Cipherzoic

Cipherzoic is a web app that encodes secret messages in images using a "prehistoric" substitution cipher and LSB steganography. Tech meets the Stone Age! Talk like ancestors. Hide like hackers.

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Inspiration

We wanted to build something that combined encryption, humor, and creativity. Cipherzoic took inspiration from Bitcamp's theme to put a fun twist on substitution ciphers. The process of hiding secret messages in images by first turning the text into caveman-style “grunts” and ASCII cave paintings was full of enjoyment and laughter.

What it does

Cipherzoic lets users upload an image and a secret message. It uses least significant bit (LSB) steganography to embed the message into the image without visibly altering it. When decrypted, the hidden message is transformed into “caveman language" via a custom-built "prehistoric cipher" that replaces letters with primitive-sounding words and ASCII cave paintings.

How we built it

We used HTML and CSS to create a simple and intuitive front end where users can upload images and enter secret messages. On the back end, we used Flask to handle message processing, encryption, image manipulation, and decryption. The website runs on our .tech domain in a DigitalOcean container on an Nginx web server.

The core of the project uses LSB (Least Significant Bit) steganography to embed the message directly into the image without visibly altering it. Once decrypted, the message is transformed back into plaintext using our custom cipher.

Our cipher is fully reversible, giving users a fun and functional way to hide and then reveal messages with a prehistoric twist.

Challenges we ran into

  • Developing the cipher: We wanted the symbols to be complex enough to obscure the original message but still reversible for accurate translation.

  • File format issues: Lossy formats like JPEG often corrupted the embedded message, so we focused on lossless formats like PNG.

  • Unicode support: Creating prehistoric symbols for modern characters such as emojis was a challenge—supporting more characters remains a future goal.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Designed a custom, fully reversible cipher
  • Embedded messages using steganography with zero visual distortion
  • Responsive and polished frontend that perfectly fits the theme of our project
  • Made our website accessible via our .tech domain using DigitalOcean, nginx, and get.tech.

What we learned

  • How to develop a custom cipher system
  • The mechanics of substitution ciphers and LSB steganography
  • Limitations and quirks of different file formats and character encodings

What's next for Cipherzoic

  • Support for video or audio steganography
  • A caveman-speak chatbot
  • More comprehensive character support and symbols for code embedding
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