Conversation Stenography: Hide secret messages in normal looking conversations

A new open-source tool called Conversation Stenography lets users hide encrypted secret messages inside innocent-looking chat text generated by a local AI model, bypassing government surveillance of messaging apps. The proof-of-concept tool works with any messaging platform and encrypts messages so that only the intended recipient can decode them.

Hide secret messages inside normal-looking chat text. Conversation Stenography lets two people have a completely private conversation through any messaging app WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, iMessage, email, or even Instagram DMs . Your secret messages are encrypted and then disguised as innocent, natural-sounding text generated by a local AI model. No one reading the chat can tell there's a hidden message. - Governments are moving toward scanning private messages - Sending normal encrypted messages is risky because it might flag you on basis of suspicioun - Today it's "just CSAM." Tomorrow god knows what Example:You type "meet me at the coffee shop at 3pm" and Conversation Stenography generates something like "Hey, I was just thinking about that recipe you mentioned. It sounds amazing, especially the part about the fresh basil." which is what gets sent in your chat app. Your friend's Conversation Stenography decodes it back to "meet me at the coffee shop at 3pm" . Your actual messages never leave your device unencrypted. The messaging platform only ever sees innocent cover text. Caution Educational Use Only This project is provided for educational and research purposes. Engaging in any unauthorized or illegal activities is strictly prohibited. The creator assumes no liability for any misuse. Warning This is a proof of concept and still has multiple issues Clone and build git clone https://github.com/nethical/conversation-stenography.git cd conversation-stenography go build -o conversation-stenography ./cmd/conversation-stenography ./conversation-stenography On first run, Conversation Stenography walks you through everything: - Lets you pick an AI model with recommendations for your system - Downloads the model automatically - Creates your config file That's it. You're ready to chat. You do not need two computers or phones to verify that Conversation Stenography works. After setup, start a local two-person simulation: ./conversation-stenography simulate Enter your shared secret phrase when prompted. The terminal starts as Alice: Alice Meet me outside at six. Generating and transporting cover text... Cover text what the messaging app would see : <innocent-looking generated message Bob decoded: Meet me outside at six. Bob That works for me. Each turn uses two independent protocol participants. One generates the cover text and the other decodes it, then the prompt automatically switches users. This exercises the same encryption, model encoding, decoding, and conversation chain used between separate devices. Simulation commands: | Command | What it does | |---|---| /switch | Switch the active user without sending | /show | Show the simulated plaintext conversation | /help | Show simulation help | /quit | Exit; simulation state is not saved | Names and the test conversation can be customized: ./conversation-stenography simulate -user-a Alex -user-b Samir -conversation test-chat ./conversation-stenography The tool prompts you for a conversation name and your name, then drops you into the chat: ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 🔒 Secure Chat Active │ └─────────────────────────────────────┘ Conversation: coffee-plans You are: alex HOW TO USE: • Type a message and press Enter → generates cover text to copy • /paste SENDER → paste a message you received from someone • /help → see all commands • /quit → save and exit alex Just type your secret message: alex Hey, can we meet tomorrow at noon? ⏳ Generating cover text... ┌─── COPY THIS into your messaging app ───┐ I was thinking about trying that new place downtown. Have you been there before? I heard they have great pasta. └─── END — send as alex ───────────────────┘ Copy the cover text and paste it into WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal. When your friend sends you a response through the messaging app: alex /paste bob Paste the exact message received from bob below. Then type /end on a new line when done: Yeah the pasta place sounds great My friend went last week and said the carbonara was incredible. /end 📩 Message from bob: Sure, noon works See you there. Your secret message ↓ AES encryption ↓ AI model generates innocent text that encodes the encrypted bytes in its token choices ↓ Normal-looking chat text → WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal → Friend's Conversation Stenography ↓ ↓ AI model recovers Same process the encrypted bytes in reverse from token choices ↓ ↓ Your secret message AES decryption ↓ Original message Key security properties: