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Steganography on Android Based Smart Phones

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Steganography on Android Based Smart Phones

Parag Himatlal Rughani
Assistant Professor & Head, Department of Computer Applications
Christ College, Rajkot , Gujarat – India
Dr. H N Pandya
Professor & Head, Department of Electronics
Saurashtra University, Rajkot , Gujarat – India
steganography technique will be used or misused by
ABSTRACT
many people around the world.
Steganography is an old technique to hide data into As the smart phones are still in their infant stage there
resources. In this paper we have explained how this are few issues in using steganography technique in
technique can be used in android based smart phone. them.
The paper includes basics of image representation, In following sections first I will discuss how technically
limitations of smart phones like android, other steganography can be implemented and then I will
alternatives and implementation on android. There are discuss some common issues that can create challenges
some limitations on implementing steganography. for IT professionals in implementing steganography on
What is steganography? mobile/smart phones
Steganography is a process of hiding text or information Image Data Representation
in existing content. Mostly images or multimedia Black and White Images: Binary images are encoded as
(audio/video) is used to hide the content. In simple a 2-D array, using one bit per pixel, where a 0 usually
terms one can say that using steganography one can means „black‟ and a 1 means „white‟ (even though there
hide text or other content into text or multimedia file. is no universal agreement on that). The main advantage
Say for example I have some confidential Information of this representation is its small size.
then I will hide that information into an Monochrome Images: Gray-level images are also
image/audio/video file. This allows me to protect my encoded as a 2-D array of pixels, using eight bits per
content from the unauthorized access. Since the pixel, where a pixel value of 0 usually means „black‟
image/audio/video file in which I have stored and a pixel value of 255 means „white‟, with
information remains unchanged, no one can easily intermediate values corresponding to varying shades of
identify whether the image contains any other data gray. The total number of gray-levels is larger than the
inside it or not. human visual system requirements, making this format a
Steganography is used very commonly at many places, good compromise between subjective visual qualities
for example terrorists and criminals use steganography and relatively compact representation and storage. An 8-
to hide their personal details and message while bit monochrome image can also be thought of as a
communicating with their team members, companies collection of bit-planes, where each plane contains a 1-
use steganography to hide some confidential bit representation of the image at different levels of
information to restrict piracy or authenticate customers, detail.
black hat hackers use steganography to hide Trojans or Color Images: Representation of color images is
virus and implant them on the victim‟s machine. significantly more complex and varied. The two most
As it is a traditional way to use this type of common ways of storing color image contents are: RGB
steganographic techniques on traditional computers like representation – in which each pixel is usually
desktop, laptop, servers, etc… it can also be used on the represented by a 24-bit number containing the amount
mobile and smart phones. of its Red, Green, and Blue components – and indexed
Since the latest mobile/smart phones come with rich representation – where a 2-D array contains indices to a
multimedia support there are chances that this effective color palette (or look-up table – LUT).

