IMAGE SHREDDER TOOL

NUR MUNIRAH BINTI ZAHARI

BACHELOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE (COMPUTER

NETWORK SECURITY) WITH HONOURS

UNIVERSITI SULTAN ZAINAL ABIDIN

2021

IMAGE SHREDDER TOOL

NUR MUNIRAH BINTI ZAHARI

BACHELOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE (COMPUTER

NETWORK SECURITY) WITH HONOURS

Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin

2021

i

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this report is based on my original work except for quotations and

citations, which have been duly acknowledged. I also declare that this work has not

been previously or concurrently submitted for any other degree at Universiti Sultan

Zainal Abidin or other institutions.

___________________________

Name: Nur Munirah Binti Zahari

Date:

ii

CONFIRMATION

This is to confirm that:

The research conducted and the writing of this report was under my supervision.

__________________________________

Name: Dr. Muhammad Danial bin Zakaria

Date:

iii

DEDICATION

Alhamdulillah, first and foremost, I am particularly grateful to Allah S.W.T., for giving

me blessing, strength, chance, and endurance to complete this project. Secondly, I

would like to express my love and gratefulness to my family especially my parents, and

siblings for always giving me unstoppable motivation, love, and support in financially,

morally, and spiritually.

Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge and express my sincere gratitude to my

beloved supervisor Dr Muhammad Danial bin Zakaria, who had monitored the project’s

throughout the whole progress. His constructive comments, advice, and suggestions had

guided my project towards its success.

Last but not least, I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to all my friends who

contributed a lot and assisted me in completing this final year project with flying

colours.

Once again, thank you.

iv

ABSTRACT

An image shredder is a tool designed to overwrite image file metadata so that the image

file will be permanently shredded image just as a conventional shredder makes a

physical piece of paper unreadable. In most operating systems, when a user deletes a

file, it still exists on the hard drive but is made inaccessible through normal means.

What is actually deleted is the operating system’s pointer to the file, so it is invisible to

the user but still exists in storage. The storage space for the file is considered available

and that may cause the data to be overwritten, although it is not possible to know that it

has been. In some company, ensuring that the sensitive information in deleted files

cannot be recovered is essential to information security, compliance, and data

governance. Unfortunately, it is possible to recover the original data unless overwriting

has taken place hundreds of times. Deleted files can be recovered through readily

available freeware programs such as Recuva and Puran File Recovery as well as

professional software such as EnCase which data recovery and law enforcement

commonly use. Image shredders are similar to hard drive overwrites except that they

work with individual image files, rather than effectively obliterating the entire drive.

The programs overwrite the content in an image file multiple times with zeroes, ones,

and random bits to ensure that the data is unrecoverable other than through more

complicated efforts. In realizing this solution, write zero data sanitization method and

shredding technique will be used to overwrite data on a storage device to prevent all

software based file recovery methods from recovering information from the drive.

v

ABSTRAK

Penghancur gambar (Image Shredder), adalah program yang direka untuk menulis

semula metadata fail gambar sehingga fail gambar dihancurkan secara kekal sama

seperti penghancur konvensional menjadikan sehelai kertas fizikal tidak dapat

digunakan. Dalam kebanyakan sistem operasi, apabila pengguna memadam fail, fail

tersebut masih ada di dalam simpanan cakera keras tetapi tidak dapat diakses melalui

cara biasa. Yang benar-benar dihapus adalah penunjuk sistem operasi ke fail, jadi tidak

dapat dilihat oleh pengguna tetapi masih ada dalam simpanan. Ruang penyimpanan

untuk fail dianggap tersedia dan itu dapat menyebabkan data ditulis semula, walaupun

tidak mustahil fail itu telah dirosakkan. Dalam perusahaan, memastikan bahawa

maklumat sensitif dalam fail yang dihapus tidak dapat dipulihkan adalah penting untuk

keselamatan maklumat, pematuhan dan tata kelola data. Malangnya, fail itu mungkin

dapat dipulihkan kecuali proses menulis semula dilakukan berkali-kali. Fail yang

dipadam dapat dipulihkan melalui program perisian percuma yang tersedia seperti

Recuva dan Puran File Recovery serta perisian profesional seperti EnCase yang

digunakan oleh pakar pemulihan data dan pegawai penguatkuasa undang-undang.

