The Sound of Encryption: Interim Report Teams Number: 026
School Name: Farmington High School
Area of Science: Computer Science
Project Title: The Sound of Encryption

Problem Definition:
     Our goal of this project is to encrypt data into a musical .midi or .wav file, using steganography, in hopes that we would have successfully created a new way to encrypt data. This would make steganography with image files obsolete. It is our aim to be able to create an encrypted musical melody of simple data. We plan to research encryption, then the correlations between music and mathematics. We will then be able to encrypt the data.

Problem Solution:
     The solution to our problem depends on which format of audio file is used. For a .midi file, we will create a new track in the .midi without an instrument and add the encrypted data within it. We may also manipulate the system messages of a .midi file to store small amounts of encrypted data. For a .wav file, we will use the Discrete Fourier Transform to create sinusoids. This is more of a signal processing approach and involves manipulating frequencies, rather than adding tracks.

Expected Results:
     After completion of all programming, further design of our website and research it is our goal is to successful encrypt data in both .midi and .wav files to hold hidden information. Our final program should efficient and reliable. We expect to be able to create a program that will change the .midi or .wav files in such a way that detecting the change will be almost unnoticeable.

Progress to date:
     At present, we have researched the RSA encryption algorithm and have programmed a simple program, which takes in a text file, two prime numbers, and any other requirements for the RSA algorithm. It then makes simple two character blocks, converts these to numbers, and lastly runs it through the RSA algorithm. In turn, a larger encrypted number is then outputted to a text file. The decryption process is currently almost functional. After extensive research into the .midi file architecture, we have learned enough to be able to implement the JMusic library in order to both read and edit the .midi files. Our next steps include combining both encryption and the editing of .midi files. We have also researched the Discrete Fourier Transform, and are looking into the possibility of also using .wav files. Using the Discrete Fourier Transform we will be able to create sinusoids, which we can further implement.

Cited sources:
Churchhouse, Robert. Codes and ciphers : Julius Caesar, the Enigma, and the internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

John, Corinna. Steganography V - Hiding Messages in MIDI Songs. The Code Project. 25 Oct. 2004
<http://www.thecodeproject.com/csharp/steganodotnet5.asp>.

Glatt, Jeff. The Beginnings of MIDI. 25 Oct. 2004
<http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/tutr/history.htm>.

Sierra, Kathy. Head First Java. Sebastopol: O'Reilly, 2003.

Singh, Simon. The Code Book. New York: Doubleday, 1999.