On Source Code Transformations for Steganographic Applications

The amount of publicly available source code on the Internet makes it attractive as a potential message carrier for steganographic applications. Unfortunately, it is often overlooked since embedding information in an undetectable way is challenging. We investigate term rewriting as a method for embedding messages into programs via transformations on source code. We elaborate on several possible transformation strategies and discuss how they might be applied in a steganographic setting. We continue with a discussion on (a) the implications and trade-offs of preserving semantic properties, (b) the relationship between messages and transformations, and (c) how to incorporate existing natural language processing techniques. The goal of this work is to elicit constructive feedback and present ideas that stimulate future work.