EXPLORING STEGANOGRAPHY - SEEING THE UNSEEN

Steganography, derived from Greek, literally means ''covered writing.' ' This art of hiding information includes a vast array of secret commu nication methods that conceal a message's very existence. Steganograph y and cryptography are cousins in the spycraft family: Steganography h ides the message so that it cannot be seen. Cryptography scrambles a m essage so that it cannot be understood. Digital image steganography an d its derivatives are growing in use and application. Where cryptograp hy and strong encryption are outlawed, steganography can circumvent su ch policies to pass messages covertly. Commercial applications of steg anography-digital watermarks and digital fingerprinting-are now being used to track the copyright and ownership of electronic media. Develop ment in covert communications and steganography will continue, as will research in building more robust digital watermarks that can survive image manipulation and attacks. The more information that is made avai lable on the Internet, the more owners of such information need to pro tect themselves from theft and false representation. In this article t he authors discuss image files and how to hide information in them. To determine the limitations and flexibility of available software, they evaluated several steganographic packages. This article discusses thr ee: Stego-Dos, White Noise Storm, and S-Tools for Windows.