AES-SIV encryption — military-grade authenticated encryption Conversation chain — every message is cryptographically linked to the previous one; tampering, deletion, or reordering is detected Local AI model — the model runs entirely on your device, nothing is sent to the cloud Shared secret phrase — derived using PBKDF2 with 600,000 rounds; never stored on disk Both people need the exact same configuration: - Meet in person and agree on:- A secret phrase 6+ random words, e.g. "purple elephant dances under crimson moonlight" - A conversation name e.g. "coffee-plans" - The same model e.g. both pick option 1 in the setup wizard - A - Each person runs: ./conversation-stenography Enter the same conversation name Enter your own name Enter the shared secret phrase when prompted - Exchange messages through any messaging app — just copy/paste the cover text. Important Both people must process messages in the exact same order they appear in the messaging app. If you miss a message, use /paste to process it before sending your next reply. | Command | What it does | |---|---| ./conversation-stenography | Start chatting or first-run setup | ./conversation-stenography setup | Re-run the setup wizard | ./conversation-stenography simulate | Test two independent users on one device | ./conversation-stenography conversations | List your saved conversations | ./conversation-stenography chat -conversation NAME -me NAME | Start with explicit flags | | Command | What it does | |---|---| just type | Send an encrypted message | /paste NAME | Decode a received message from NAME | /send | Multi-line message end with /end | /show | Show conversation history | /status | Show sync info useful for debugging | /help | List all commands | /quit | Save and exit | The setup wizard offers these models: | Model | Size | Runtime | Best for | |---|---|---|---| Llama 3.2 3B 4-bit | ~2 GB | MLX | Apple Silicon Macs recommended | Llama 3.2 1B 4-bit | ~1 GB | MLX | Apple Silicon lightweight | Llama 3.1 8B 4-bit | ~5 GB | MLX | Apple Silicon best quality | GPT-2 | ~500 MB | Transformers | Any system | GPT-2 Medium | ~1.5 GB | Transformers | Any system better quality | Go 1.22+ to build Python 3.9+ The setup wizard creates an isolated virtual environment when necessary and installs mlx-lm Apple Silicon or torch + transformers other systems , plus huggingface-hub . You do not need to install the hf command separately. For automation and scripting: | Variable | Purpose | |---|---| CONVERSATION STENOGRAPHY SECRET | Shared phrase alternative to interactive prompt | CONVERSATION STENOGRAPHY KEY | Base64 key legacy, prefer CONVERSATION STENOGRAPHY SECRET | CONVERSATION STENOGRAPHY CONFIG | Path to config file default: conversation-stenography.local.json | CONVERSATION STENOGRAPHY MODEL | Override model path | CONVERSATION STENOGRAPHY PYTHON | Override Python path | CONVERSATION STENOGRAPHY RUNTIME | Override runtime mlx or transformers | Existing installations can continue using decalgo.local.json , ~/.decalgo/conversations , and DECALGO variables while migrating. New files and documentation use the Conversation Stenography names. For shell automation e.g. bots, CI, automated relays : export CONVERSATION STENOGRAPHY SECRET='purple elephant dances under crimson moonlight' ./conversation-stenography chat -conversation coffee-plans -me alex For programmatic multi-party message exchange: export CONVERSATION STENOGRAPHY KEY="$ openssl rand -base64 32 " Bob sends printf 'hi alex' | ./conversation-stenography chain-send \ -conversation friends -state bob.state -from bob record-1.json Alex receives ./conversation-stenography chain-receive \ -conversation friends -state alex.state < record-1.json Messages must be copied exactly. No autocorrect, no formatting, no smart quotes. Copy and paste the cover text byte-for-byte. Process messages in order. Both people must paste received messages in the exact order they appear in the messaging app. Same model required. Both people must use the same AI model, same version, same settings. The setup wizard handles this. The secret phrase is never stored. You'll need to re-enter it each time you start Conversation Stenography or set CONVERSATION STENOGRAPHY SECRET . - Messages are encrypted with AES-SIV Synthetic Initialization Vector , which provides both confidentiality and integrity. - Every message is chained — each carrier authenticates the sender, conversation ID, message index, and the hash of all previous messages. - The shared phrase is stretched with PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA-256 600,000 iterations . - The AI model runs 100% locally . No API calls, no cloud, no telemetry. - Conversation state is encrypted at rest with AES-GCM. git clone https://github.com/nethical6/conversation-stenography.git cd conversation-stenography go build -o conversation-stenography ./cmd/conversation-stenography go test ./... See LICENSE /nethical6/conversation-steganography/blob/main/LICENSE for details.