A Picture's Worth

A Picture's Worth is complex utility based on Creator and Packer. This program encrypts data files and hides them with in the code for a virtual reality, e.g. the scrambled text of a black ops file could be hidden in the code of a virtual desk in a data fortress. Retrieving the code without a program will involve going through the programming code of the virtual object line by line and extracting all the extra data that's not part of the image. Once removed, the data must be unscrambled, which is a chore in itself. One full file of information (1 MU) can be encrypted inside of every two MU used for the virtual image. Thus 64 MU of data could be secreted in a photo-realistic virtual city. The main drawback is that the virtual reality's memory size will unavoidably swell however many MU's are put it in, and an observant netrunner/sysop will undoubtedly notice the excess size of the file.

Note: the data itself is not in the image, it is in the Memory Unit where the image data is stored, and the runner must examine the file to get the data. He cannot simply examine the image itself.

Source

• Chromebook Volume 4, pg.52