Originally posted by BuzzLY
You said you were going to give us a clue. Maybe it's time for one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography

The larger the cover message is (in data content terms -- number of bits) relative to the hidden message, the easier it is to hide the latter. For this reason, digital pictures (which contain large amounts of data) are used to hide messages on the Internet and on other communication media. It is not clear how commonly this is actually done. For example: a 24 bit bitmap will have 8 bits representing each of the three colour values (red, green, and blue) at each pixel. If we consider just the blue there will be 28 different values of blue. The difference between say 11111111 and 11111110 in the value for blue intensity is likely to be undetectable by the human eye. Therefore, the least significant bit can be used (more or less undetectably) for something else other than colour information. If we do it with the green and the red as well we can get one letter of ASCII text per 3 pixels.

    <shrug>

    I get the concept of steganography. I'm sure, in some way, you altered the least significant bit of each pixel in that image in some way. I'm just not sure how you think the solution is "obvious." Is it something any of the users of this board can somehow stumble upon? Or does it require a detailed knowledge of how to manipulate the image, either in Photoshop or some Steganography program? I tried using Chameleon, but I can't do anything with the image without a password, but you have implied that a password is actually part of the "message."

    I, for one, am stumped. Seems less like a puzzle and more like a lesson in learning steganography methods. This would probably be a little more fun if you nudged us in the direction we need to go to solve it. Does it require a PHP program? Image manipulation in Photoshop? Simply seeing something in your picture with the naked eye?

      Originally posted by BuzzLY
      naked

      hehehehehe you said "naked"

      heheheheheh

        Originally posted by BuzzLY
        I'm sure, in some way, you altered the least significant bit of each pixel in that image in some way. I'm just not sure how you think the solution is "obvious."

        You're there. You just need to work out how to access the least significant bit, and what it means when you've got it.

          I'm dying with anticipation over here! 😉

          What we really need around these places is a mess of XML feeds for everything so it's a little easier to follow from afar. If one can have a whole system of forums, why can't they create a whole system of newsfeeds?

            vaaaska, we do have RSS feeds for some of the PHP Help forums. There's an article or something about it somewhere on the site...

              Do you mean feeds to the forums? There are some, just not for the echo lounge.

              /me wonders off to look for them

                Aha, I've successfully temporarily derailed this thead. 😉

                These feed are kind of handy, but it would be much nicer if you could go down to the specific thread level and even be able to read comments and such (now I'm just wishful thinking).

                Thanks for looking those up P.

                  Ok, Onion. Nice one.

                  I am not going to say the password, in case someone else wants to try to solve this.

                  If you want to see it, you can click the link below. However, if you want to solve it on your own, do NOT click the link, as it will reveal the hidden message and the "password."

                  Show me the solution!

                  Of course, here is how I decoded it:

                  Show me the source code!

                  Incidentally, I have an image with something hidden in it too. Unfortunately, you'll need IE to see it, but here it is:

                  Hidden Image

                  Careful... it's not what you think...

                    Originally posted by BuzzLY
                    Unfortunately, you'll need IE to see it, but here it is: Hidden Image

                    Heh. You're such a joker..

                      Really? Then PM me with the answer... 😉

                        So he didnt get the right answer?
                        If he did, how would you know which Steganography decoder to use?

                          The term "steganography decoder" is a bit of a misnomer. There are many different methods of steganography -- some simple, some complex.

                          For instance, you could write a message on your shaved head, and let your hair grow back to cover it up. The "steganography decoder" would be a set of clippers, and wouldn't be to hard to figure out how to use.

                          Once I determined that he modified the LSB, I simply iterated through each bit, and found a pattern. There was no cryptography used -- I simply used a different color depending on whether I found a 1 or a 0 at that particular pixel.

                            onion2k: check your PMs.

                            'course, I didn't use PHP. I felt obligated to write some scripts to mess around, but why spend hours coding to try out an idea that could be checked in a few minutes with the Gimp?

                              Originally posted by BuzzLY
                              I, for one, am stumped. Seems less like a puzzle and more like a lesson in learning steganography methods.

                              Aye; for this to be a PHP programming challenge, it would have been more appropriate to ask people to write something to do the embedding.

                                Well, WeedPacket and Buzzly solved the puzzle. Well done to them.

                                I'll think up another one some day.

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