SkyDe: a Skype-based Steganographic Method

Abstract

This paper introduces SkyDe (Skype Hide), a new steganographic method that utilizes Skype encrypted packets with silence to provide the means for clandestine communication. It is possible to reuse packets that do not carry voice signals for steganographic purposes because Skype does not use any silence suppression mechanism. The method's proof-of-concept implementation and first experimental results are presented. They prove that the method is feasible and offers steganographic bandwidth as high as 2.8 kbps.

arXiv comment7 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. The paper is submitted to 1st ACM Information Hiding and Multimedia Security Workshop (IH and ACM MMSec conferences merged into a single event), June 17-19, 2013, Montpellier, France