Steganography
Defined by Wikipedia, is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message. What this means is that you are hiding things in plain site, I’m sure that you have all seen the puzzles where you stare at a poster of seemingly repeating shapes and colors and after you gaze longingly into It for a while, a pattern emerges, well, it’s the same concept only the information you’re hiding now maybe as simple as a message to a lover written on a picture you both adore or it could be something more sinister, like plans for a prank on somebody hidden in a memo… the possibilities are endless.
Steganography was created sometime in the 400s when a Greek named Herodotus sent a message regarding an attack on Greece, this message was written in the backing of a wooden tablet before a wax surface was applied. The message was sent, the attack was averted and Greece survived.
There are three principle types of steganography: physical, digital, and printed. When you choose to use physical steganography, you are using a physical medium to hide messages with. Historical examples of physical steganography include the aforementioned episode by Herodotus. Other really fascinating examples are that some slave owners would shave their slave’s heads and tattoo messages into the scalp. The hair would grow back and hide the message. More recent examples of physical steganography include microdots, where a spy would photograph a photograph and place it on a letter (like an I) in a letter and send it to his boss.
The next form of steganography is digital steganography. This is a very popular hobby for some technologically minded people. There are many ways to hide messages in digital forms; the advents of new technology make this a seemingly limitless art form. I have personally seen messages hidden within MP3 files. They were placed in the noisy parts of the file where extra data won’t make any difference in sound quality. The next, and possibly my favorite form of digital steganography is to take a large block of random junk and place encrypted data inside of it. I know that sounds confusing, so consider this:
Block of junk: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Encrypted Junk: 123456
Steganographed Junk: ABCDEFGH123456IJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
The final form of steganography is printed steganography. Please refer to the first example, of a picture you stare at for a long time trying to see the image and your eyes finally adjust to it and you see the shape appear out of the image.
I truly hope that you have enjoyed this introduction to this truly wonderful art. I hope you will research it further and contribute if you’re interested! You can find more information from Wikipedia or a simple Google search for Steganography.
