Random idea -> Data to Images

[JmZ]

Its called steganography.

I used to use it to hide certain files within images and password protect the true file.
There are various apps that do it and have done it for years.

But good work if you managed to code one.

[Hyperz]

Well this is fairly easy to make. However, doing it in a FPL is another ball game if you're used to 'simple' imperative programming like me (like c, php, java, ...)

[SplitIce]

Hyperz. A png8 image will be smaller any day send me a test file and I will give a demonstration if you want. Btw php -> .net isn't dificult and I doubt the performance increase will be significant.

[JmZ]

Well this is fairly easy to make. However, doing it in a FPL is another ball game if you're used to 'simple' imperative programming like me (like c, php, java, ...)

Some of them use AES, triple-DES, blowfish, etc. to encrypt the hidden file also. So it isn't so easy to make once you start looking into encryption techniques.

A lot of the apps available just stick it on the end of the image file. But better ones encrypt the file, shuffle the data around and such.

[litewarez]

[Hyperz]

Hyperz. A png8 image will be smaller any day send me a test file and I will give a demonstration if you want. Btw php -> .net isn't dificult and I doubt the performance increase will be significant.

With png8 you have 8 bits per pixel AKA one byte. So for every byte you'll need one pixel. with png32 you have 32 bits so 4 bytes meaning you'll be able to write 4 bytes per pixel. Keeping in mind that the same amount of data needs to be written regardless of which BPP is used you should see that a lower BPP will not result in a smaller image size as it would with regular images. so 8 BPP reduces the data used per pixel by 4-fold (your lower size assumption) but at the same time increases the amount of needed pixels 4-fold so in theory you end up with exactly the same file size. However this is only when storing a file in one image. When you need to spread a file across multiple files you'll run into problems because 8bbp leaves no space for a practical/stable file specification. For that you need a unused color channel which in my implementation is the alpha channel that acts as storage for decoder instructions.

The performance of .NET will be a lot faster for transcoding because of its JIT'ing. Especially with multi threading. And even faster when using a functional programming language because it allows for far better parallelization that scales (nearly) perfectly across any number of CPUs/cores.

Some of them use AES, triple-DES, blowfish, etc. to encrypt the hidden file also. So it isn't so easy to make once you start looking into encryption techniques.

A lot of the apps available just stick it on the end of the image file. But better ones encrypt the file, shuffle the data around and such.

I meant a data -> img converter m8 not converter+encryptor . However it would still be fairly easy because - encrypted or not - all you need to do is write bytes to pixels.

Normal: data -> get bytes -> write pixels
Protected: (data -> encrypt) -> get bytes -> write pixels

The algorithms you named have implementations in most major languages so there's no need for re-inventing the wheel which makes encrypting fairly easy. Just a matter of calling a few methods.

[Benign]

I withdraw my previous statement and wait in anticipation.

[JmZ]

I meant a data -> img converter m8 not converter+encryptor . However it would still be fairly easy because - encrypted or not - all you need to do is write bytes to pixels.

Normal: data -> get bytes -> write pixels
Protected: (data -> encrypt) -> get bytes -> write pixels

The algorithms you named have implementations in most major languages so there's no need for re-inventing the wheel which makes encrypting fairly easy. Just a matter of calling a few methods.

I know you're not looking into encryption here, im just saying other commercially available apps that do this do.

They don't just encrypt the data though, they shuffle it around and garble it. Otherwise it can be picked up with steganography scanners.

For a simple app though, converting it would be fine. Encryption isn't really needed for this use.

Though I personally would prefer to download a few massive files than a load of steg'd images.

[Hyperz]

Well once again the idea is just to make images a usable container for warez, just like rars are. People that need to secure date wont find what they are looking for in this .

People who download from filehosts usually have a DL manager where they copy/paste a set of links and let it download. 3 big files or 6 smaller files shouldn't really matter since they would both take the same amount of time to download. Especially if it can be done for free. But that's just my personal opinion, some will indeed dislike it.

On another note: the point of the thread was to see who would use this method over the paid filehost one. I'm not gonna put my effort into it if I know of only a few people that would use it so please let me know .

[DeLeTeD]

Well once again the idea is just to make images a usable container for warez, just like rars are. People that need to secure date wont find what they are looking for in this .

People who download from filehosts usually have a DL manager where they copy/paste a set of links and let it download. 3 big files or 6 smaller files shouldn't really matter since they would both take the same amount of time to download. Especially if it can be done for free. But that's just my personal opinion, some will indeed dislike it.

On another note: the point of the thread was to see who would use this method over the paid filehost one. I'm not gonna put my effort into it if I know of only a few people that would use it so please let me know .

Well its a really good idea. Like to add it would be used more if the ability to upload to massive image hosts all at once as well as downloading for a large amount all at once would increase the popularity.

IMO it would be successful if you had a full site dedicated to warez image hosting instead of thinking people would upload on image hosts and post across the sites.