State Of The Art In Digital Steganography Focusing ASCII Text Documents

TL;DR

This paper surveys the latest techniques in digital steganography specifically for hiding information within ASCII text documents, highlighting the evolution and detection challenges of covert communication channels.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of steganographic methods tailored for ASCII text, emphasizing recent advancements and ongoing detection issues.

Findings

Various steganographic techniques for ASCII text are identified.

Detection of covert channels remains a significant challenge.

The survey highlights evolving methods and future research directions.

Abstract

Digitization of analogue signals has opened up new avenues for information hiding and the recent advancements in the telecommunication field has taken up this desire even further. From copper wire to fiber optics, technology has evolved and so are ways of covert channel communication. By "Covert" we mean "anything not meant for the purpose for which it is being used". Investigation and detection of existence of such cover channel communication has always remained a serious concern of information security professionals which has now been evolved into a motivating source of an adversary to communicate secretly in "open" without being allegedly caught or noticed. This paper presents a survey report on steganographic techniques which have been evolved over the years to hide the existence of secret information inside some cover (Text) object. The introduction of the subject is followed by the discussion which is narrowed down to the area where digital ASCII Text documents are being used as cover. Finally, the conclusion sums up the proceedings.