The SNOW Home Page
Whitespace steganography
The program snow is used to conceal messages in
ASCII text by appending whitespace to the end of lines.
Because spaces and tabs are generally not visible in text viewers,
the message is effectively hidden from casual observers.
And if the built-in encryption is used, the message cannot be read
even if it is detected.
What's in a name?
snow exploits the steganographic nature
of whitespace. Locating trailing whitespace in text is
like finding a polar bear in a snowstorm (which, by the way,
explains the logo).
And it uses the ICE
encryption algorithm, so the name is thematically consistent.
It's free!
The snow program is public domain, and source code can be
downloaded from this page. There are no patents or copyrights, so its
use is unrestricted. Naturally, if you do decide to use it, the
author would love to
hear about it.
Document written by Matthew Kwan, 9 January 1997
Please send any comments or corrections to
mkwan@cs.mu.oz.au