Namun begitu, penghancur gambar (image shredder) serupa dengan penulis simpanan

cakera keras tetapi hanya boleh digunakan dengan fail gambar individu, dan bukannya

menghilangkan keseluruhan pemacu secara sekaligus. Program melakukan proses

menulis semula kandungan dalam fail gambar berkali-kali dengan angka sifar, bit dan

simbol rawak untuk memastikan bahawa data tidak dapat dipulihkan. Dalam

merealisasikan penyelesaian ini, tulis kaedah pembersihan data sifar dan teknik

mencincang akan digunakan untuk menulis semula data pada peranti penyimpanan

seperti cakera keras untuk mengelakkan semua kaedah pemulihan fail berasaskan

perisian daripada mengangkat maklumat dari pemacu.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

DECLARATION ........................................................................................................... i

CONFIRMATION ....................................................................................................... ii

DEDICATION ............................................................................................................. iii

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. iv

ABSTRAK ...................................................................................................................... v

TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................... vi

LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... viii

LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................... ix

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS/ TERMS/ SYMBOLS ............................................... x

LIST OF APPENDENCIES ....................................................................................... xi

CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................. 1

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1

1.1 PROJECT BACKGROUND ........................................................................ 1

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT ........................................................................... 3

1.3 OBJECTIVE .................................................................................................. 4

1.4 SCOPE ............................................................................................................ 4

1.5 LIMITATION OF WORK ........................................................................... 5

1.6 EXPECTED RESULT .................................................................................. 5

1.7 SUMMARY .................................................................................................... 6

CHAPTER 2 ................................................................................................................. 7

LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................... 7

2.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 7

2.2 DATA SANITIZATION ............................................................................... 7

2.3 IMPORTANCE OF IMAGE SHREDDING .............................................. 8

2.4 PREVIOUS RESEARCH ............................................................................. 9

2.5 COMPARISON BETWEEN EXISTING SOFTWARE PROGRAM ... 11

2.6 TECHNIQUE USED TO DISTORT AN IMAGE MEDIA .................... 12

2.6.1 Steganography ...................................................................................... 12

2.6.2 Write Zero ............................................................................................ 13

2.6.3 DoD 5220.22-M ..................................................................................... 14

2.6.4 Gutmann method ................................................................................. 15

vii

2.7 LIST CASES OF IMAGE THEFT ............................................................ 16

2.8 SUMMARY .................................................................................................. 21

CHAPTER 3 ............................................................................................................... 22

METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................... 22

3.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 22

3.2 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE (SDLC) ........................ 23

3.2.1 Phase 1: Planning ................................................................................. 23

3.2.2 Phase 2: Analyzing Information ......................................................... 24

3.2.3 Phase 3: Design ..................................................................................... 24

3.2.4 Phase 4: Implementation ..................................................................... 24

3.3 LOGICAL MODEL .................................................................................... 25

3.3.1 Framework ........................................................................................... 25

3.4 FLOWCHART ............................................................................................ 27

3.5 USE CASE DIAGRAM .............................................................................. 28

3.6 SYSTEM REQUIREMENT ....................................................................... 29

3.6.1 Software Requirement ......................................................................... 29

3.6.2 Hardware Requirement ....................................................................... 30

3.7 PROOF OF CONCEPT (POC) .................................................................. 31

3.8 SUMMARY .................................................................................................. 32

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................... 33

viii

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE TITLE PAGE

Table 2.4.1: Previous Research ...................................................................................... 9

Table 2.5.1: A comparison between existing software program.................................. 11

