Permutation Encoding for Text Steganography: A Short Tutorial

TL;DR

This paper presents a simple permutation-based encoding method for text steganography, demonstrating how list permutations can covertly transmit secret messages with formal correctness proofs.

Contribution

It introduces a novel permutation encoding technique for steganography, including implementation details and formal validation of correctness.

Findings

Effective encoding and decoding demonstrated

Formal proofs of method correctness provided

Potential for widespread application due to ubiquity of lists

Abstract

We explore a method of encoding secret messages using factoradic numbering of permuted lists of text or numeric elements. Encoding and decoding methods are provided, with code, and key aspects of the correctness of the methods are formally proven. The method of encoding is simple and provides a working example of using textual and numeric lists as a stenagographic channel. Given the ubiquity of lists, such channels are already present but are often unused.