Steganography (Part 5, A good video from YouTube)

Steganography (Part 4, Usage and tools)

Steganography can be used for many reasons, some good and some not. Good usage can include things like watermarking images (copyright protection) that they are overlaid in files, which appear to be part of the original file and are thus not easily detectable by the average person. IT also could be used as a way to make a substitute for a one-way hash value. Or it can be used to tag notes to online images (like post-it notes attached to paper files). Finally, Steganography can be used to maintain the confidentiality of valuable information, to protect the data from possible sabotage, theft, or unauthorized viewing.
Unfortunately, Steganography can also be used for illegitimate reasons. For instance, if someone was trying to steal data, they could conceal it in another file or files and send it out in an innocent looking email or file transfer. Furthermore, a person with a hobby of saving pornography, or worse, to their hard drive, may choose to hide the evidence through the use of Steganography. And, as was pointed out in the concern for terroristic purposes, it can be used as a means of covert communication. Of course, this can be both a legitimate and an illegitimate application.

Tools:
There are some tools for implementing the Steganography and in below some of them are available

StegSpy, Steganalysis Stego Suite™, Secret Messages Come in .WAVs, Stegdetect

Steganography (Part 3, Fundamentals)

Steganography just hides the covert message and not the communicating with each parties. The Steganography process generally is putting a hidden message in some transport medium that is called the carrier. The secret message should be embedded in the carrier to form the Steganography medium. A Steganography key may be used for encryption of the hidden message. In summary:

steganography_medium = hidden_message + carrier + steganography_key

Steganography (Part 2, History)

Source of the word Steganography was from the Greek steganos (covered or secret) and -graphy (writing or drawing). Literally it is covered writing. Steganography has come to mean hidden writing, i.e., writing that is not readily discernible to the casual observer. For example, using invisible ink by kids for writing messages is an example of Steganography since the writing is hidden in the sense that it is not obvious that it is there unless you know to look for it.

Steganography was only coined at the end of the 15th century. the use of Steganography dates back several millennia. In ancient times, messages were hidden on the back of wax writing tables, written on the stomachs of rabbits, or tattooed on the scalp of slaves. Invisible ink has been in use for centuries. Microdots and microfilm, a staple of war and spy movies, came about after the invention of photography (Arnold et al. 2003; Johnson et al. 2001; Kahn 1996; Wayner 2002).
For example, in ancient Rome and Greece, text was traditionally written on wax that was poured on top of stone tablets. If the sender of the information wanted to obscure the message they would use Steganography: the wax would be scraped off and the message would be inscribed or written directly on the tablet, wax would then be poured on top of the message, thereby obscuring not just its meaning but its very existence.

Steganography (part 1)

Steganography is a technique for covert communication. This paper provides some historical context for Steganography that have been used for many centuries. After that some description about concept and technique would be available. By using those techniques or some other conventional methods, there are always some chances to send a message without being uncovered by third party. There are many applications for Steganography such as digital applications, focusing on hiding information in online image or audio files.
Introduction
Hiding communicating with someone is always a challenge for people. Steganography could be a solution. Steganography is the art of covered or hidden writing. By using Steganography we become able to communicate with specific person from a third party by using hidden message. In this article some aspects of Steganography would be described.

Please Come back to this blog for recent updates about Steganography

Definition of ICT and ICTD

ICT, which stands for Information and communication technology, is a set of different varieties of technological tools and resources within the field of communication to develop, broadcast, manage, and store information. The main technology tools are Internet, broadcast networks such as TV stations, and telephone networks. Without a doubt, ICTs have impacted the education worldwide by providing long distance education, powerful search tools to find enormous amount of educational information, and many others. In addition, academic disciples have been developed related to ICTs to improve these technologies and provide solutions and methods to control these technologies to have positive social, psychological, and economical impacts on societies. As a result technological solutions have been developed to the problems and issues facing in the developing countries to use the ICTs. These technological solutions are called ICTD or information and communication technological and development. More information about this topic is available at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_and_communication_technologies

Cultural Effete of IT on Communication

A cultural effect of IT on communication is another topic that I found interesting to write about it. E-mails, teleconferencing, chat, and team rooms are several types of the cultural effects of IT on communication. The technology of telephony has impacted the traditional communication since its introduction to markets. People over the world can speak with each other at real time, but now with IT we can have teleconferencing and more than that we can see each other’s face during our communication. You can read more from this subject on Pnina Shachaf article called " Cultural diversity and information and communication technology impacts on global virtual teams: An exploratory study". it is published by Since Direct website at 31 December 2007

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VD0-4S02TBB-1&_user=961288&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F2008&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1303605927&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000049400&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=961288&md5=204eb741eac1a5a78f7cc2437b1febfe