Visual Cryptography And Image Steganography Using Space Filling Hilbert Curves

In mathematics, space filling curves are the curves whose range contains entire two dimensional unit square. These curves were introduced by G.Peano, and D.Hilbert demonstrated a simple and fast way to visualize them. This paper briefly reviews main characteristics of the Hilbert curves and then proposes two new applications for them: visual symmetric cryptography using a color-mapping key, and a LSB replacement strategy using these curves in image steganography for embedding texts in images in a secure manner.