dead-drop — steganography tool

1. Upload a carrier image

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Drop an image here or click to browse

PNG recommended (JPEG lossy compression destroys hidden data)

2. What to hide

Payload type

Text message Hidden image

Passphrase (optional — encrypts with AES-256 before hiding)

3. Encoding settings

Channels to use

Red Green Blue Alpha

More channels = more capacity. Alpha is the most covert — barely anyone checks it.

Bits per channel — 1 bit

1 (invisible) 4 (subtle)

1 bit = completely undetectable to the human eye. 4 bits = visible in visualizer but subtle in normal view.

Select an image to see capacity.

Upload an encoded image

🖼

Drop the encoded image here or click to browse

Must be the exact PNG that was output from the encoder

Decoding settings

Channels

Red Green Blue Alpha

Bits per channel — 1 bit

1 4

Passphrase (if message was encrypted)

Hidden message

Try a demo image

These images have a hidden message already baked in — no encoding needed.

Upload an image to inspect

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Drop any image here to inspect its channels

Try an encoded image to see where the data hides

Try a demo image

Load a pre-encoded image and switch to LSB mode to see exactly where the hidden data lives.

How it works

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LSB Steganography

Every pixel has R, G, B, and Alpha values (0–255). We replace the 1–4 least significant bits of each channel — changes invisible to the human eye but enough to hide kilobytes of data.

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AES-256-GCM Encryption

Optional passphrase encrypts your message before it's hidden. Uses PBKDF2 (100k iterations) for key derivation — the hidden bytes are indistinguishable from noise even if someone knows to look.

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Alpha channel hiding

Most tools only think about RGB. Hiding data in the Alpha channel is particularly covert — it affects transparency, which is rarely inspected. Perfect for PNG images.

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Use PNG, not JPEG

JPEG compression is lossy — it destroys the precise LSB values we embed. Always download and share as PNG to preserve the hidden data intact.