Table 2.7.1: List Cases of Image Theft ........................................................................ 16

Table 3.6.1: Software Requirement ............................................................................. 29

Table 3.6.2: Hardware Requirement ............................................................................ 30

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE TITLE PAGE

Figure 3.2.1: The proposed project methodology ........................................................ 23

Figure 3.3.1: The image shredder tool framework ...................................................... 25

Figure 3.4.1: The flowchart for image shredder tool ................................................... 27

Figure 3.5.1: The use case diagram for image shredder .............................................. 28

Figure 3.7.1: The Image Shredder Tool interface ........................................................ 32

x

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS/ TERMS/ SYMBOLS

JPEG Joint Photographic Expert Group

PNG Portable Graphics Formats

BMP Bitmap

Etc. Et Cetera

DFT Discrete Fourier Transform

DCT Discrete Cosine Transform

DWT Discrete Wavelet Transform

LSB Least Significant Bit substitution

SDLC Software Development Life Cycle

UML Unified Modeling Language

POC Proof Of Concept

xi

LIST OF APPENDENCIES

APPENDIX TITLE PAGE

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 PROJECT BACKGROUND

As vivid as it is, we are in the 21st century where technology has evolved

massively from the post-industrial era to today post-globalization [3]. Gadgets like

smartphones, tablets, and laptop is a must have gadget and considered as one of the

necessities for work, snap a picture and share to social media about life and to

communicate with each other whether you are from rural or urban areas. Therefore, the

potential of hackers to steal someone’s images becomes easier especially when they

hacked into a victim’s social platform or computer and steal their photo to blackmail

them.

Each file in computer contains some basic information about the file metadata.

Metadata is the data that is provides information about other data. There are many types

of metadata exist which may include the title, author, types, size, versions and etc.. It

will make the operating system understands how to work with the file or image in

computer. Furthermore, everyone can easily gather information from the metadata of

the file. The information can be used by operating system as well as other programs [2].

2

In order to prevent unauthorized person from stealing the image that has been

deleted, a tool that damage an image media is needed as it is important to ensure the

image is permanently shred. Image media distortion is a process in which the media is

damaged, so that it could not be recovered anymore [4]. The tool distorts the image by

overwriting the metadata header. Even with a single data is overwritten, the image will

be damaged.

3

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT

In this digital era, users in cyberspace did not aware about the danger of image

theft. If personal photos got stolen, the theft can do horrible things such as blackmailing

or for sexual desire.

When an image media is deleted in a device such as a laptop or a computer, even

deleted in Recycle Bin, it still can be recovered by someone who has advanced computer

knowledge and skill [8]. It is because it just marks that file space as being empty and

not permanently delete the file. Thus, the other file can take its place. Therefore, it

would be easy to recover the file or image [10].

Thus, a tool that can make the image cannot be used is very important to be

developed. This is because there are numerous risks that people might face if a personal

photo is leaked to the wrong hand. Even it can be recovered after it was deleted in

Recycle Bin, the image still cannot be view permanently because it already has been

shredded.

4

1.3 OBJECTIVE

i. To identify a suitable method to shred an image.

ii. To develop an image shredder tool by permanently shredded the image for

security reasons.

iii. To analyze the performance of the Write Zero method for the image shredder

tool.

1.4 SCOPE

This proposed project is to shred any images from being recovered by an

unauthorized person. This consists of medium users, which is the person who wants to

shred their image permanently in a reliable way. For the system scope, the tool is only

for image media. Moreover, it also can be used for various types of image media files

such as .jpeg, .png, .bmp, etc.. Furthermore, security acts as an important role that will

make the image permanently cannot be seen by any third parties.

5

1.5 LIMITATION OF WORK

In order to implement this project, a few constraints have been identified:

i. Only one image can be shred at one time.

ii. Image that has been shredded does not reload automatically.

1.6 EXPECTED RESULT

The expected results of this project are as follows:

i. Successful develop by using SharpDevelop.

ii. Image can be shred successfully.

iii. The image that has been shred cannot be view permanently.

