ISSN:2229-6093
Pooja Guwalani et al, Int.J.Computer Technology & Applications,Vol 5 (6),1892-1895
Image File Security using Base-64 Algorithm
Pooja Guwalani [1] Maya Kala [2] Rohit Chandrashekar[3] Jayashree Shinde[4] Dashrath Mane [5]
VES Institute of Technology ,
Chembur, Mumbai
[1] guwalanipooja@yahoo.co.in
[2] maya11kala@gmail.com
[4] jayashreeshinde25@gmail.com
Abstract
[3] rohit28chandrashekar@gmail.com
[5] dashumane@gmail.com
Information security is becoming a vital component
of any data storage and transmission operations.
Since visual representation of data is gaining
importance, data in the form of images are used to
exchange and convey information between entities.
As the use of digital techniques for transmitting and
storing images are increasing, it becomes an
important issue to protect the confidentiality,
integrity and authenticity of images. There are
various techniques which are discovered to encrypt
the images to make them more secure. The primary
goal of this paper is security management. A
mechanism to provide authentication of users and
ensure integrity, accuracy and safety of images.
Moreover, an image-based data requires more effort
during encryption and decryption. In this paper, we
describe how Base64 algorithm can be used to
achieve this purpose.
Security is an important issue in communication and
storage of images, and encryption is one of the ways
to ensure security. However, images are different
from text. Although we may use the traditional
cryptosystems to encrypt images directly, it is not a
good idea for two reasons. One is that the image size
is almost always greater than that of text. Therefore,
traditional cryptosystems need much time to encrypt
the image data. The other condition is that the
decrypted text must be equal to the original text [6].
These systems consume lot of computing resources
such as battery and CPU time.
Keywords-component—
Security System.
The MIME specification lists Base64 as one of
its binary-to-text encoding feature. MIME does not
specify a fixed length for Base64-encoded lines, but
it does specify a maximum line length of 76
characters. Additionally it specifies that any extraalphabetic characters must be ignored by a compliant
decoder.
Base64,
Image
File
1. Introduction
Image encryption has applications in internet
communication, multimedia systems, medical
imaging, telemedicine, and military communication.
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Base64 is a group of similar binary-to-text
encoding schemes that represent binary data in
an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix64 representation. The term Base64 originates from a
specific MIME
(Multipurpose
Internet
Mail
Extensions) content transfer encoding[8].
Base64 encoding schemes are commonly used when
there is a need to encode binary data that needs to be
stored and transferred over media that are designed to
deal with textual data. This is to ensure that the data
remains intact without modification during transport.
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ISSN:2229-6093
Pooja Guwalani et al, Int.J.Computer Technology & Applications,Vol 5 (6),1892-1895
Base64 is used in a number of applications
including email via MIME, and storing complex data
in XML [8].
images systematically. The main objective is to
provide protection of image data from unauthorized
access.
Image File Security System is based on the Data
conversion process. Data conversion is the
conversion of computer data from one format to
another. Throughout a computer environment, data is
encoded in a variety of ways [5].
Data conversions may be as simple as the conversion
of a text file from one character encoding system to
another; or more complex, such as the conversion of
office file formats, or the conversion of image and
audio file formats. The system that has been
developed converts image into text file and vice a
versa [5].
Fig1. Base64 representation
BASE64 Algorithm:
Base64 algorithm is based on ASCII conversion of 3byte, 24-bit groups is repeated until the whole
sequence of original data bytes is encoded [1].
Example
Let's say we want to convert three bytes 155, 162 and
233. The corresponding 24-bit stream is
100110111010001011101001.
155 -> 10011011
162 -> 10100010
233 -> 11101001
Splitting up these bits into 4 groups of 6bit creates
the following 4 decimal values: 38, 58, 11 and 41.
100110 -> 38
111010 -> 58
001011 -> 11
101001 -> 41
Converting these into ASCII characters using the
Base64 encoding table translates them into the ASCII
sequence "m6Lp".
38 -> m
58 -> 6
11 -> L
41 -> p
Data Conversion, as the name implies, deals with
changes required to move or convert data from one
physical environment format to that of another, like
moving data from one electronic medium or database
product onto another format.
Data conversion is technical process of changing the
bits contained in the data from one format to another
format for purpose of interoperability between
computers. The simplest example of data conversion
is a text file converted from one character encoding
to another.
Data conversion is very important for the security
purpose. For example there is a image file which
consist of very important information and that file we
have to store in secret manner. So to secure that file
we can convert image file into text file. After
converting image file will get security. We can also
convert that file form image to text. While converting
we have to give password to it.
