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Hide MP3 audio inside GIF picture

Posted By Raymond In Category: Computer

Jun
26
2006

I just found an article by Tom Scott on hiding music in your pictures. How cool is that? It’s really cool! You can send special messages in recorded audio that no one would even guess to your friend in picture format.
It’s like combining 2 files to become 1 and when you run the combined file, it will by default display the picture. To listen to the audio that is embedded into the picture file, you’ll need to manually load the combined file into Winamp.
Here’s the test I did.


1. Combine audio (.mp3) with picture (.gif)
I use the command “copy picture.gif /b + audio.mp3 /b combined.gif” in DOS prompt.
Combine mp3 audio with gif picture
I look in my C:\ drive and now I have a new file “combined.gif”
I run the combined.gif file and it display the same picture as picture.gif.
I run Winamp and manually load the combined.gif, I am able to play the audio.mp3 sound. I tried to load combined.gif file into Windows Media Player and I can only see the picture.gif. No sound at all. Looks like Winamp can support this feature but not Windows Media Player.

2. Combine audio (.wav) with picture (.gif)
I use the same picture.gif but now I am combining the picture file with a .wav sound file. Wav is another type of sound format.
Used the same command “copy picture.gif /b + audio.wav /b combined.gif” in DOS prompt. I ran combined.gif and it is able to display the picture.gif picture file. Tried to load it into Winamp, doesn’t play this time. Loaded the combined.gif into Windows Media Player, it also only display the picture but no sound.
Looks like only .mp3 sound format is supported.

3. Combine audio (.mp3) with picture (.jpg)
Since only mp3 works, we’ll try combining mp3 with another type of picture format with is JPG.
Used the same command “copy picture.jpg /b + audio.mp3 /b combined.jpg” in DOS prompt. Ran the combined.jpg and it displayed the picture.jpg. Then I tried loading the combined.jpg into Winamp, and it played the music. Again, loaded combined.jpg into Windows Media Player, I can only see the picture but no music.

From the test above, I believe that hiding audio inside picture can only work when you embed MP3 audio into picture file. I also believe that other picture format such as TIFF, PNG or Bitmap will work.
Tom Scott explains that the GIF format allows for an “application extension block” – an arbitrary section for applications that isn’t checked by the GIF parser. Meanwhile, Winamp and other MP3 players ignore all data in the file that isn’t marked as an MP3 block. The result: the picture viewer ignores the music, and the MP3 player ignores the picture.
Eventhough he only mentioned GIF, but I tested on JPG and it works as well.

If you’re on a Linux box, you can do it by using the command “cat picture.gif sound.mp3 > combined.gif”

Don’t know anything about Dos prompt and the copy /b command? Here’s an easier way to do it but with limitation. Thomas Scott has created an online tool where you can easily upload your picture and audio into his website and it will automatically combine it for you. The limitation of using his free picture with audio combine service is the GIF file size is limited to 40KB and MP3 80KB in size.

[ Thomas Scott MP3gif website ]


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    • http://ok-lah.blogspot.com/ Adam

      That’s interesting. Sometime back the CIA warned that terrorists were sending hidden messages in images. Guess it is true.

    • Pingback: How Terrorist Hide Messages in Images » Raymond.CC Blog

    • http://www.bluemobiles.com Emraan

      Dear
      Your are renaming a file. You are not hiding it! Hehe ofcourse you can do it manually. When you do it with unknown extension it will not be linked to any player until you open it with your player!

      How you do that!

      1. rar the file
      2. open in unrar
      3. click in name and edit it to music.love
      4. open with media play it will be played! though its in love format

      It was very old trick i used to hide my videos from my friends hehe!

    • http://www.bluemobiles.com Emraan

      the CIA is talking about Attaching a file into a file which scripts cant read! How to attach a file into a file and later splitting them is easy job. Even in xp professional there is tool by Microsoft. Please search it in your system32. Mostly people use it for bad intention i mean for hacking for spreading a virus for sending you keyloggers. They give you a file mp3.exe it runs mp3 but it also got the tiny server file of keylogger or spyware or virus or anything other!

    • emad – syria

      thnks reymoud to this anmation on *.giv
      im hapy to this im can to hide any file to this images
      thnks

    • Hip

      You can also change the extension of the picture (.gif) with the extension for the spund (.mp3), and then you can say you hide the picture in the sound file :)

    • rhaille

      what is combine.gif? how to u get that? and do still need to type the title of the mp3 song? and the name of gif?
      plss help..thanks

    • B.Srinivasan

      Hi, 30-11-2009(4.05 pm)
      I found your tips about hiding mp3 file in a jpg file useful.While no doubt the winapm media plays only the music ignoring picture in the combined file I would like to know how I can combine mp3 music and jpg image in combined file which will play music as well as display the image at the same time.Will be nice if you can advise.

      B.Srinivasan

    • toshko

      imah zvuk do odeve a sega nqmam

    • fungusaur

      Peoples. DOS is a v.cool thing, but you are forgetting one key thing when talking about the file combines. If you take a jpg and add it to a wmv, you can view the jpg in a video player (true), but what is the point, the icon is still a jpg. But, it you add a wmv to a jpg, you can view the wmv in a video player. Yes, they are the same files, but think in terms of how the computer reads the information. If a video is placed ahead of all else, then it will not appear masked and the computer will not think its something which needs a new codec or application to run. Btw, this is a common thing these pay codec services use. But what you need to understand about combines is this, its the sequence that matters. And you are not integrating, you are masking. Think of it more like making a train.

    • http://www.pawanroy.co.nr rajni ant roy

      i want extract this hidden file.

    • http://www.pawanroy.co.nr rajni kant roy

      i want open this hidden file.how can do that.

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