ABSTRACT
The word steganography comes from the Greek, and it means covered or secret writing. As defined today, it is the technique of embedding information into something else for the sole purpose of hiding that information from the casual observer. Many people know a distant cousin of steganography called watermarking—a method of hiding trademark information in images, music, and software. Watermarking is not considered a true form of steganography. In stego, the information is hidden in the image; watermarking actually adds something to the image (such as the word confidential), and therefore it becomes a part of the image. Some people might consider stego to be related to encryption, but they are not the same. We use encryption—the technology to translate something from readable form to something unreadable—to protect sensitive or confidential data. In stego, the information is not necessarily encrypted, only hidden from plain view.