The objective of data conversion is to maintain all of
the data, and as much of the embedded information
as possible. This can only be done if the target format
supports the same features and data structures present
in the source file. There is no loss of information
while converting the image file to text file or text file
to image file.
The scope of the system is
2. System Implementation
The aim of this section is to describe the overall
Implementation of the Image File Security System,
thereby, enabling the encryption and decryption of
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
Image can be converted into text file and
text file can be converted into an image.

It gives security to image file.
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Pooja Guwalani et al, Int.J.Computer Technology & Applications,Vol 5 (6),1892-1895

A comparator will distinguish between
normal text file and text file after conversion
[7].
Fig3. Form for loading the image
B. Encryption
Fig2. System’s Interaction
Image will be stored in the form of Base64 format,
i.e. combination of uppercase, lowercase, 0-9 digit
and special symbol „=‟ and „/‟.
The ASCII conversion of 3-byte, 24-bit groups is
repeated until the whole sequence of original data
bytes is encoded.
The proposed
functionalities:
system
has
the
following
A user can login and access the complete system,
Also can encrypt image format into cipher text.
User first has to load the image for the conversion
into text file. For that we have to use “Load Image
file button” .After that we have to give password for
security purpose. Afterward clicking on button
“Convert Image to text” the image file gets converted
into text file [7].
For conversion of text file to image file first we have
to load text file using “Load Text.img” button. Again
we have to give password. After clicking on button
“Convert text to image” it gets converted into text
file.
A. Login
An administrator can login and access the complete
system. For converting file user have to give
password. It is for security purpose [3].
Fig4. Open Dialog Box
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Pooja Guwalani et al, Int.J.Computer Technology & Applications,Vol 5 (6),1892-1895
C. Decryption
A user can decrypt the cipher text into the image
from text file.
The system security ensures that when the convert
image to text button is clicked the user‟s password is
requested to determine who converted the image.
Only the valid password of the user who has logged
into the system is accepted if not, the image is not
converted. Similarly during the process of decryption
the system asks for the password of the user
decrypting the text file to ensure that the converted
final image is visible only to the authorized person
[7].
Since security is of privacy importance, this double
authentication mechanism further ensures the privacy
of the information sent.
This software is made according to the modern need
of conversion of data. It uses various new techniques
for conversion the data. The basic advantage of this
product is that it is not specific for a particular type of
either image or text file. The development of the
system can be done using JDK. The software can be
used on any operating system.
3. Conclusion
In this paper, an Image File Security system for
encrypting and decrypting images into a text file and
a small-scale prototype of the system was
successfully implemented. The project mainly
concentrated on embedding the data from one format
to another by designing a data conversion application
which converts image file to text file and text file to
image file. Normally, after conversion of image, the
image may lose its resolution. In the proposed
approach, the image remains unchanged in its
resolution as well in size. The speed of conversion
the data is also high in the proposed approach such
that the image is protected and the properly
converted. For the conversion of text file to image,
JAVA programming language has been used to build
the user interface and perform operations. Security
keys such as personal password for protecting the
image from unauthorized modification have also
been implemented, which improved the security
level. The aim of creating a simple application to
provide security has been achieved successfully.
References
Fig5. Confirmation for decryption
Friendly graphical user interface and documents with
the system will be sufficient to educate a user on how
to use the system effectively, without any problems
or difficulties.
[1] Koblitz, N.: A Course in Number Theory and
cryptography. 2'nd edition. Springer-Verlag (1994).
[2] Mahendra Kumar, “Steganography and Steganalysis of
JPEG Images A Statistical Approach to Information Hiding
and Detection “ 2nd Edition, Lambert Academic Publishing
[3] Herbert Schildt, Java™: “The Complete Reference
“Seventh Edition, McGraw Hill Education (India) Private
Limited
[4]
Lakhtaria K. Protecting computer network with
encryption technique: A Study. International Journal of uand e-service, Science and Technology 4(2) (2011).
[5] Komal D Patel, Sonal Belani “Image Encryption using
different Techniques”
International Journal of Emerging Technology and
Advanced Engineering Volume 1, Issue 1, November 2011
[6] Atul Kahate, Cryptography and Network Security,
Second Edition, Tata McGraw-Hill Edition 2008.
Fig6. Form for performing encryption and
decryption
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[7] Stalling, W. (2005) “Cryptography and network
security principles and practices, 4th edition Prentice Hall”.
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