Steganography, the art of hiding of information in apparently innocuous objects or images, is a field with a rich heritage, and an area of rapid current development. This clear, self-contained guide shows you how to understand the building blocks of covert communication in digital media files and how to apply the techniques in practice, including those of steganalysis, the detection of steganography. Assuming only a basic knowledge in calculus and statistics, the book blends the various strands of steganography, including information theory, coding, signal estimation and detection, and statistical signal processing. Experiments on real media files demonstrate the performance of the techniques in real life, and most techniques are supplied with pseudo-code, making it easy to implement the algorithms. The book is ideal for students taking courses on steganography and information hiding, and is also a useful reference for engineers and practitioners working in media security and information assurance.