Methods and apparatus for digital steganography

• US 9,015,494 B2
• Filed: 05/09/2012
• Issued: 04/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/11/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Fischer, Ronald
• Primary Examiner(s): Johns, Andrew W
• Application Number:
  US13/467,557
• Publication Number:
  US 20130019106A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,077 Days
• Field of Search: 713/189, 173/176, 173/189, 380/255, 380/42, 380/287, 341/50, 341/55, 341/89
• US Class Current: 713/189
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/60 Protecting data
• CPC Class Codes: G09C 5/00 Ciphering apparatus or methods not provided for in the preceding groups, e.g. involving the concealment or deformation of graphic data such as designs, written or printed messages

Abstract

A computer-implemented digital steganography method includes providing a target dataset comprising a plurality of target data elements, providing a source dataset comprising a plurality of source data elements, and creating a grille dataset configured to map each of the target data elements in the target dataset with a corresponding source data element within the source dataset in accordance with a predefined extraction method.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented digital steganography method comprising:

providing a target dataset having a binary form, the target data set comprising;

a plurality of target data elements, wherein each target data element comprises;

a sequence of digital bits;

providing a source dataset having a binary form, the source data set comprising;

a plurality of source data elements, wherein each source data element comprises;

a sequence of digital bits such that the source dataset can be represented in a bitwise representation having a specific start bit for each source data element; and

creating a grille dataset configured to map each of the target data elements in the target dataset with a corresponding source data element within the source dataset in accordance with a predefined extraction method, the grille dataset comprising;

for each target data element, a corresponding indice indicating the position of the specific start bit within the bitwise representation of the source dataset, irrespective of the bitwise position of each of the source data elements.

2. The computer-implemented digital steganography method of claim 1, wherein the predefined extraction method produces a grille dataset comprising, for each target data element, a corresponding indice indicating the position of the next occurrence of that target data element within the source dataset.

3. The computer-implemented digital steganography method of claim 2, wherein the position of the next occurrence is determined based on a location that is not the beginning of the source dataset.

4. The computer-implemented digital steganography method of claim 1, further including encrypting the grille dataset to produce an encrypted grilled dataset.

5. The computer-implemented digital steganography method of claim 1, wherein the predefined extraction method is based in part on a key provided by a user.

6. The computer-implemented digital steganography method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting the grille dataset over a computer network to a remote computing device, wherein the remote computing device has access to the predefined extraction method and the source dataset; and

determining the target dataset based on the source dataset in accordance with the predefined extraction method.

7. The computer-implemented digital steganography method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the source dataset and the target dataset are stored within a multi-tenant database system.

8. A computing device comprising a processing system and a memory, wherein the memory comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, cause the computing device to:

read a target dataset having a binary form, the target data set comprising;

a plurality of target data elements, wherein each target data element comprises;

a sequence of digital bits;

read a source dataset having a binary form, the source data set comprising;

a plurality of source data elements, wherein each source data element comprises;

a sequence of digital bits such that the source dataset can be represented in a bitwise representation having a specific start bit for each source data element; and

create a grille dataset configured to map each of the target data elements in the target dataset with a corresponding source data element within the source dataset in accordance with a predefined extraction method such that the grille dataset comprises, for each target data element, a corresponding indice indicating the position of the specific start bit within the bitwise representation of the source dataset, irrespective of the bitwise position of each of the source data elements.

9. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the predefined extraction method produces a grille dataset comprising, for each target data element, a corresponding indice indicating the position of the next occurrence of that target data element within the source dataset.

10. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the position of the next occurrence is determined based on a location that is not the beginning of the source dataset.

11. The computing device of claim 8, further including encrypting the grille dataset to produce an encrypted grilled dataset.

12. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the predefined extraction method is based in part on a key provided by a user.

13. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the processing system, further cause the computing device to determine the target dataset based on the source dataset and the predefined extraction method.

14. The computing device of claim 8, wherein at least one of the source dataset and the target dataset are stored within a multi-tenant database system.

15. A method of encoding a plurality of target data elements, the method comprising:

accessing a source dataset having a binary form, the source data set comprising a plurality of source data elements, wherein each source data element comprises;

a sequence of digital bits such that the source dataset can be represented in a bitwise representation having a specific start bit for each source data element; and

encoding the plurality of target elements into a grille dataset, wherein the grille dataset includes a plurality of indices configured to map each of the target data elements to a corresponding position within the source dataset in accordance with a predefined extraction method, and wherein the grille dataset comprises, for each target data element, a corresponding indice indicating the position of the specific start bit within the bitwise representation of the source dataset, irrespective of the bitwise position of each of the source data elements.

16. The method of claim 15, further including:

transmitting the grille dataset to a remote computing device over a computer network;

reconstructing, at the remote computing device, the target data elements based on the grille dataset and the predefined extraction method.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the predefined extraction method is based in part on a key provided by a user.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the plurality of target data elements are associated with an authentication process required for accessing a multi-tenant database.