This tutorial will discuss about how to hide a text file in a jpeg/bitmap image file. It can be done without any other application.
Sometimes, we save our email-account and password inside a text file, but we scare other people get the file and then access our email. So, we always thinking method to protect our own password. We may use some password manager to save all the password with a master password. But, what happen is we lost the master password or other people manage to hack the master password? So, why not we hide the important information inside an image file?
How it work?
- First of all, you need to save your informations in a text file and then prepare an image (either jpeg or bitmap format). In this example, i will user secret.txt as my text file and photo.jpg as my image file.
- Put the text document and image together. Here, i put them in my C: drive.
- Go to Run, the type cmd. This will bring you to the command prompt.
- Now, type cd\ to go to the root. In this case, the root is C:. You can proceed to the next step if you save your image and text file in C: drive. But, if you save them in other folder, such as c:\testing, you need to type cd\testing to go into the folder.
- Now, you reach the most important part. Type copy photo.jpg/B+secret.txt/B output.jpg. The image file need to come first. If you put your text file before image file, the output image file maybe cannot open properly. Beside this, the input image and output image must be same format (either both in jpeg or both in bitmap).
- Now, try to open the output.jpg using any image viewer. Looks no different with photo.jpg right?
- Now, try to open output.jpg using notepad, you will found the secret.txt contents inside.
Now, your informations are safe enough, because you are the only person which know which image contains the informations. Even they can access the file, they won’t open an image with notepad, right?
Advice: It is better to choose smaller size image, else you need longer time to open it using notepad.
wow, what a wonderful idea. I never heard of it before. Maybe I’ll try. Actually we are having a subject related to digital image processing. In that we’ve got is something pertaining to theory. But this is the first time to hear that in practice.
last time when i write about this in my blog, my reader ask me what is this method call, and i told them this is call “da Calvyn code” hahaha
Thank you for an interesting idea. I posted reference to this article on my blog:
http://webfreebies4u.blogspot.com/2008/03/steganography-how-to-hide-secret.html
Have a good one!
You can do this with any file as well. i used it to hide a movie as a text file, so notepad crashes when it tries to load, and plays fine when run as a movie. Its perfect for simple security!
it works but whr do i find the output file to open ….
the command prompt doesnt run and my informations are same as what i hosted .. plz say me how to run or whr to search for the output file