Jamesdotcom

I decided to write a blog post on Steganography. I’m researching about this as I go along and figured why not document what i find on my blog for others to see.

Steganography is the art of hiding information inside something. For example you can hide a string of text inside an Image and it will be very hard to find unless your specifically looking for it. The difference between steganography and cryptography is that in cryptography its obvious you are looking at encrypted data. with steganography at first glance its not very obvious at all.

There are countless amount of tools that you can use but the one I will be using for this first post is called Steghide. I’m going to be using it on Ubuntu. The first thing you want to do is obviously install Steghide.

apt-get install steghide

I then ran the command:

steghide --embed -ef /home/james/Desktop/test.txt -cf /home/james/Pictures/stegbmp.bmp -p pass

This command embeds test.txt inside the stegbmp.bmp image and assigns the password “pass” to access the text file.

Below are the stegbmp.bmp image files. the one on the left contains the test.txt text file and the one on the right contains nothing.

As you can see both images have kept their original file size of 29.35 kB (30054 bytes). even though a 16 byte text file has been added. This is because it uses a method of storing a file called Least significant bit insertion (LSB). This is where the test.txt file bits are written in a part of the image file where the data is not of any or little importance. Therefore it does not alter the way the image looks. Obviously if I added a large file inside the image it would increase the file size.

To extract the txt file from the image i used the following command:

steghide --extract -sf /home/james/Desktop/stegbmp.bmp -xf yes.txt

What this does is copies the test.txt file that is inside the image and saves it as yes.txt inside the current directory.

In my next post I will be looking into some more tools involving steganography and also steganalysis, the art of detecting hidden information using steganography.

The Arcade machine is now completly done. If you have any questions you would like to ask me about the project please Email me at james@jamesdotcom.com. Here are some pictures of the final build.

This is what the new screen looks like inside the cabinate.

The marquee is now ready. just balanced on the edge of the cabinate for now till we fix the light inside.

Just started doing the artwork on the side of the cabinate.

The door at the front of the cabinet has now been added that allows access to the computer.

I also attached a Perspex sheet with a black border for the monitor cover. When the monitor is aligned properly inside you will only see the screen and nothing else of the monitor.

The front and back panels are now in place. As you can see in the 2 pictures below we have a gap at the bottom that will be the door for access to the computer.

The 3 shelves have now been made to hold the Computer, Monitor and the Xarcade controller. I screwed the shelves onto the 2 side panels of the arcade machine and will putty over the screw holes once all the front and back panels are in place.

I have just finished cutting the two side panels of the arcade machine. All thats needed now is the back panels and a small door on the front that you can open to turn the machine on. I also need 2 shelves in the cabinet. one for the monitor to sit on and the other for the computer.

I decided that i will paint the arcade cabinate a darkblue. This is to match the Marquee i purchased from Gremlin Solutions.

I will also be using a stencil and spray paints to paint pacman and the ghosts on the side of the arcade cabinet.