
Hiding Information in Rendered Text - daredave
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/software/hiding-information-in-plain-text
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nneonneo
“Plain text” is something of a misnomer here because it’s actually hiding
information in the font variations (i.e. it really requires what you might
call “rich text” or “styled text”). It’s like a modern update of the Baconian
cipher, invented in 1605 by Francis Bacon, which hid binary data in runs of
text by alternating the font used.

Here, the idea is that modern techniques permit font variations that are nigh-
imperceptible to people, yet carry enough bits to encode payloads. They use
machine learning to decode, which is something of a cop-out in my opinion, but
I suppose machine learning coupled with a decent error-correction code can be
a valid, if somewhat computationally-heavy approach to encoding/decoding data.

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chipperyman573
Wow, surprising that IEEE has resorted to forbes-style ads
([https://i.imgur.com/0TPDpeM.png](https://i.imgur.com/0TPDpeM.png))

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DenisM
Next up: encode secret messages by messing up kerning in rendered text. Can
only be decoded by comparing to _proper_ kerning.

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curiousgal
I remember reading something about this! Not sure if in a novel or on HN
though.

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tomcam
Welcome to the 21st

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meritt
I assume this is primarily applicable to rasterized and printed materials
since you'd need the appropriate typeface and/or font in order to render the
glyphs correctly?

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mirimir
Right. One can use convert for pdf to png.[0]

0) [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6605006/convert-pdf-
to-i...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6605006/convert-pdf-to-image-
with-high-resolution)

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verrecken
I can tell you many reasons why this is only practicable with printed text.
There are much better solutions for anything digital.

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RachelF
This is not new, there are systems dating back to at least the 1980s that do
exactly the same thing.

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raldi
Mods, a better title would be, "Hiding information in rendered text"

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dang
Ok. Thanks!