6

1.7 SUMMARY

This chapter describes a few topics that should be included in the introduction of

the project such as project background, problem statements, objectives, the scope of the

project, limitation of work, and expected result. The purpose of this project is to

overcome the problem that occurs in our daily life. Thus, it helps to organize better

documentation of the project.

7

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides an overview on what is image distortion. The next section

discusses about the importance of image shredding, previous research, comparison

between existing software programs, and followed by a discussion on the technique

used to protect an image and their weaknesses. Lastly, it will discuss about the list cases

of image theft.

2.2 DATA SANITIZATION

According to Tim Fisher (2019), data sanitization technique is the common way

that a data destruction program or file shredder overwrites data on a hard drive or other

storage devices. Data sanitization methods are also referred to as methods used for data

erasure, methods of data wipe, wipe algorithms, and data wipe standards. Most of the

data destruction programs support numerous data sanitization methods [6].

8

2.3 IMPORTANCE OF IMAGE SHREDDING

In this digital era, users in cyberspace are lack of awareness about image security

(Madhu et al., 2016). Nowadays, various people utilize distinctive applications to image

data transfer [1]. Most people used their own images for various kinds of social media

platforms, such as on Instagram and Facebook. Hackers might attack on these social

media or victim’s computer by copying their victim’s image, then, hackers can extract

some important information such as an address, phone number, etc.. For better usage of

these applications, the protection against the hacking attacks on those webs are

available, and there are existing distinctive data security framework for multimedia

data. The existing security frameworks are either using encryption or steganography, or

both. The image security is necessary, so there is a diverse securable image encryption

that can be especially protect against unauthorized access. The commonly used security

mechanisms are Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT),

Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), etc.. The transfer of the image over the unsecured

network will pose the following attacks such as active and passive attacks. An active

attack may cause a few data stream modification or false data stream creation. While

passive attacks will use the data but may not affect the system resources.

As quoted by lifewire.com, the regular delete operation in the average operating

system simply isn't sufficient for securely erasing files, since it just marks that file space

as being empty, so that another file can take its place. No file recovery program would

have a problem resurrecting the file [10].

9

2.4 PREVIOUS RESEARCH

Table 2.4.1: Previous Research

Author Title Description Method/ Algorithm

Farah, Hidayah,

Kamarudin

(2018)

E-Raser: File

Shredder

Application with

Content

Replacement By

Using Random

Words Function

Generate random data

for overwriting and add

on a new method which

is replacing the original

content of the file with

new content.

Gutmann,

DoD 5220.22-M,

Etc.

Nan, Jiwu, Peng

(2011)

Cloud Shredder:

Removing the

Laptop On-Road

Data Disclosure

Threat in the

Cloud

Computing Era

Remove the threat from

the evolving state of

ubiquitous internet

connectivity and cloud

computing.

XOR-method,

Ratio method

Fawzi, Siddeeq,

Asaad

(2006)

Destroying

Steganography

Content in Image

Files

Information is removed

partially or completely,

depending on the type

of embedding and

information contained

in the cover image.

Least Significant Bit

substitution (LSB),

Threshold-Based

Correlation,

Etc.

10

According to (Farah et al., 2018), data shredding is a process of irreversible data

destruction, while the file shredder is a software designed to turn computer-based files

unreadable by applying overwriting methods to permanently erase data in the contents

of a file. After the rewrite phase is done, the shredding process takes place to make the

file unrecoverable [5].

According to (Zhang et al., 2011), cloud shredder is a generic and transparent

security service that allows legitimate users access the files in exactly the same way as

they do with commodity file systems, while the attackers only get the useless junk even

though they have obtained every byte on the hard drive [15].

According to (Naima et al., 2006), computer simulations were applied to some

stego image files using a wavelet-based denoising algorithm. By applying wavelet

denoising, it will destroy the stego information as it becomes noise added to the original

picture [13].

