Get GIMP. It's is a free image processing program. Make a two layer picture, on the top layer you would see a picture of your cute puppy (or whatever…some mild image)… on the bottom layer write your words…save the picture as a .xcf file…that "gimp" file type retains both layers individually and anyone with GIMP may view each layer…

email that picture to your friend…


When they open up the picture, the image of your cute puppy is visible…the bottom layer is not visible…but by moving the bottom layer of the stack to the top, all your words become visible… WHO would know that there IS a hidden layer??? It would be a good idea to name the picture with a benign sounding name… like, my-cute-puppy.xcf


I tried this with yahoo email and the thumbnail looks like a piece of paper…


get gimp here…it's a great program! http://www.gimp.org




"When you spy on the government, it's a felony…

When they spy on you it's a Patriot Act..."

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Let's Suppose… That you had access to a word processor with the typeface "Wingdings" then you could translate the goofball looking website address on the image below… YES, this is a time consuming process and most people would not bother… after all, this image is really a JOKE!

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The underlying concept is valid…

Hide your secret message in an image and

send the image to your friend... Google Goggles still has a difficult time reading "Wingdings"…normal typefaces are transcribed immediately.


A computer can read the name of an image file… SO, choose the name wisely… a name like "Sally-with-Grandma" is less likely to be viewed than "missile-base-in-new-jersey" ...  the best name for an image file is 001.jpg. That name reveals zero meta data about what the picture is about…Just that it IS a picture...


Let's suppose you set up a free email account and wrote a draft of an email, saved it and DID NOT SEND IT. Someone else could go to your email account and if they knew the password, they could read your draft message... as a matter of fact, they could write a draft message as well... and you could read it!

The puzzle just becomes password distribution…could be done in a picture… as you see in the picture above, the password Shroom420 is in the lower left hand corner…hard to read because it's backwards letters… Google Goggles is unlikely to be able to read it…

Since computerized email reading programs focus their attention on reading SENT email, your draft would be a lower priority message... While it is POSSIBLE that "they" could read drafts by getting the username and password from the email provider, it is less likely... One famous email reading program reads the from and to address lines on an email in order to determine if a message is worth the trouble of reading.... Your draft message can leave those fields blank...

hey, blank is not a high priority email address in comparison to
MORE-HAM-MAD@al-bundy-errorist-network.com

email address listed like the one above often become a mailto: link... the computer looks for any set of characters with an @ and a . (dot) in them... SO, if you want to distribute your email address and you do not want computers to read it... put it in a graphic image file…while a human can read the big email address, computers might no be able to "capcha" it.