The Origin of Steganography

Summary

The provided content discusses the history and methods of steganography, contrasting it with cryptography, and illustrates its use through historical examples such as Mary Queen of Scots' cipher.

Abstract

Steganography is the practice of concealing messages or information within other non-secret content, maintaining the original structure without altering the data. It dates back to ancient Greek and Chinese civilizations, where it was used for secret communication. The article details the evolution of steganography, from physical methods like writing on shaved heads or wooden tablets to more sophisticated techniques involving electronic files. It also recounts the story of Mary Queen of Scots, who used both steganography and cryptography, including substitution ciphers and hidden messages in beer barrels, to communicate while imprisoned. The text explains that steganography can involve altering file signatures, manipulating bits, or embedding data within structured files, and it provides examples such as changing video frame rates, altering image color channels, playing audio tracks backward, and hiding information in file headers or web page elements. The article concludes by teasing further exploration into steganographic techniques and types, and it promotes an AI service called ZAI.chat as a cost-effective alternative to ChatGPT Plus.

Opinions

The author suggests that steganography and cryptography are distinct, with steganography focusing on hiding messages in plain sight without altering the data structure, whereas cryptography alters the data structure through encryption.
There is an implication that steganography, while effective, can be risky if the messenger is caught, as demonstrated by the capture and execution of Mary Queen of Scots after her hidden messages were discovered.
The article posits that steganography has evolved from simple physical concealment to complex digital methods, indicating a progression in sophistication and application.
The author seems to advocate for the practicality and efficiency of steganography by listing various modern techniques and examples of its use.
A value judgment is made by the author in recommending ZAI.chat, suggesting it offers similar capabilities to ChatGPT Plus but at

The Origin of Steganography

What is it?

Steganography in simple words is hiding a message or set of messages which are secretive above a physical object like hiding a small piece of paper in a notebook . In electronic terms it is hiding computer files , images , text , audio within another file , message or audio video or a mix of both .

There might be a confusion that will arise cryptography uses hash function to encrypt so that nobody can view the message without the particular decrypt key and steganography we say we hide behind one another the difference is that cryptography the data structure is altered while stegano maintains the same structure and it’s just hiding from plainsight view complex techniques is also there but crypto is most commonly used .

How it all originated ?

The first use of steganography was by greeks although the chinese had few traces if it . The messenger head was shaved and then the required content was return on the scalp , once the hair has grown he is sent and information is read accordingly. Even more to add the warning for a war is also notified by writing directly on the wooden backing of a wax tablet before applying it’s beeswax surface

The story of Mary Queen of Scots Cipher :

Mary was in jail obviously in jail we are not connected to the outside world so in order to communicate with other people out and also not know what she talks about she started using codes all she did was substitution if it’s A it’s D and so on . So the people who decrypt it if they were able to identify the message clearly. As we know there are 2 ways of hiding messages one is Steganography and cryptography

The early stages of stego is hiding messages through combinations of onion and milk so only when we place it near a burning candle we can read the message properly other one is with the combination of vinegar and lime . Although these are differentiated from literal stego and called as Watermarking. The disadvantage she faced is once the messenger gets caught and its discovered then it’s a total waste so she had to find a different way and that’s how we ended in cryptology . Cryptology doesn’t hide the existence but it’s makes the letter meaningless so that nobody understands that and that’s the end result of basic cipher called Substitution cipher.

She used over 100 of ciphers for daily communication and had a pattern of codes. When it comes to stego part the codes or ciphers were hidden in a beer barrel as it came from home the messages went directly to them and communication happened accordingly .

Finally the plan to kill queen elizabeth was wrote in a letter and babington was the man behind it and he sent those to jail . The persons who delivers the messages was asked to decipher and read to mary . So when he read that the prison officer immediately altered people and she was put to death

How this stego work ?

It works by replacing some parts of useless or unused data might be changing the file signature from pdf to zip or replacing any bit with another or feed in both dump and original data into the files that are properly structured

Few examples :

Playing a video at a faster frame rate to unveil a hidden message.

Inserting a message in the red, green, or blue channel of an RGB image.

Playing an audio track backward to reveal a hidden message.

Encrypting a message or image within a photo through the addition of noise or sound.

Hiding information with the file header or metadata.

Inserting image behind image to conceal the final message

Hiding in hidden areas of a web page or in robots.txt files

This is the whole story behind stego the techniques and types of it will be covered in later sections..