Is Social Network becoming too social?

Courtesy: earlcapps.blogspot.com

A survey conducted over a small area of different States in north east India  which includes schools and colleges shows a dark image and future of the upcoming youth of this region. Students of classes VI to XII are so much indulged in social network like that of facebook that its impact is easily notable in falling grades, intensity of outdoor activities and indeed socializing. Being a member of a social network site has become a trend. These teens, unaware of the privacy, terms and condition of a networking site post and upload whatever they think is cool. Some even go to the extent of blackmailing and bullying beside derogatory remarks made on each other through this medium. This results in conflict between a numerous section of people and cyber crime resulting in loss of prestige & privilege. Some students even bunk school hours to surf the social network. For teens, this social network is also a good way to impress other friends. Some parents and teachers blame it on the easy availability of cell phone while the other just complains about one another's parents

It is high time that these teens be made to learn and understand the terms and condition of a networking site. Furthermore its overuse needs a check. All this is possible through parents and educators who should impart unstrained and periodic training in schools and colleges, of which not a drop is seen yet.

Steganography

It has been a long time since I wrote last. Actually many hurdles popped up, lowering the frequency of my post. Today I write about Steganography in computer technology. Steganography as defined by Wikipedia is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity.

In this post, I restrict to write about the use of Steganography through basic computational method

A person Mr. Mac sends an image of a beautiful flower to Miss Mary. Both Mac and Mary work as spying agent for the government. Being a spy they are not allowed to share intelligence information through email or phone or fax or through handwritten letters as any such act may catch the eye of a 3^rd party which will spoils the purpose of spying. What they share is actually in the image of the beautiful flower. The image contains handful of written information which an intended receiver can extract. Attached to the image file is a hidden text file which is not at all visible to a usual person. This is Steganography, or computer Steganography. 

How is it done??

Well, we know that every image is made of up pixels. As computer understands only the language of 0 and 1 so these pixels have a binary code like 11011101, an 8 digit binary code (as 8bit=1byte). Now suppose a pixel of an image file contains the binary code 01010110, what is done is that, the last or any 1 digit of the binary code of a pixel is changed to any one binary digit of the letter of a text file. This way 1 digit of millions of binary code is changed to a digit corresponding to a letter of the text file. The intended receiver stacks the last digit of the changed binary code of the pixel and arranges them in an 8 bit order. Finally he has the hidden message.

But change in binary code should change the pixel as well?? This is true but when a single digit of a binary code is changed, the pixel does not change much, may be a little bit of quality reduction.

The image below will try to explain whatever is written above.

Click on the image for an enlarged view.

 

Well, I tried to explain Steganography by a simple example. The hidden message may be hidden in another text file, movie file or a MP3 file apart from an image file.

Now one may ask how we can change the binary code. Well, I leave it to you, google it and find out more about Steganography. A hint is that, Steganography can be done easily in Linux Operating System by use of stegohide, outguess.