New steerable pyramid steganography algorithm resistant to the Fisher Linear Discriminant steganalysis

This paper describes a new steganography algorithm based on a steerable pyramid transform of a digital image and the steganalysis of the existence of secret messages hidden by this new method. The data embedding process uses the elements of a Lee and Chen steganography algorithm which is adapted to the steerable pyramid transform domain. This article describes the Fisher Linear Disriminant (FLD) analysis and its steganalysis application, too. The main part of the paper is the description of the conducted research and the results of FLD steganalysis of stegoimages produced by the new steganography algorithm

A Spatial Domain Image Steganography Technique Based on Plane Bit Substitution Method

Steganography is the art and science of hiding information by embedding data into cover media. In this paper we propose a new method of information hiding in digital image in spatial domain. In this method we use Plane Bit Substitution Method (PBSM) technique in which message bits are embedded into the pixel value(s) of an image. We first, proposed a Steganography transformation machine (STM) for solving Binary operation for manipulation of original image with help to least significant bit (LSB) operator based matching. Second, we use pixel encryption and decryption techniques under theoretical and experimental evolution. Our experimental, techniques are sufficient to discriminate analysis of stego and cover image as each pixel based PBSM, and operand with LSB

Code wars: steganography, signals intelligence, and terrorism

This paper describes and discusses the process of secret communication known as steganography. The argument advanced here is that terrorists are unlikely to be employing digital steganography to facilitate secret intra-group communication as has been claimed. This is because terrorist use of digital steganography is both technically and operationally implausible. The position adopted in this paper is that terrorists are likely to employ low-tech steganography such as semagrams and null ciphers instead

Secure covert communications over streaming media using dynamic steganography

Streaming technologies such as VoIP are widely embedded into commercial and industrial applications, so it is imperative to address data security issues before the problems get really serious. This thesis describes a theoretical and experimental investigation of secure covert communications over streaming media using dynamic steganography. A covert VoIP communications system was developed in C++ to enable the implementation of the work being carried out. A new information theoretical model of secure covert communications over streaming media was constructed to depict the security scenarios in streaming media-based steganographic systems with passive attacks. The model involves a stochastic process that models an information source for covert VoIP communications and the theory of hypothesis testing that analyses the adversary‘s detection performance. The potential of hardware-based true random key generation and chaotic interval selection for innovative applications in covert VoIP communications was explored. Using the read time stamp counter of CPU as an entropy source was designed to generate true random numbers as secret keys for streaming media steganography. A novel interval selection algorithm was devised to choose randomly data embedding locations in VoIP streams using random sequences generated from achaotic process. A dynamic key updating and transmission based steganographic algorithm that includes a one-way cryptographical accumulator integrated into dynamic key exchange for covert VoIP communications, was devised to provide secure key exchange for covert communications over streaming media. The discrete logarithm problem in mathematics and steganalysis using t-test revealed the algorithm has the advantage of being the most solid method of key distribution over a public channel. The effectiveness of the new steganographic algorithm for covert communications over streaming media was examined by means of security analysis, steganalysis using non parameter Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon statistical testing, and performance and robustness measurements. The algorithm achieved the average data embedding rate of 800 bps, comparable to other related algorithms. The results indicated that the algorithm has no or little impact on real-time VoIP communications in terms of speech quality (< 5% change in PESQ with hidden data), signal distortion (6% change in SNR after steganography) and imperceptibility, and it is more secure and effective in addressing the security problems than other related algorithms

