Secret message sharing using online social media

Abstract

Abstract-Recently, there have been proposals to evade censors by using steganography to embed secret messages in images shared on public photo-sharing sites. However, establishing a covert channel in this manner is not straightforward. First, photo-sharing sites often process uploaded images, thus destroying any embedded message. Second, prior work assumes the existence of an out-of-band channel, using which the communicating users can exchange metadata or secret keys a priori; establishing such out-of-band channels, not monitored by censors, is difficult.In this paper, we address these issues to facilitate private communications on photo-sharing sites. In doing so, first, we conduct an in-depth measurement study of the feasibility of hiding data on four popular photo-sharing sites. Second, based on the understanding derived, we propose a novel approach for embedding secret messages in uploaded photos while preserving the integrity of such messages. We demonstrate that, despite the processing on photo-sharing sites, our approach ensures reliable covert communication, without increasing the likelihood of being detected via steganalysis. Lastly, we design and implement a scheme for bootstrapping private communications without an out-of-band channel, i.e., by exchanging keys via uploaded images.

Covert Communications via Spotify Playlists

“…Covert channels in social media are a quickly growing method to send secret messages. Some examples of covert channels in social media include image steganography on Instagram, WhatsApp messages, and music streaming services such as Spotify [2] [3] [4]. We were inspired to implement this covert channel based off of the first word of a song encoding and hex encoding that a group of RIT students originally created.…”

A Comparison Study Using StegExpose for Steganalysis

“…Research in [19] explored the various social media platforms, analyzed prior research and found that some social media platforms supported steganographic images while others did not. According to [19] "At first glance, we see that most of the tools (except YASS) fail on Facebook and Flickr but succeed on Google+ and Twitter. Google+ is the most generous platform and accommodates all the steganography tools.…”

StegHash: New Method for Information Hiding in Open Social Networks

“…Every service has different features and policies on sanitizing the uploaded content. Therefore, for many reasons it is easier to use image steganography on Google Plus than on Facebook [6] [7].…”