A forward email based high capacity text steganography technique using a randomized and indexed word dictionary
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A forward email based high capacity text steganography technique using a randomized and indexed word dictionary Giridhar Maji 1
& Sharmistha Mandal
2
Received: 11 November 2019 / Revised: 22 June 2020 / Accepted: 9 July 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract
Text steganography is inherently difficult due to minimal redundant information space to hide secret payload. The same fact limits the hiding capacity and security too. In this study, a novel technique has been proposed using a randomized indexed word dictionary, and a list of email addresses to increase the hiding capacity and security. A forward email platform has been used as the cover, and email addresses in the carbon copy (CC) field contain secret data that are encoded using a randomized index-based word dictionary. The email username list and indexed word dictionary are both pre-shared between the communicating parties. But during every new communication, a random bitstream (temporary stego-key) is generated from the system time and communicated separately using public-key cryptography. This temporary stego-key is used to randomize the index values of the words in the dictionary. Most of the existing state-of-the-art techniques provide a hiding capacity of 6–10%. The proposed scheme achieves a capacity of 12.17% using some common secret text and email body text (cover text) as used in all other studies. The proposed technique provides higher hiding capacity and security by randomizing the word indexes every time using temporary stego-key. It is also free from statistical attacks, OCR based attacks, and does not depend on the use of any particular text processor. Keywords Text steganography . Email steganography . Indexed word dictionary . Data hiding in email cover . High capacity steganography . Secure and robust text steganography
* Giridhar Maji [email protected] Sharmistha Mandal [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Multimedia Tools and Applications
1 Introduction The term “Steganography” first appeared in the literature through a book apparently based on magic (but actually on preliminary studies on cryptography and steganography) around 1499 AD in Germany by Johannes Trithemius [40]. The term originates from the amalgamation of two Greek words: “στεγανός” (steganos- meaning “waterproof or well-protected) and “γράφειν” (graphein- meaning writing). Hence, steganography is defined as the art of covered/hidden writing. The concept of “hidden writing” and “covert communication” dates back to very far in history. Herodotus, the father of history, gave many examples of information sharing with ingenious ways without raising suspicion from the authorities [15]. One such popular incident goes as follows. A person named Demeratus wanted to inform from Persia to his friends in Greece that Xerxes, the Persian king, planning an attack on them. He had used wax tablets and scribbled the information on the wooden frame and put wax over them to hide.
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