QR Code Steganography Using Encryption

Abstract –

 This paper focuses on providing a secured method of sending data using cryptography, steganography and QR Code. Internet is prone to all kinds of malicious activities like stealing of information, destroying the integrity of data, unauthorized authentication etc. We develop a system, which helps to send information in the form of an image to the receiver. The message sent is encoded into the QR code. security to the QR Code. Data Encryption Algorithm is a block cipher algorithm, used in encryption. QR Code into the image. Compression of QR Code provides storage capacity and robustness. The Peak Signal calculates the efficiency of system. Keywords: Steganography, Cryptography, QR Code, DWT, DES algorithm.

 INTRODUCTION-

Data is more precious these days. As the network has become vast, the usage of data over the network has rapidly increased. Transactions, business deals, communication, data transmissions are all done over the internet. There is a threat of data manipulation, hacking, fraud transactions, copyright issues etc due to its vast usage. To protect data from intruders we need our network to be free from vulnerability for a transaction. Steganography and cryptography help us to achieve a secured transmission. Steganography is a hiding of data inside a cover image. The intruder will never suspect there is secret data inside the image. Thus, steganography can be used in sending confidential data to the receiver. The most common technique used for hiding the data in the image is the LSB technique. The message that is converted into the binary format is embedded into the least significant bits of the image. Discrete Wavelet Transformation is a frequency domain technique where high pass and low pass filters when passed into the time domain generates high and low pass wavelets. DWT is the most secure and high capacity technique compared to the standard LSB technique. QR code is a two-dimensional barcode that is used to store information like text, URLs etc. High storage capacity and fast readability make it widely used in the digital market for advertisement, transport, transactions etc. They are very much easy to use and the interesting part is our smartphones can also scan them. Scanning QR code is very much easy so the information is not protected from intruders. Thus, cryptography helps us to make our messages more secretive by converting the plaintext into the ciphertext with the help of secret keys.

The message encoded in QR code is encrypted using DES algorithm. This sys help big organizations to transfer their data through the internet without being misled by their enemies. Government and intelligence agencies can store critical information and can fearlessly transmit information over the network. QR code stores information in x and y is in the shape of square represented with black and white pixels. Inside QR, there are three-square boxes, which are usually bigger than others used for pattern separators and for detecting positions. There are six smaller squares in alignment pattern. The outer space is called the silent zone. The modes in which we can store information are bytes, numeric, alphanumeric and kanji.

Versions of QR code ranges from Version 1 (21x21) to Version 40 (177x177). They have error correction levels and can completely restore codeword. They can be read and scanned in any direction. We can easily create QR code using the zxing library which is an open source tool written in java language. Our smartphones can scan them thus m free resource for peoples. QR codes can store data’s like URL, text, contact, email-address, pdf, business cards etc. The processor can lose data at any time, QR code can protect secret message inside it because it has the ability of error correction. The secret message can be easily restored in QR code. QR code has good robustness and provides maximum security to the message.