Video steganography using Flash Video (FLV)

This paper aims to describe our research and software implementation in the field of video steganography. Because of security threats today through modern malevolent technology, confidential information is at risk such as medical records and banking or financial data. The group provided a solution by protecting this sensitive information inside videos. The project focused on using Flash Videos (.flv file extension) because of its simple file structure, its relatively small size compared to other video file formats, and its popularity in video-hosting websites. Intensive experimentation on how the FLV file structure can be manipulated to hold additional data were done. Through these experiments, the characteristics of the FLV provided the group to implement a C++ program that features embedding any type of data in the FLV, extracting that same hidden information, as well as compressing the FLV to compensate for the increase in file size. Very promising results include 100% lossless extraction, perfect original picture and sound quality for the uncompressed FLV embedded with data and uncompromised integrity of hidden data when modified FLVs are transferred through the Internet through e-mail or video-hosting websites. An application dealing with the medical records´ privacy is currently ongoing. Lastly, a recent article saying that doing steganography on a file that has been already “steganized” (“double-stegging”) could damage the file and jeopardize the extraction of the hidden file for the sake of making espionage work against itself. This statement have been supported and confirmed possible by the group as successive embedding using the Video Steganography program makes the original message “inextractable” using the same program.