During year 12 I undertook an Extended Project Qualification. Based on a lecture I attended at the Royal Institution Computer Science Masterclasses at Oxford University, I decided to base my project on the concept of Steganography - the act of hiding a message or other secret 'in plain sight'. My title for the project was "How can I conceal a message within a bitmap image, and then retrieve it?"
To answer this question I produced a detailed report discussing what steganography is, its history and techniques used in the past, modern techniques in particular concerning computers and digital data, and more specifically how it is used in digital images.
This last section provided useful context for my accompanying artefact: I created a Python program that allowed the user to hide or retreive a message within a bitmap image located in the same folder as the program. Within the report I explained how I planned this project, how each subroutine works, and demonstrated and discussed the results. The appendix contains screenshots of the complete program code.
I also kept a project diary detailing the process from start to end and the progress that I made each week. Once the report and artefact were complete I also had to prepare a presentation discussing the process, which I ended up giving when school reopened after the lockdown.
This reopsitory contains the report, artefact and accompanying message and image, diary, and presentation script and slides. I also had to fill in a project log for the AQA exam board, mentioned in the diary, but I have decided not to upload it.
I ended up getting a grade of A* for this project.