11

2.5 COMPARISON BETWEEN EXISTING SOFTWARE PROGRAM

Table 2.5.1: A comparison between existing software program

Software Programs Method/Technique Advantages Disadvantages

Remo File Eraser

DoD 5220.22-M

Random Data

Etc.

Easy to use

Can remove multiple

files and folders at

once

Only can choose 3

from the free version

Can’t create more

than one schedule

BitKiller

DoD 5220.22-M

Gutmann

Random Data

Etc.

Super simple

portable file shredder

Supports specific

files

Unable to click

cancel whenever

start

Hardwipe

DoD 5220.22-M

Gutmann

Random Data

Support a variety of

data sanitization

methods

Difficult to use

Can only shred one

folder at a time

Eraser

DoD 5220.22-M

Gutmann

Supports any drive

that works with

Windows

Allow user to specify

file target

Need to pay for

premium to get the

best option

12

2.6 TECHNIQUE USED TO DISTORT AN IMAGE MEDIA

These methods that listed here are more to sanitize file or hard disk but still can

be implemented in image distortion tools. There are many more methods out here, but

these are the ones most likely to be used by most data shredding program available on

the internet. The method mention below is useful but there is still some weakness need

to be addressed.

2.6.1 Steganography

Steganography is the method of covering up the fact that communication

occurs by hiding information in other information. There are a lot of different

carrier data formats that can be used, but digital images are the most famous

because of their frequency on the Internet. To hide secret information in images,

there are a large variety of steganography techniques available to conceal hidden

details in images, which are more complicated than others and all have their

respective strength and weak points. Different applications have different

requirements for the steganography technique used (Morkel et al., 2006) [11].

Although the Steganography technique can distort an image media and can be

used for this project, there are still some problems regarding the technique. Even

this technique distorts an image by completely changing the image, the main

structure of the original image is still there. Plus, this technique is more complex to

be implemented than the shredding method [12].

13

2.6.2 Write Zero

Write Zero Data Sanitization Method does not prohibit the most advanced

hardware-based recovery methods from extracting at least some of the deleted data,

but it is possible that all software-based file recovery techniques will be prevented

from retrieving data from the drive (Fisher, 2016) [7].

The Write Zero data sanitization method is implemented throughout the

process in the following way:

Pass 1: Writes a Zero

Write Zero only use one character to overwrite data in the disk. It is enough to

sanitize the file in a disk but not really efficient because if only a single write pass

is done, and the software does not verify that every piece of data has been erased,

then the method is not going to be as effective as methods that do [7].

As quoted in an article titled What Is the Write Zero Method? by lifewire.com,

if you use Write Zero on one drive and it verifies that all the data has been

overwritten, then you can be confident that the information is less likely to be

recovered than if the same data were overwritten with the Random Data method

but did not verify that each sector was replaced with random characters [7].

14

2.6.3 DoD 5220.22-M

The DoD 5220.22-M is a software-data sanitization method utilized in various

file shredder and data destruction programs to overwrite current data on a hard drive

or other storage devices (Fisher,2016) [9].

The DoD 5220.22-M data sanitization method is typically implemented in the

following way:

Pass 1: Writes zero and verifies the write.

Pass 2: Writes one and verifies the write.

Pass 3: Writes a random character and then verifies the write.

DoD 5220.22-M is an efficient way to sanitize data but there is too much phase

in overwriting data. This method might take some time to finish the process for a

single file if the file size is big [9].

As quoted by lifewire.com in an article titled DoD 5220.22-M Data Wipe

Method [US DOD Wipe Standard], if you have a really large hard drive, Write Zero

will take much less time to finish than DoD 5220.22-M, which can be much quicker

than one like Gutmann which could run through over 30 passes [9].

15

2.6.4 Gutmann method

In 1996, Peter Gutmann developed The Gutmann method. It is one of the

sanitization methods to shred files and destruct datas. This method also overwrites

the existing data on a hard disk or any other storage device (Fisher, 2016) [10].