International Journal of Mobile & Adhoc Network|Vol2|issue 2|May 2012 150

 P H Rughani , H N Pandya |Steganography on Android Based Smart Phones

24-bit Color Images: Color images can be represented cannot use such restricted APIs in your
using three 2-D arrays of same size, one for each color application. Basically all the steganographic
channel: Red, Green, and Blue. Each array element techniques need to alter the image at byte level. So
contains an 8-bit value indicating the amount of red, if the smart phone on which you are working does
green, or blue at that point, in a 0 to 255 scale. The not allow you to alter the image at byte level then
combination of the three 8-bit values into a 24-bit you may not be able to implement steganography.
number allows for 2 24 (16,777,216, usually referred to  Testing environment – on desktop/laptop we can
as 16 million or 16 M) color combinations. An develop, compile, run and test applications easily.
alternative representation uses 32 bits and includes a But in smart phones we do not have such
fourth channel, called the alpha channel, which programming or testing environment. So it may
provides a measure of transparency for each pixel and is happen that for smart phones we need to go
widely used in image editing effects. through tedious job of testing and deployment.
Indexed Color Images: A problem with 24-bit color Even though emulators and simulators can be used
representations is backward compatibility with older for testing purpose, sometimes they cannot give
hardware which may not be able to display the 16 exact results (especially for the runtime issues).
million colors simultaneously. A solution devised This becomes very complex when you are
before 24-bit color displays and video cards were developing an algorithm to cover most of the
widely accessible was to adopt an indexed phones. For example if you are working on
representation, in which a 2-D array of the same size as blackberry platform then there are around 100
the image contains indices (pointers) to a color palette simulators available for different blackberry
(or look-up table – LUT) of fixed maximum size devices. So for each simulator you need to test the
(usually 256 colors). app and that too can give you inaccurate results.
Limitations in implementing steganography on Why Android?
smart phones As we discussed in last section it is really challenging to
 There cannot be a common algorithm - since there have a common algorithm for all existing smart phones,
are many smart phone manufacturers. It is almost so it is wise to select a specific platform and develop an
difficult to develop a common algorithm for algorithm for it. Another issue we discussed in last
steganography. Another issue is there are lots of section is about availability of APIs and libraries that
variations in smart phones and their architectures; can allow us to perform low level operations easily.
you can find different devices with different After considering above two major points I feel that at
features and facilities from same vendor. Further current stage Android is the best option for
on regular interval new versions or models of same implementing steganography. There are many
product are launched. So, due to unstable market it advantages of using android platform but the best part is
seems very difficult to have a common it is an open source product. Since we have access to the
steganographic algorithm for smart phones. source of the operating system, it can be altered easily
 Smart phones are small computing devices - even as per our requirement. Even though it is very difficult
though smart phones are smarter than mobile and time consuming task to modify operating system for
phones they are not sufficient enough to provide implementing the source code but as a last option if we
efficiency of a traditional computer like desktop or wish to go for it then we have facility to do so.
laptop. Smart phones are still small computing Another advantage of Android is, it is java based and
devices and have limited resources compare to has rich set of APIs – especially related to image and
desktop or laptop. The file size and operations on multimedia.
files at low level are not very easy in smart phones. Apart from Android there are few other open source
Another factor in smart phone is availability of operating systems in market like: MeeGo, OpenMoko
APIs and libraries, the APIs or libraries available and few other such. But Android is more powerful and
on desktop cannot be available on smart phones. it is widely accepted by many handset manufacturers
So, algorithms developed for computers cannot be around the world.
used for smart phones. So considering all above factors, Android seems to be
 Low level operations – Most of the smart phone the best option at this moment.
vendors allow file editing at low level but still Steganographic Algorithms
there are few smart phone vendors who are not
Since steganography is an old concept there are many
giving access to low level operations on files. If
algorithms for implementing it on traditional computers.
you look at blackberry and apple then for security
These algorithms have pros and cons and based on
reasons they have kept some restricted APIs which
requirements they can be used to achieve
cannot be used by third party developers. So you
steganography.

International Journal of Mobile & Adhoc Network|Vol2|issue 2|May 2012 151

 P H Rughani , H N Pandya |Steganography on Android Based Smart Phones

The most common algorithm for steganography is based

on LSB (Least Significant Bits) and is proved to be
more efficient compare to other algorithms.
LSB: The LSB algorithm, involves the modification of
the LSB layer of images. In this technique, the message
is stored in the LSB of the pixels which could be
considered as random noise. Thus, altering them does
not have any obvious effect to the image
Implementation
The implementation depends on selection of algorithm.
In general for android devices an android application is Other Limitations of Steganography
developed with required classes to implement As we discussed steganography simply writes data to
algorithm. The application can be developed with help image by replacing bits or bytes of the image, so when
of IDE (mostly eclipse). Initial testing can be done on an image having updated text is modified it may happen
emulator and final APK file is deployed to the device that the information stored in image is lost.
for live testing. For example if I crop or resize the image and the bits
Testing Environment: that contain our information are affected due to this
operation then that particular information does not
 Android OS: 2.2 remain accessible.
 Device: Samsung Galaxy Ace Similarly other operations like changing image settings
 Processor: 800 MHz ARM 11 processor or applying new effects may also cause loss of data.
 Camera: 5 MP But if this technique is used with internal
Steps Performed: communication or use then there are rare chances of
 Captured image from camera modifying the image, because users know about the
 Image is compressed and saved to SD Card image and the hidden text and will not make any
after steganography changes.
Especially in smart phone the image with hidden text is
RESULT mostly communicated in the form of MMS. And the
Original Image information remains there even same image is sent to
many recipients either at a time or from one to another.
So there are very rare chances of editing the image in
smart phone itself.
REFERENCES
[1] Alternatives for Multimedia Messaging System
Steganography-Konstantinos Papapanagiotou1,
Emmanouel Kellinis2, Giannis F. Marias1, and
Panagiotis Georgiadis1 [Dept. of Informatics and
Telecommunications, University of Athens,
Panepistimiopolis, Ilissia, Greece, GR15784]
Image with hidden text (After steganography) [2] “Image Steganography: Concepts and Practice”,
-M. Kharrazi, H. T. Sencar, N. Memon:[National
University of Singapore (2004)]

International Journal of Mobile & Adhoc Network|Vol2|issue 2|May 2012 152

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