Abstract — Steganography is the art and science of hiding information. This paper introduces e- Forensics as a novel technique for extracting secret information electronically encoded in most creative ways. We propose an e-Forensics system capable to detect (or extract) secret information using any generic steganalytic algorithm. The system is based on agent computing approach where the autonomic agent would traverse across several websites and detect any steganographic communication. If any such activity is detected it would report back to the concerned authority. Conceptual overview of the system, as well its design layout is presented. An illustrative example clarifies system’s functionality and performance. Keywords—Autonomic Agent, Steganography, Secret Information Hiding, Data Embedding, Stego-key, Data Extraction. 1. Introduction Forensics is the investigative activity relating to the application of systematized knowledge resulting from observation, study, and experimentation carried on in order to determine evidentiary value of items [31]. According to Walter (1999), the word forensics is derived from the Latin forensis, which means belonging to the forum, where law courts were held in Rome. As stated by Healy (2004) [32] e-Forensics is “the application of the information sciences to proprietary electronic devices such as cellular phones”. McKemmish (1999) [33] further states that e- Forensics is the “process of identifying, preserving, analyzing and presenting electronic evidence in a manner that is legally acceptable”. In our opinion e-Forensics has the express purpose of identifying, preserving, analyzing hidden, encrypted, deleted and destroyed (electronic) information. To protect secrecy, anti- social organizations continuously discover new and better cover mediums as well as design and develop robust algorithms. Steganography which is also known as ‘covered writing’ includes methods of transmitting secret messages through innocuous cover mediums in such a manner that the existence of the embedded messages is undetectable. Using steganographic techniques we can hide secret information in digital image files, digital audio and video files, or any other digital media which has some redundant bits that can be replaced to hide secret data. Pre-computing steganography has a long history but digital steganography as a research field is avante garde. We focus on the use of steganography to achieve the goal of disguising the existence of secret communication and steganalysis to recover secret communication. If the existence of communication is deciphered then this goal is Vidyasagar M. Potdar 1 , Muhammad A.Khan 1 , Elizabeth Chang 1 Mihaela Ulieru 2 and Paul R. Worthington 2 1 School of Information Systems, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia, 2 Emergent Information Systems Laboratory, The University of Calgary, CANADA e-mail: PotdarV, KhanM, ChangE@cbs.curtin.edu.au E-Forensics Steganography System for Secret Information Retrieval