Due to tremendous growth in communication technology, now it is a real problem / challenge to send some confidential data / information through communication network. For this reason, Nath et al. developed several information security systems, combining cryptography and steganography together, and the present method, ASA_QR, is also one of them. In the present paper, the authors present a new steganography algorithm to hide any small encrypted secret message inside QR Code TM , which is then randomized and then, finally embed that randomized QR Code inside some common image. Quick Response Codes (or QR Codes) are a type of two-dimensional matrix barcodes used for encoding information. It has become very popular recently for its high storage capacity. The present method is ASA_QR is a combination of strong encryption algorithm and data hiding in two stages to make the entire process extremely hard to break. Here, the secret message is encrypted first and hide it in a QR Code TM and then again that QR Code TM is embed in a cover file (picture file) in random manner, using the standard method of steganography. In this way the data, which is secured, is almost impossible to be retrieved without knowing the cryptography key, steganography password and the exact unhide method. For encrypting data The authors used a method developed by Nath et al i.e. TTJSA, which is based on generalized modified Vernam Cipher, MSA and NJJSA method; and from the cryptanalysis it is seen that TTJSA is free from any standard cryptographic attacks, like differential attack, plain-text attack or any brute force attack. After encrypting the data using TTJSA,the authors have used standard steganographic method To hide data inside some host file. The present method may be used for sharing secret key, password, digital signature etc.
In the present work the authors introduced a new symmetric key cryptographic method for encryption as well as decryption of any file such as binary file, text file or any other file. Nath et. al.(1) developed an algorithm called MSA for encryption and decryption of any file using a random key square matrix containing 256 elements. The weak point of MSA algorithm is that if someone applies the brute force method then he has to give a trial for factorial 256 to find the actual key matrix. Now in the modern world this number of trial runs may not be impossible for the hacker. To get rid of this problem here the authors suggest a better algorithm than MSA. In the present method the authors considered the size of the key matrix to be 65536 and in each cell we store 2 characters pattern instead of 1 character unlike MSA method. If someone wants to give a brute force method to find our actual key then one has to give a trial for factorial 65536 runs! Theoretically this is an intractable problem. Moreover the authors have also introduced multiple encryptions here to make the system more secured. This method will be suitable in any business house, government sectors, communication network, defense network system, sensor networks etc. In the present work the authors have introduced a square key matrix of size 256 by 256 where in each cell there are all possible 2-lettered words (ASCII code 0-255). The total number of words possible is 65536. The key matrix is then randomized using the method proposed by Nath et. al(1). The user has to enter some secret text-key. The maximum length of the text key should be 16 characters long. To calculate the randomization number and the number of encryption to be done is calculated from the text-key using a method proposed by Nath et.al(1). The present method will be most suitable for encryption of a file whose size is less than or equal to 2MB. If the file size is very big then we suggest choosing small encryption number to speed up the sytem.
Abstract-In the present work the authors have introduced a new method for hiding any encrypted secret message inside a cover file. For encrypting secret message the authors have used new algorithm proposed by Nath et al(1). For hiding secret message we have used a method proposed by Nath et al (2). In MSA (1) method we have modified the idea of Play fair method into a new platform where we can encrypt or decrypt any file. We have introduced a new randomization method for generating the randomized key matrix to encrypt plain text file and to decrypt cipher text file. We have also introduced a new algorithm for encrypting the plain text multiple times. Our method is totally dependent on the random text_key which is to be supplied by the user. The maximum length of the text_key can be of 16 characters long and it may contain any character (ASCII code 0 to 255). We have developed an algorithm to calculate the randomization number and the encryption number from the given text_key. The size of the encryption key matrix is 16x16 and the total number of matrices can be formed from 16 x 16 is 256! which is quite large and hence if someone applies the brute force method then he/she has to give trail for 256! times which is quite absurd. Moreover the multiple encryption method makes the system further secured. For hiding secret message in the cover file we have inserted the 8 bits of each character of encrypted message file in 8 consecutive bytes of the cover file. We have introduced password for hiding data in the cover file. We propose that our new method could be most appropriate for hiding any file in any standard cover file such as image, audio, video files. Because the hidden message is encrypted hence it will be almost impossible for the intruder to unhide the actual secret message from the embedded cover file. This method may be the most secured method in digital water marking.
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