Object steganography method to hide data in shape of 3d printed objects

Ingenious and cool process designed by Noah Feehan of hiding data in 3d printed object. Shape itself can then be scanned for information to be extracted and decrypted.

Physical object IS encrypted data carrier, carrying it in its shape. I could not find more detailed or software itself, however concept is intriguing and deserves attention and further exploration.

From source site:

Object Steganography, Noah Feehan (2012)

Steganography is the practice of concealing one form of information within the properties of another; it has been used as a way of hiding information in plain sight for thousands of years.
“Object Steganography” is a series of parametrically-designed 3d printed objects: the shape of each piece is determined by a user-submitted word.

For example, one of the objects pictured here is the most common password in the world; the other is an illegal number.
Further work in this series will close the loop between computer fabrication and computer vision: Each object will be scanned back into a programming environment and decoded.

Object steganography software and .stl file generated

Pictures of 3d printed objects with data in their shape:

3d printed object with most common password data embedded in its form

3d printed object containing Illegal Number data encrypted in its shape

Source:

http://p-dpa.tumblr.com/post/71516057042/object-steganography-noah-feehan-2012 via http://go3dprinting.tumblr.com/

I also googled it anf found a site that could be THE source: http://akamediasystem.com/2012/05/object-steganography/


There is a software project that encrypts .stl files:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2013/12/disarming-corruptor-3d-model-encryption.html