The Gutmann data sanitization method is often implemented in the following way:

Pass 1-35: Writes a random character. But then uses a complex pattern of

overwriting from Pass 5 to 31.

Gutmann method was developed in the late 1900s which made this method

would not be compatible with the latest hard drives or in other words as this method

is outdated [10].

As quoted by lifewire.com, the hard drives that was used at that time use

different encoding methods than the one that we use today, so most of the passes

the Gutmann method performs are completely useless for modern hard drives. This

method has been acknowledged by Gutmann himself to be overkill on modern

drives since hard drive technology has changed too much since it was originally

developed [10].

16

2.7 LIST CASES OF IMAGE THEFT

Table 2.7.1: List Cases of Image Theft

HEADLINE DATE DESCRIPTION BREACHING METHOD LINKS

NBN tradie caught

stealing naked photos

from clients phones

January 15,

2018

A Sydney technician who stole

pornographic images from

several women's phones while

linking their homes to the NBN

has been spared time behind

bars. He 25-year-old sent

himself more than 80 images -

some naked, some topless, and

others with lingerie - and a

video of a sexual act from four

women's phones while working

as an NBN subcontractor in

2017.

Stole pornographic images from

several women's phones when

linking their homes to the NBN.

The technician is stealing

intimate images from several

women’s phones when linking

their homes to the NBN network.

https://www.smh.com.au/

national/nsw/nbn-tradie-

caught-stealing-naked-

photos-from-clients-

phones-20180115-

h0iht3.html

17

Cable Guy Accused of

Stealing Woman's

Photos During Work

Detail

July 27,

2018

A man identified by the

authorities as a cable TV

technician is facing 10 counts of

having committed a computer

crime for allegedly finding and

sending images to a woman

while working in depth. Obed

Siawor, 27, from East Hartford,

was also convicted with second-

degree robbery, according to

court documents.

The offender sneaking into the

victim’s computer, getting past

the victim’s password, and opens

a file containing images of the

victim, some partially revealing.

https://patch.com/connect

icut/manchester/cable-

guy-accused-stealing-

womans-photos-during-

work-detail

Two men jailed for

hacking girls’ iCloud

accounts, stealing

nude pictures

August 8,

2018

‘More than 30,000 photos and

videos are categorised by name

and town, with links to the

victims’ social media accounts,’

RTL said at the time. ‘In a

The hackers hacking victims’

websites and stealing photos and

videos. The offender also

blackmails their victims.

https://www.dutchnews.n

l/news/2018/08/two-

men-jailed-for-hacking-

girls-icloud-accounts-

stealing-nude-pics/

18

chatroom, naked photos of

women that are called “wins”

by the boys are named and

exchanged like a huge

collection of Pokémon cards.

On request, girls are hacked to

steal explicit photos and

videos.’ The two men sentenced

on Wednesday, 32 years old

Djuri V from Culemborg and

36-year-old Gary de V from

Groningen had hacked

hundreds of iCloud accounts by

guessing passwords and finding

out answers to security

questions, the court was told.

19

Yahoo worker hacked

user accounts to steal

photos of ‘younger

woman’

October 1,

2019

A former Yahoo software

engineer on Monday pleaded

guilty to hacking the accounts

of thousands of Yahoo users in

search of pornographic photos

and video recordings of young

women and co-workers, the

federal authorities said. Reyes

Daniel Ruiz, 34, of Tracy,

California, lodged a data

hacking complaint for using his

job to hack the passwords about

6,000 Yahoo accounts, mainly

younger women, according to

the U.S. Attorney’s office in the

Northern District of California.

Hacking into the account

thousands of Yahoo! users.

https://nypost`.com/2019/

10/01/former-yahoo-

worker-hacked-user-

accounts-to-steal-sexual-

photos/

20

Ruiz, who also threatened his

friends and colleagues, made

backups of personal photos and

videos, then saved the content

on his home computer.

