very nearly the same as the original but not an exact duplicate.
Lossless compression is much better suited to applications where the integrity of the
original information must be maintained, such as steganography. While JPEG can be
used for steno applications, it is more common to embed data in GIF or BMP files.

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The simplest approach to hiding data within an image file is called Least Significant Bit
(LSB) insertion. In this method, we can take the binary representation of the hidden
data and overwrite the LSB of each byte within the cover image. If we are using 24-bit
color, the amount of change will be minimal and indiscernible to the human eye.

As an example, suppose that we have three adjacent pixels (nine bytes) with the
following RGB encoding:

10010101 00001101 11001001

10010110 00001111 11001010
10011111 00010000 11001011

Now suppose we want to "hide" the following 9 bits of data (the hidden data is usually
compressed prior to being hidden): 101101101. If we overlay these 9 bits over the LSB
of the 9 bytes above, we get the following (where bits in bold have been changed):

10010101 00001100 11001001

10010111 00001110 11001011
10011111 00010000 11001011

Note that we have successfully hidden 9 bits but at a cost of only changing 4, or roughly
50%, of the LSBs.

A 640x480 pixel image, the size of a small computer monitor, can hold over 400,000
characters. That's a whole novel hidden in one modest photo!

This project involves following formats of images:

Bitmap Images (.bmp)

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Joint Photographic Experts Group (.jpg)
Portable Network Graphics (.png)
Tagged Image File Format (.tif)

9. ALGORITHMS

9.1 ENCODING

Least significant bit (LSB) coding is the simplest way to embed information in
a digital Image or Audio file. By substituting the least significant bit of each
sampling point in Audio and each pixel in Image with a binary message, LSB
coding allows for a large amount of data to be encoded.

9.1.1 ALGORITHM FOR ENCODING

STEP 1. //Information from Stegno Key

Input the key in string datatype;
//Apply Arithmetic coding to the string key
float num = Arithmetic_coding( key);
num=num*100;
x=10*(1st digit of num);
y=10*(2st digit of num);

STEP 2. //converting Plain Text into Bit Stream

//Input Text to be hidden in string datatype;
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 string plaintext;
//apply encription algorithm on this string
string ciphertext = Vigenere_cipher(plaintext);

convert ciphertext ASCII form;

convert ASCII form Bit_stream;

STEP 3. //Hiding bitstream of input text in Image or Audio file

int n = length(plaintext);

9.2 ALGORITHM FOR DECODING

STEP 1. //Information from Stegno Key

Input the key in string datatype;
//Apply Arithmetic coding to the string key
float num = Arithmetic_coding( key);
num=num*100;
x=10*(1st digit of num);
y=10*(2st digit of num);
//from IMAGE file

STEP 2. //read stegno image

int n= R value of 1x1 pixel
int g=0;
int h=0;

STEP 3. for(int i=1; i<=n;i++)

{
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 g=g+x;
h=h+y;
string Bit_stream;
char C;
If (i%3==1) C=R;
If (i%3==1) C=G;
If (i%3==1) C=B;
Bit_stream[i--]=least significant digit of C value of (gxh) pixel}

10. SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION

10.1 FUNCTIONS

private void generate_bincodes()

It is used to convert the string into binary codes or bit stream. This function
uses the class stack to perform this task.

private void text_encrypt()

It is used to encrypt the plain text using vigenere cipher.

private string text_decrypt()

It is used to decrypt the text which is generated from the steno medium.

private float get_key()

This function is used to manipulate the steno key.

public Bitmap encrypt()

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 This is the function responsible for hiding encrypted text in the image file

public string decrypt()

This is the function responsible for decoding the steno medium.

11. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

Steganography is a really interesting subject and outside of the mainstream

cryptography and system administration that most of us deal with day after day.
“You never know if a message is hidden”, this is the dilemma that empowers
steganography. As more emphasis is placed on the areas of copyright protection, privacy
protection, and surveillance, we believe that steganography will continue to grow in
importance as a protection mechanism.
This project deals with Steganography in Image and Audio files using Least Significant Bit
(LSB) coding. This project can uplifted by considering following measures:

A more sophisticated approach can be implemented by using pseudo-random number

generator to spread the message over the sound file in a random manner.

This project can be extended by using other media files like video and other complex formats
of audio and image.

12. REFERENCES
[1] Slideshare: Online (Available) : STEGANOGRAPHY
Uttam Jain
, Sponsorship Head at I.T.S.A. RAIT

http://www.slideshare.net/UttamJain/steganography-14902856?qid=6ae2bdb2-
0b6a-4b1c-8ec1-054ea42d774c&v=qf1&b=&from_search=1

[2] Wikipedia: Online (Available) : STEGANOGRAPHY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganographic_file_system

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