Until now hiding methods in network steganography have been described in arbitrary ways, making them difficult to compare. For instance, some publications describe classical channel characteristics, such as robustness and bandwidth, while others describe the embedding of hidden information. We introduce the first unified description of hiding methods in network steganography. Our description method is based on a comprehensive analysis of the existing publications in the domain. When our description method is applied by the research community, future publications will be easier to categorize, compare and extend. Our method can also serve as a basis to evaluate the novelty of hiding methods proposed in the future.

information hiding, steganography, covert channels, design patterns, scientific methodology, scientific pratice, network security