- Joined
- Apr 3, 2002
- Location
- Bloomington, IN
Steganography Challenge & Contest!!!
Intro:
The winner of this challenge, due to end on February 28, 2005, will win a Blue Liquid Thunder Cold Cathode. (See another view here.) If no winner is found, I may or may not give a consolation prize, depending upon the progress.
If people do a really awesome job or we get a lot of participation, I may give out more prizes! Please check here for updates on available prizes!
There are 3 purposes to this challenge:
1: To give you a computing / programming / image processing / mental challenge;
2: To see if you can come up with a way to analyze arbitrary images, test for the precense of embedded information, and extract it;
3: To advertise my EasyBMP C++ bitmap library so as to gain usage feedback and grow its userbase.
Background
Steganography is the process of hiding information within an image file in such a way that it is nearly indetectable. It should at least be indetectable to the human eye. Ideally, it should even be hard for a computer to detect the information without getting a lot of "false positives" when scanning many images. Here is an example:
In this example, I have embedded the text of this thread, as well as some information about the overclockers.com forums.
Steganography is not encryption. The point isn't to make the information impossible to decrypt, but rather to hide the data. Usually, this is done by modifying the image pixels in some way. For instance, a text character could be regarded as a number from 0 to 255, and then it could be written in some base. (For instance, in base 2, i.e., binary.) Then, this data could be spread amongst the red, green, and blue channels of an image.
I have written several steganography programs using my EasyBMP library. I'll be presenting two of these here: one that hides the data in greyscale images, and one that hides the data in color images.
Your Mission
You must answer me these questions three (either for the greyscale group or for the color group, but preferably both):
1: In the group of 6 images, which have embedded information, and which don't? Please include your detection method. Preference will be given to those methods that use a home-coded approach, especially those that use the EasyBMP library.
2: Extract the information embedded in the images that did contain hidden text. Again, describe your method. Preference will be given to home-coded software, especially that using the EasyBMP library.
3: This is not a question. The results need to be GPL'd (open-sourced), so please keep that in mind!
Test images: greyscale version
GreySamples.zip
Test images: color version
ColorSamples.zip
Timeline
Here's the timeline:
Feb. 10, 2005: I post my challenge.
Feb. 11, 2005 - Feb. 28, 2005: You have all this time to work on your solutions. You should post here if you plan to work on the challenge. (This gives me a better idea of participation.) You're welcome and encouraged to collaborate. You may ask questions here, but I really intend this to be an open-ended challenge, and so I may not answer all questions! (But in the spirit of collaboration, anyone is welcome to answer a question within this thread.)
Feb. 14, 2005: If nobody announces their intent to enter by this point, the contest ends.
Mar. 1, 2005 - Mar. 6, 2005: I assess the entries and decide on prizes. If I need help in deciding, I'll probably ask SSS, JigPu, or another greenie meanie.
Helpful resources
PixelDump: A program that gives a pixel-by-pixel readout of the (red,green,blue) values of an image.
EasyBMP: A simple open-source C++ bitmap library that supports read, writing, and modifying BMP files. (All these images were created using that library.)
MingW: A fantastic C++ compiler.
Good luck, and have fun!!! -- Paul
Intro:
The winner of this challenge, due to end on February 28, 2005, will win a Blue Liquid Thunder Cold Cathode. (See another view here.) If no winner is found, I may or may not give a consolation prize, depending upon the progress.
If people do a really awesome job or we get a lot of participation, I may give out more prizes! Please check here for updates on available prizes! There are 3 purposes to this challenge:
1: To give you a computing / programming / image processing / mental challenge;
2: To see if you can come up with a way to analyze arbitrary images, test for the precense of embedded information, and extract it;
3: To advertise my EasyBMP C++ bitmap library so as to gain usage feedback and grow its userbase.
Background
Steganography is the process of hiding information within an image file in such a way that it is nearly indetectable. It should at least be indetectable to the human eye. Ideally, it should even be hard for a computer to detect the information without getting a lot of "false positives" when scanning many images. Here is an example:
In this example, I have embedded the text of this thread, as well as some information about the overclockers.com forums.
Steganography is not encryption. The point isn't to make the information impossible to decrypt, but rather to hide the data. Usually, this is done by modifying the image pixels in some way. For instance, a text character could be regarded as a number from 0 to 255, and then it could be written in some base. (For instance, in base 2, i.e., binary.) Then, this data could be spread amongst the red, green, and blue channels of an image.
I have written several steganography programs using my EasyBMP library. I'll be presenting two of these here: one that hides the data in greyscale images, and one that hides the data in color images.
Your Mission
You must answer me these questions three (either for the greyscale group or for the color group, but preferably both):
1: In the group of 6 images, which have embedded information, and which don't? Please include your detection method. Preference will be given to those methods that use a home-coded approach, especially those that use the EasyBMP library.
2: Extract the information embedded in the images that did contain hidden text. Again, describe your method. Preference will be given to home-coded software, especially that using the EasyBMP library.
3: This is not a question. The results need to be GPL'd (open-sourced), so please keep that in mind!
Test images: greyscale version
GreySamples.zip
Test images: color version
ColorSamples.zip
Timeline
Here's the timeline:
Feb. 10, 2005: I post my challenge.
Feb. 11, 2005 - Feb. 28, 2005: You have all this time to work on your solutions. You should post here if you plan to work on the challenge. (This gives me a better idea of participation.) You're welcome and encouraged to collaborate. You may ask questions here, but I really intend this to be an open-ended challenge, and so I may not answer all questions! (But in the spirit of collaboration, anyone is welcome to answer a question within this thread.)
Feb. 14, 2005: If nobody announces their intent to enter by this point, the contest ends.
Mar. 1, 2005 - Mar. 6, 2005: I assess the entries and decide on prizes. If I need help in deciding, I'll probably ask SSS, JigPu, or another greenie meanie.
Helpful resources
PixelDump: A program that gives a pixel-by-pixel readout of the (red,green,blue) values of an image.
EasyBMP: A simple open-source C++ bitmap library that supports read, writing, and modifying BMP files. (All these images were created using that library.)
MingW: A fantastic C++ compiler.
Good luck, and have fun!!!
-- Paul
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