Title: Hiding the hidden message: approaches to textual steganography

Authors: George R.S. Weir, Michael Morran

Addresses: Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G1 1XH, UK. ' Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G1 1XH, UK

Abstract: Textual steganography is a means of concealing an encoded message within text. The appeal in such a system is its potential for hiding the fact that encoding is taking place. The failure to hide the presence of encoding is a form of information leakage and an inherent risk since it suggests that there is important or valuable information in transit. This is considered a major limitation of existing cryptographic techniques as applied to secure information transfer. In this paper, we describe an experimental system that we have developed as a test bed for textual steganography. This system allows us to explore the application of part of speech tagging, word sense disambiguation and synonym replacement as component strategies for textual steganography.

Keywords: textual steganography; information security; textual analysis; natural language processing; NLP; encoded messages; message hiding; cryptography; speech tagging; word sense disambiguation; synonym replacement.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESDF.2010.038284

International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, 2010 Vol.3 No.3, pp.223 - 233

Published online: 27 Jan 2011 *

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