Released as shareware 4.19.2002

Picture Me Secret v1.4 is an application that implements steganography technology to embed a secret message into an image file.

Steganography is one of the less known forms of cryptography. While most cryptography applications work on securing a message (encryption) so only the sender and receiver can understand it, steganography hides a message only the sender and receiver know it's there. While everyone may see the public image, they won't know the secret (embedded) message is there. The secret message can truly be hidden in plain sight. An example might be to embed a message within an image then place it on a web site or attach to an email. Your friend can then save the image to disk then decrypt or extract the message from the image using a copy of this software to reveal the embedded message. This technology is also useful to embed copyright / trademark notices within images known as "watermarking".

Note that this technique is relatively fragile. It depends on the least significant bits in an image. Those are the bits most likely to modified by an image compression algorithm such as JPEG. It is advised to use .BMP or .GIF images and to keep the embedded message as short as possible when using this software. If you encode a long message into a JPEG image, then try to decode the saved JPEG version, you will probably get nothing but garbage. We have found, during testing, that an image with a black background (or lot's of black within) is most likely to return a positive result. Keep the message short and embed within a .BMP image (that has lot's of black or a black background) for best results! You should also load the image into the software then decode to check to see if it returns the encoded message in a satisfactory manner before depending on it to do so. This is a problem with this kind of steganography. To hide the message, the program makes the smallest modifications to the image possible so as not to distort the image appearance. 

Click to enlarge screen shot of interface >>>

Okay then...how does this software work?

To encode a message within an image...

• Load an image into the image view area by selecting to 'Open' under the 'File' menu item.

• Input password into the 'Password' field

• Input message to be embed in the 'Message' field.

• Click the 'Encode' menu item.

• Save the image by selecting to 'Save As' under the 'File' menu item. This saved image will now have the message as well as the password to decrypt embedded within. 

• You should then load the image into the software and decode to make sure all is will before depending on the process returning a positive result (see above regarding the fragile nature of this technology).

To decode a message from an image...

• Load the image into the image view area by selecting to 'Open' under the 'File' menu item.

• Input the password that was used to encode into the 'Password' field

• Click the 'Decode' menu item.

• The encoded message will appear in the 'Message' field.
  

Picture Me Secret v1.4 has been tested to be compatible with Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 and XP.

You are invited to download this shareware version of  "Picture Me Secret v1.4" that has a 10 startup limitation before requiring registration. Download it HERE ! (1.9Mb)

Cost of registration is $7.00 which entitles you to download 2 copies of the registered version of the software. Keep one copy for yourself and give one to a friend so that he/ she can decrypt your messages using this steganography technology software. Navigate to  THIS secure e-com site for on-line payment or send payment to Code-it Software - PO Box 171 - Midwest, WY 82643.

NOTICE: Code-it Software reserves the right to refund registration funds or not supply this software to any person(s) that reside in a country that we consider hostile to the national interests of the United States of America. The determination of what is considered  "hostile" is the sole right of Code-it Software without reservations!