Steganography: Hiding Your Messages
Steganography:
Hiding Your Messages
In today’s
age of hackers, phishers and identity thefts, you can never be too
sure when saving or sending private or sensitive information. Although
you might use safe practices, your recipient may not. As you may recall,
in the past, I have shown you how to encrypt data using AxCrypt.
That's a good program to use, but if someone were to get ahold of
it and realize it was encrypted, it would increase their interest
and motivate them to crack open your files. And that's when today's
tip comes into play!
First, let me
ask you this: would you believe there's something hidden in the picture
below?
Well, there is and it was placed there using steganography.
Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in
such a way that no one apart from the sender and intended recipient
knows it's there. It's useful when you want to send passwords or confidential
information out or if you only want certain people to be able to read
a message. Sound neat? Then let's see how you can use it to your advantage!
1.) To get started,
go ahead and download an application called Hide
In Picture and extract the zip file.
2.) Open the winhip_en
file and you'll see this simple interface:
3.) Now, you can pick the image that will hold the hidden file. The
image needs to be in Bitmap or GIF format. When you have your image
ready, select File and then Open Picture.
4.) The image will then appear. To hide a file, click on Image,
Hide Image. Select a file and then click Open.
Most likely, you'll select a document, but you can also hide an MP3
or another image.
5.) Enter in a password and then click OK.
6.) To save your
new encrypted image, click Image and then Save.
1.) To open the
hidden file, you must use Hide In Picture. Open the Hide In Picture
program and click on File, Open Picture.
2.) Select your
image file and then click Open.
3.) On the menu, select Image, Retrieve File
and then enter your password.
4.) You'll then
be prompted to save the encrypted file.
5.) Go ahead and give it a try with the image above. The password
is "worldstart." See if you can read the secret message!
With a little
practice, steganography is a very easy way to send sensitive information
over your network or the dangerous information superhighway. Have
fun!
~ Neil Patel
