CAPSTONE 2026

Steganography is the practice of hiding a secret message within a piece of media. This can include anything from audio, to video, to images, to text, but the scope of this process covers images only.

Steganography differs from cryptography in that it focuses on hiding the information, as opposed to simply encrypting it. Cryptographers don’t necessarily care who sees the encrypted information, so long as they can’t break the encryption. Steganographers want observers to not notice the information is there in the first place.

Steganography is a broad field, and as such, it would be impossible for me to detail how each and every process works. However, I can explain how my program works. Please refer to my blog posts for more information. Once my program is complete, I plan to implement a web page detailing it in excruciating detail. Stay tuned for its development.

Steganography and other forms of encryption prevent strangers from observing sensitive information. Just as a person might want drapes so strangers cannot tell when their children are home alone, so too might a person want to protect information like bank details, credit card information, and personally identifying information from falling into the wrong hands. An artist might also want to insert a secret watermark to prove it is hers, and a business owner might like to hold a conference call over the internet without risking their business’s sensitive information leaked due to poor security within the conference call platform. Streaming services also use steganography to encode their movies, television programs, and other media to protect it from piracy during its transmission. The uses for steganography vary greatly, and there are countless examples of its presence in our modern computing world.