Steganography :: Essays Papers

Steganography Introduction to Steganography Codes have been around for centuries ranging from wax, invisible ink, Morse code, the Enigma used by the Germans during World War II and now steganographic. Steganography is the latest form to insidiously hide information over the Internet without a trace of a file being altered. You are able to hide messages within images, voice or music. Steganography is an ancient method of hiding messages. Today messages are hidden in images and music. Steganography can be traced back to the ancient Greek who would write messages on tablets and cover them in wax. This made the tablets look blank and unsuspicious (Kolata, F4). Citizens of ancient civilizations would tattoo messages on their shaved heads. They would then let their hair grown in and travel across enemy lines to deliver the message (Seper, G1). During World War II the Allies placed a ban on flower deliveries with dates, crossword puzzles and even report cards (Kolata, F4) for fear of a message being hidden with in. Steganographers fi rst alter their data by using encryption and then place the image into a pre-select image. Steganographers look for a piece of code that would be the least significant and look the least altered to the human eye (Kolata, F4), being as inconspicuousness and random as possible. This makes the messages undetectable unless you knew that there is a message hidden and you were able to crack the code. Hacking and Unhacking Hackers and terrorists have been using this form of technology for years. The United States governmental officials had suspected an attack on the United States for a period of time and thought the information to be hidden using steganography. Anyone can use and get access to steganographic materials. It's easy to download on numerous sights and no software is required. It's an easy and cheap way to keep information secure and undetectable. The number of steganography sites has doubled in the past two years (Kolata, F4). The United States government is also trying to place restrictions on encryption methods to prevent another catastrophic attack in the world such as the World Trade Center attacks. By having access to a private key the government would have unlimited access to secure information and crack codes all for safety reasons (USA Today). A " private key" is needed to decode any steganographic messages. Images are made up from a combination of an abundant of pixels (tiny dots).