E-raamat: Noiseless Steganography: The Key to Covert Communications

"Foreword Steganography is the science and art of covert communications and involves two procedures. First, the required message is concealed in a particular carrier, e.g., image, audio, text, etc., that is called a steganographic cover. The second procedure is concerned with transmitting the cover to the message recipient without drawing suspicion. Fundamentally, the steganographic goal is not to hinder the adversary from decoding a hidden message, but to prevent the adversary from suspecting the existence of covert communications. When using any steganographic technique if suspicion is raised, the goal of steganography is defeated regardless of whether a plaintext is revealed. Contemporary steganography approaches camouflage data as noise in a cover that is assumed to look innocent. For example, the encoded message can be embedded as alteration of digital images, audio files, and text, without noticeable degradation. However, such alteration of authenticated covers can raise suspicion and makes the message detectable. Another example is when linguistics, e.g., using synonymous words, is exploited as a means to conceal a message, causing the presence of abnormal and sometimes weird sentences in a text that become discernible by human and machine examinations. The presence of such unjustifiable noise draws attention and unravels the hidden communications. This book introduces a novel Noiseless Steganography Paradigm (Nostega). Nostega neither hides data in a noise nor produces noise. xi i Foreword Instead, it camouflages messages in a form of unquestionable data in the generated cover. In addition, steganography approaches found in the literature have focused on how to conceal a message and not on how to camouflage its transmittal"--Provided by publisher.

Among the features that make Noiseless Steganography: The Key to Covert Communications a first of its kind:

• The first to comprehensively cover Linguistic Steganography
• The first to comprehensively cover Graph Steganography
• The first to comprehensively cover Game Steganography

Although the goal of steganography is to prevent adversaries from suspecting the existence of covert communications, most books on the subject present outdated steganography approaches that are detectable by human and/or machine examinations. These approaches often fail because they camouflage data as a detectable noise by altering digital images, audio files, text, etc. However, such alteration raises suspicion and makes the message discernible by detecting its noise.

Addressing such shortcomings, Noiseless Steganography: The Key to Covert Communications introduces a novel Noiseless Steganography Paradigm (Nostega). Rather than hiding data in noise or producing noise, Nostega camouflages messages as well as their transmission in the form of unquestionable data in the generated steganographic cover. The book explains how to use Nostega to determine suitable domains capable of generating unsuspicious steganographic cover in which messages are embedded in the form of innocent data that is compatible with the chosen domain. It presents a number of Nostega-based methodologies, including but not limited to:

• A novel cover type that enables data to be hidden in plotted graphs
• A novel methodology that pursues popular games such as chess, checkers, crosswords, and dominoes to conceal messages
• Comprehensive coverage of linguistic steganography
• Several novel linguistic steganography methodologies based on Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistic techniques such as: Education-Centric-Based, Summarization-Based, Natural Language Generation Based, Random-Series-Based, Email Headers Based, Automatic Joke Generation Based, List-Based, and Automatic Notes Generation Based

The first book to provide comprehensive coverage of Linguistic Steganography, Graph Steganography, and Game Steganography, it discusses the implementation and steganalysis validation of ten Nostega-based methodologies. It describes how to establish covert channels by employing the selected domain to serve as justification for the interaction and delivery of the cover among the communicating parties. Instead of using contemporary steganography approaches to camouflage your data as noise that is assumed to look innocent, the text provides you with the tools to prevent your adversaries from suspecting the existence of covert communications altogether.