Re: Steganography as a means of data protection

From: David Cross [MS] (dcross_at_online.microsoft.com)
Date: 07/28/03 

Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 05:16:45 -0700

Steganography has not proved itself as a partical method for data encryption
in general. Although watermarking images and media for purposes fo digital
rights management has some potential. 

-- 
David B. Cross [MS]
--
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"William Gant" <wgant@transcender.com> wrote in message
news:3699b3d7.0307251344.1d4cdcd@posting.google.com...
> Hello,
> I was just wondering what the general opinion is on the effectiveness
> of using steganography to protect string resources, such as encryption
> keys and database passwords.
>
> I was thinking that you could use a bitmap (such as a splash screen
> logo) to hide the password in plain sight. If your bitmap was an RGBA
> bitmap, then you could use the the last bit of the alpha component of
> the pixel to hide your information without visibly altering the image.
>
> Of course, you wouldn't want the pixels you are using to be
> continguous, as that might make it too easy for a hacker. Therefore, I
> would think you could use some sort of algorithm to determine which
> pixels you would hit for the data and possibly randomize the rest.
> Provided that the algorithm to retrieve this data is suitably
> obfuscated, are there any significant risks to such a plan (other than
> performance)? Also, how big would the bitmap need to be to effectively
> hide the information?
>
> Thanks,
> Will Gant