Secret Communication through Web Pages Using Special Space Codes in HTML Files

A secret communication method via web pages by embedding special space codes in HTML text to encode message bits in triplets is proposed. The codes, replacing the ASCII space code 20, appear as white spaces as well, creating a steganographic effect. Such codes are found by a systematic investigation of all the coding systems applicable in the HTML. Message hiding and recovery processes are also proposed. The character string of each message, before being embedded, is randomized with a secret key to enhance the security against illegal intercept and extraction. The embedded message is non-destructible unless the web page server is intruded. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed method.