21

2.8 SUMMARY

This chapter describes a few topics that should be included in the literature review

of the project such as introduction, what is image shredding, importance of image

shredding, previous research, comparison between existing software program,

technique used to distort an image media, and list of cases. The existing techniques or

approach that has been used by other researcher to perform the shredder project has

been analyzed. Besides that, ideas from the previous research can used to support the

proposed approach.

22

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

3.1 INTRODUCTION

The methodology is a set of activities that are carried out on the basis of specific

principles, rules, disciplines, or procedures to complete the project. This is an important

phase in project development. The approach used to organise, schedule and monitor the

process of creating an information system is used in the implementation of projects.

There are various model methodologies that can be used in developing the system or

project such as framework, use-case diagram, and flowchart as a logical model. Each

model has its own advantages and disadvantages. So, in the development methodology

of this project, it discusses the approach used to design the tools, including the

development stages, the reason for the choice of methodology, and system requirements

in terms of software and hardware. The approach must be chosen wisely so that it can

help in the development of the project. It is an important step of development since it

will guide other researchers through the project development. By implementing the

methodology, it can ensure an exact process and increases the probability of achieving

the desirable final product.

23

Figure 3.2.1: The proposed project methodology

3.2 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE (SDLC)

The figure below shows the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) model

that has been chosen to develop the project. There are four phases in this methodology

to meet the project objectives and requirements. The proposed project method should

be the guideline to ensure the project are successful. Figure 3.2.1 shows the proposed

method for this project proposal.

3.2.1 Phase 1: Planning

The planning phase is the first phase in this method that needs to be identified

in terms of knowledge related to computer science. In this phase, determining the

problem statement of this project will discover the solution to overcome those

problems. Furthermore, discussing a suitable title and writing down all the

descriptions and new ideas about the project with the supervisor. After the

discussion, a suitable project and title finally has been decided. Image Shredder

Tool has become the suitable project that will cover all the problem statement that

are related.

PlanningAnalyzing

InformationDesign Implementation

24

3.2.2 Phase 2: Analyzing Information

In this phase, related data and information is gathered from multiple sources

such as research paper, article, and etc.. Moreover, objectives and scope is decided

based on the problem statement mention earlier. Based on the information gathered

in the Literature Review, and the suitable method is chosen.

3.2.3 Phase 3: Design

The information gained during the previous stage is analyzed and an effective

implementation is formulated. Designing phase is a phase where the process of

planning and problem solving through software solution. In this phase, the image

shredder is divided into a flowchart, use case diagram, and interface of the image

shredder tool.

3.2.4 Phase 4: Implementation

After the design phase is done, then the implementation phase will be carried

out. The implementation phase will mainly involve in coding. In this project,

SharpDevelop software is used to write down all the code in C#. This software will

carry out the result of shredding images by implementing the write zero methods.

25

3.3 LOGICAL MODEL

Usually, this logical model will be used in the planning, analysis, and design

phases. The logical model is also illustrated in image-based to represent somethings

from input and output. The process of shredding images will help the user to analyze

the performance and effectiveness of the Write Zero method.

3.3.1 Framework

FAILED

PASS

Browse

and select

image

Click start

shredding

to sanitize

the image

Overwrite the

image by using

Write Zero method

Reset

Image

Image

corrupted

Process

failed

USER

Figure 3.3.1: The image shredder tool framework

26

A framework is often a layered structure showing what kind of programme it

should construct and how it will interrelate. It may be a set of functions within a system

and they interrelate with each other, and much more. A framework is generally more

comprehensive than a protocol and more prescriptive than structure [14].

Based on figure 3.3.1, the flow of image shredding by overwrite the metadata

header in the image. It illustrates how the tool works by implementing the Write Zero

method to shred an image permanently. First and foremost, the user needs to click on

the browse button to view their image in the user folder and select or choose the image

that wants to be shredded by the user.

Furthermore, the user can view the image that has been chosen in the picture box.

