IT Security Stack Exchange
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Questions tagged [steganography]

Steganography is the art of hiding data within other data. Ann sends a message to Bob. With encryption Eve could see the message but not read it. With steganography Eve would not see the message.

Steganography ( steganos - covered; graphie - writing ) is the art of hiding a message within another message. An example would be hiding a text file in the data of a graphics file.

Compare this to cryptography. Imagine Ann wants to send a message to Bob. Ann decides to encrypt the image and send it. This means that if Eve intercepts the message she'll know it exists, but she will not be able to decrypt it. With steganography Eve will not know the message exists, but if she did she would be able to read it.

Steganography has several failure points.

  • Poor choice of cover data
  • Poor preparation of hidden data
  • Poor choice of method of hiding

Some steganographic software available produces 'hidden' data that is trivially easy to detect; there are steganography detection softwares available.

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Why is this 435 × 652 pixel JPEG over 6 MB?

This was, before someone helpfully fixed it after seeing this question, a relatively unassuming and tiny photo of a ̶f̶i̶s̶h̶ nudibranch, with 283,620 pixels. It has some metadata: text Exif tags as well as 8.6kB of Color Profile information, and a…
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Detecting steganography in images

I recently came across an odd JPEG file: Resolution 400x600 and a filesize of 2.9 MB. I got suspicious and suspected that there is some additional information hidden. I tried some straight forward things: open the file with some archive tools; tried…
Chris
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Is there an encryption algorithm that allows for a single payload to have two different outputs based on the password?

Suppose I have some confidential information that is encrypted and I'm forced/compelled to disclose that password. My goal is to make that decrypted payload seem meaningful / and the password valid. Is there any such algorithm that allows for a…
makerofthings7
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Cryptography that looks like ordinary email

I would like to stay out of the automatic filters in place by security agencies and not be accidentally placed on a no-fly list or such. Say I'm having a political debate with a friend about democracy and stuff, and terms like revolution,…
Rodin
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How is it possible to embed executable code in an image

I was reading up on FireEye and came across this NYTimes article detailing a Skype chat where an image was sent laden with malware: Quote: To gain access to information on the devices..., hackers posed as women on Skype, identified the types of …
Jeremy Thompson
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Is there such a thing as public key steganography

One of the drawbacks of traditional steganography is that both parties need to exchange a secret key. Encryption had this problem too but circumvented this with public key cryptography. Are there any cases where this has been done with…
Jeremy French
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Would 'spam' mail really avoid eavesdropping?

spammimic.com offers a service that 'encrypts' your mail as 'spam', the rationale being that all mail services automatically filter out spam, and so if you're wanting to communicate with someone without an eavesdropper noticing, disguising your…
fredley
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Steganography to hide text within text

Are there any steganography algorithms which are capable of hiding a (optionally encrypted) text message within another innocuous text message? The scenario I envisage is that I would like to carry on an email conversation, which to a man in the…
mulllhausen
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Setup a private VPN for family in China?

I have family in China. During the past weeks their internet connection was severely limited. VPNs such as Astrill and similar weren't working anymore. Is it possible to setup my own VPN (or alternative), either on AWS or at home, in a way that…
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Is Steganography a safe method to store secret data?

I want to put some parts of my secret data into specific file with Steganography method. Is this method as safe as other encryption methods like RSA or SHA?
Vahid Asefi
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Steganography - JPEGsnoop

I am trying to overcome a CTF steganography challenge. I tried different methods to unhide the hidden data in the file without luck. I used JPEGsnoop on the image and I got this output: *** Decoding SCAN Data *** OFFSET: 0x0000026F Scan Decode…
Uriel Frankel
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Is Steganography considered encryption and subject to USA export restrictions?

I have written an application for Apple's iOS which embeds messages in JPEG files using steganography (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography). For the purposes of this question lets assume that my steganography algorithm is well known, but…
Ben Holland
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A filesystem with chunks hidden all over the internet?

I am wondering if there are any implementations of a filesystem (as in FUSE) that would allow me to host a file in chunks steganographically distributed all over the internet. The way I imagine it, the user needs a master URL with the first block…
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Does this image contain secret data?

I am analysing big, cloud-based application. During analysis I found that one of the biggest files (>3 MB) used in this app is a very small (16x16) icon.png file. Further analysis revealed that the file contains over 60000 lines of metadata,…
Kao
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How can I detect that steganography has been used?

I have seen some of the algorithms which are used to detect if a file is a stego-file or not, but all those algorithms check for specific patterns and are not universal. Maybe there are universal detection systems, but I have not seen them…
ritesh
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