Salakrüpteerimine

Salakrüpteerimine, also known as steganography, is the art and science of concealing secret data within another non-secret file or message. Unlike cryptography, which aims to scramble the content of a message to make it unreadable to unauthorized parties, salakrüpteerimine focuses on hiding the very existence of the secret message. The embedded message is typically disguised within a carrier medium such as an image, audio file, video, or even plain text.

The goal of salakrüpteerimine is to make the presence of the hidden data imperceptible. If successful, an observer would view the carrier medium and see no indication that a secret message has been concealed within it. The carrier medium itself appears normal and unaltered to the casual viewer. This makes steganography useful for covert communication, where the sender wishes to avoid drawing attention to the fact that any communication is taking place at all.

Techniques for salakrüpteerimine vary widely. In image steganography, for instance, subtle modifications can be made to the least significant bits (LSBs) of pixel data. These changes are often too small for the human eye to detect, yet they can be used to encode binary data. Similar principles apply to audio and video files, where imperceptible alterations can be made to sound waves or frame data. Even in text, techniques exist to hide information through variations in word choice, spacing, or the inclusion of specific characters that are not readily apparent. The strength of steganography relies on the obscurity of the hidden data within the chosen carrier.