Design and Implementation of a Software Application for Secure Web-Based Communication for People with Speech Disorders

All people need to communicate with their families, friends, neighbours, and physicians through various communication means. However, there are common barriers to communication needs of mute or/and deaf people, most importantly in terms of the declining sensory and physical abilities. On the other hand, technological advances have led to the development of a variety of new tools and technologies through various communication medium including the Internet for assistive and augmentative communication for individuals with disabilities. Although communication through the Internet seems highly attractive, it poses privacy and security issues. In this paper a web-based secure message transfer application is proposed to address privacy related information security threats directed to software-based communication of mute and deaf people. The proposed application is practical and easy-to-implement, and is based on the integration of cryptology and steganography. With its easy-to-use graphical user interface suitable for different devices, it can easily be used by its potential users for ensuring the privacy and security of their message transfers. The main limitation of the proposed application is that the application requires a public web server and hence may be vulnerable against attacks directed to web servers if required precautions are not taken.