Evaluation of Different Steganalysis Methods

Abstract

Abstract - After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center the United States declared war on terrorism. The Patriot Act (H.R. 3162) was passed, which authorizes law enforcement agencies to monitor and intercept the electronic communications of suspected terrorists. This meant that telephone communication and encrypted telephony would no longer be safe for terrorists to communicate with each other. This provoked them to search for alternate means to communicate sensitive information. The New York Times, USA Today, and the United States Institute of Peace have reported that terrorists may be using steganography and cryptography on the web as a means for convert communications [1, 2, 3]. These reports have been the basis of several studies into convert communication by terrorists. It is becoming increasingly important to detect the images that contain steganography such that we can reduce foul-play. This counter technique is known as steganalysis.There are two problems in steganalysis: detecting the existence of a hidden message and decoding the message. This research is only concerned with the first problem, which is the detection of hidden messages using statistical steganalysis. Key Terms - Carrier, Medium, Steganalysis, Steganography.