[Tips] The Easiest Way To Send Secret Messages Within Images

Have you ever heard of steganography? Wikipedia defines it as “art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one except the sender and receiver, in case of suspicion of the existence of the message …” This method of concealing secret messages in images has been around for years, but in these days with computers and stuff, methods become more affordable to people every day.

A method for the use of this technique is to hide a message in a picture. You can send messages to whomever you want, without anyone knowing. This could also be used to make games and puzzles for visitors to the website or blog readers by hiding messages in some pictures with which people rely on the hunt for news.

: mozaiq

This is not the first time that began in the art of steganography MakeUseOf – Tina showed a desktop client for Windows and Jackson wrote about iSteg for Mac can use these two applications for the same purpose.

Whatever your reason for hiding secret messages in pictures, you can now do so regardless of your operating system — thanks to a web-based tool offered to us by mozaiq.

While being a site dedicating to helping people turn images into mosaics, if you head to a subdirectory on the site you will see they offer the ability to encrypt messages in images also.
The process is simple: upload an image, type a message, enter a password, click a button and download the image with the message encrypted in it. Sounds easy enough but let’s take a closer look.

Go to mozaiq.org/encrypt. When you do, you are immediately given the fields to begin the process. Off to the left there is an introduction to the art/science of steganography and mozaiq’s encrypting tool. To the left is where all of the action takes.
Choose a picture to upload. Make sure it us under 128KB or it won’t work. Once you have chosen the image, enter the message you would like to share.
Before you go and hit the “Hide Your Message!” button, you can enter a password to further protect the privacy of the message. This is optional and totally up to you.
Once you hit the magic button, you are able to download the image file. Notice that the image will only be available for download for 5 minutes making it imperative that you download it immediately.
Also realize that you can’t change the file in any way other than renaming it. This includes cropping, resizing or even converting it to another file extension. Once you download it, you are able to send it or post it anywhere you please. When you do, make sure the recipient knows to go to mozaiq.org/decrypt in order to see the message.
Try out this image for size:
cellphone
Right-click and save the image of the cell phone and go to the decryption page. I gave it the password “hello” so you can see how it works. See if you can find out the encrypted message. I think you will find it to be both incredibly enlightening and not that surprising (seeing as though it’s also in one of the screenshots above).