If the image that has been chosen is wrong, then the user can click on the reset button

and pick another image by browsing through the folder again. When the user chooses

the right picture, then the user can click on the start shred button to shred their image.

After clicking on the start shred button, it will automatically overwrite the image

metadata by using the Write Zero method. Lastly, after the image has been overwrite

the metadata, the user can view the image has been corrupted at the image file location.

If the image are successful shred, then the image are permanently shredded, but if the

image are not successful, then the process is failed.

27

NO

YES

YES NO

YES

NO

Figure 3.4.1: The flowchart for image shredder tool

3.4 FLOWCHART

START

Browse and select the

image that want to be

shredded

Image corrupted

END

Do you want

to Reset?

Did it

work?

Process failed

Do you want

to proceed?

Start shredding

Click start

shredding

28

Figure 3.5.1: The use case diagram for image shredder

General User

Image Shredder Tool

3.5 USE CASE DIAGRAM

A use case diagram is a dynamic or behaviour diagram in Unified Modeling

Language (UML). Use case diagrams model the function of the software using the

actors and use cases. Use cases is a set of actions, services, and functions that the system

requires to execute. Use case diagram consists of four components includes boundary,

the actor, the use cases, and the relationship between actor and use case. Use case

diagrams are used to compile system requirements, both internal and external factors.

This specification are often requirements for design. Thus, when a system is examined

to collect its functionalities, use cases are prepared for use and actors are identified.

Browse image

Select image

Start shred

Reset image

29

3.6 SYSTEM REQUIREMENT

This section will show the list all software and hardware that involve in the

development process.

3.6.1 Software Requirement

Software requirement for this project are:

Table 3.6.1: Software Requirement

SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION

SharpDevelop 5.1 To write the coding

To develop the Image Shredder

Tool

To run the coding

Google chrome To search the article

To search about the project

Microsoft Word 2016 To write the report

Email To email supervisor the project

progress report

30

3.6.2 Hardware Requirement

Hardware requirement for this project are:

Table 3.6.2: Hardware Requirement

HARDWARE DESCRIPTION

Laptop AMD A10

RAM: 4GB

OS: Windows 10

Use to develop the project

Hard disk To back up the data of the project

Pendrive To back up the data of the project

31

3.7 PROOF OF CONCEPT (POC)

The figure 3.7.1 below show the interface of image shredder tool. It consists of

three button which are browse image, start shredding and reset button. Whenever user

click on the browse image, user can view the image that user wants to select. The user

can choose the image media in all folder. After the user choose an image, it will show

up in the picture box to make sure user are not selecting the wrong image. Moreover,

user can see the location of the file that user select before on the textbox below the

picture box.

Furthermore, when user click on the start shredding button, the tools will notify

the users by popup the message box displaying whether the users want to proceed

shredding the image media or not. This function is made to make sure that users will

not accidentally shred the wrong image media.

Apart from that, users also will be given the reset button. It is because if user

accidentally selected the wrong image, they can see the image at the picture box. So, if

there is some mistake, user can just simply select on the reset button. Other than that,

user also can click on the reset button whenever the image had successful shredded by

the tool. When user click on the image after the image has been shredded, the picture

box will display nothing and user can pick another photo to shred the image again.

Last but not least, user will see the progress bar below the text box which display

the image location. Progress bar will run after the start shredding button confirmation

is click by the user. When the progress bar is full, user can manually go to the file

32

Figure 3.7.1: The Image Shredder Tool interface

location that has been selected by the user to see whether the image has been

successfully shredded.

3.8 SUMMARY

This chapter discuss the methodology is selected to implement the image shredder

tool. Methodology is very important in system and application development. There are

lots of different software development methodologies that are available and can be used

to develop any kind of application. All of the activities in each phase in methodology

are explained in detail. Every phase of the tool development is based on the project

methodology described before. Lastly, the details of software and hardware

specification also listed in this chapter.

33

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