Information Analysis for Steganography and Steganalysis in 3D Polygonal Meshes

Information hiding, which embeds a watermark/message over a cover signal, has recently found extensive applications in, for example, copyright protection, content authentication and covert communication. It has been widely considered as an appealing technology to complement conventional cryptographic processes in the field of multimedia security by embedding information into the signal being protected. Generally, information hiding can be classified into two categories: steganography and watermarking. While steganography attempts to embed as much information as possible into a cover signal, watermarking tries to emphasize the robustness of the embedded information at the expense of embedding capacity. In contrast to information hiding, steganalysis aims at detecting whether a given medium has hidden message in it, and, if possible, recover that hidden message. It can be used to measure the security performance of information hiding techniques, meaning a steganalysis resistant steganographic/watermarking method should be imperceptible not only to Human Vision Systems (HVS), but also to intelligent analysis. As yet, 3D information hiding and steganalysis has received relatively less attention compared to image information hiding, despite the proliferation of 3D computer graphics models which are fairly promising information carriers. This thesis focuses on this relatively neglected research area and has the following primary objectives: 1) to investigate the trade-off between embedding capacity and distortion by considering the correlation between spatial and normal/curvature noise in triangle meshes; 2) to design satisfactory 3D steganographic algorithms, taking into account this trade-off; 3) to design robust 3D watermarking algorithms; 4) to propose a steganalysis framework for detecting the existence of the hidden information in 3D models and introduce a universal 3D steganalytic method under this framework. %and demonstrate the performance of the proposed steganalysis by testing it against six well-known 3D steganographic/watermarking methods. The thesis is organized as follows. Chapter 1 describes in detail the background relating to information hiding and steganalysis, as well as the research problems this thesis will be studying. Chapter 2 conducts a survey on the previous information hiding techniques for digital images, 3D models and other medium and also on image steganalysis algorithms. Motivated by the observation that the knowledge of the spatial accuracy of the mesh vertices does not easily translate into information related to the accuracy of other visually important mesh attributes such as normals, Chapters 3 and 4 investigate the impact of modifying vertex coordinates of 3D triangle models on the mesh normals. Chapter 3 presents the results of an empirical investigation, whereas Chapter 4 presents the results of a theoretical study. Based on these results, a high-capacity 3D steganographic algorithm capable of controlling embedding distortion is also presented in Chapter 4. In addition to normal information, several mesh interrogation, processing and rendering algorithms make direct or indirect use of curvature information. Motivated by this, Chapter 5 studies the relation between Discrete Gaussian Curvature (DGC) degradation and vertex coordinate modifications. Chapter 6 proposes a robust watermarking algorithm for 3D polygonal models, based on modifying the histogram of the distances from the model vertices to a point in 3D space. That point is determined by applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to the cover model. The use of PCA makes the watermarking method robust against common 3D operations, such as rotation, translation and vertex reordering. In addition, Chapter 6 develops a 3D specific steganalytic algorithm to detect the existence of the hidden messages embedded by one well-known watermarking method. By contrast, the focus of Chapter 7 will be on developing a 3D watermarking algorithm that is resistant to mesh editing or deformation attacks that change the global shape of the mesh. By adopting a framework which has been successfully developed for image steganalysis, Chapter 8 designs a 3D steganalysis method to detect the existence of messages hidden in 3D models with existing steganographic and watermarking algorithms. The efficiency of this steganalytic algorithm has been evaluated on five state-of-the-art 3D watermarking/steganographic methods. Moreover, being a universal steganalytic algorithm can be used as a benchmark for measuring the anti-steganalysis performance of other existing and most importantly future watermarking/steganographic algorithms. Chapter 9 concludes this thesis and also suggests some potential directions for future work

System Steganalysis: Implementation Vulnerabilities and Side-Channel Attacks Against Digital Steganography Systems

Steganography is the process of hiding information in plain sight, it is a technology that can be used to hide data and facilitate secret communications. Steganography is commonly seen in the digital domain where the pervasive nature of media content (image, audio, video) provides an ideal avenue for hiding secret information. In recent years, video steganography has shown to be a highly suitable alternative to image and audio steganography due to its potential advantages (capacity, flexibility, popularity). An increased interest towards research in video steganography has led to the development of video stego-systems that are now available to the public. Many of these stego-systems have not yet been subjected to analysis or evaluation, and their capabilities for performing secure, practical, and effective video steganography are unknown. This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis of the state-of-the-art in practical video steganography. Video-based stego-systems are identified and examined using steganalytic techniques (system steganalysis) to determine the security practices of relevant stego-systems. The research in this thesis is conducted through a series of case studies that aim to provide novel insights in the field of steganalysis and its capabilities towards practical video steganography. The results of this work demonstrate the impact of system attacks over the practical state-of-the-art in video steganography. Through this research, it is evident that video-based stego-systems are highly vulnerable and fail to follow many of the well-understood security practices in the field. Consequently, it is possible to confidently detect each stego-system with a high rate of accuracy. As a result of this research, it is clear that current work in practical video steganography demonstrates a failure to address key principles and best practices in the field. Continued efforts to address this will provide safe and secure steganographic technologies

Steganography A Data Hiding Technique

Steganography implements an encryption technique in which communication takes place by hiding information. A hidden message is the combination of a secret message with the carrier message. This technique can be used to hide the message in an image, a video file, an audio file or in a file system. There are large variety of steganography techniques that will be used for hiding secret information in images. The final output image is called as a stego-image which consists of a secret message or information. Imperceptibility, payload, and robustness are three most important parameters for audio steganography. For a more secure approach, encryption can be used, which will encrypt the secret message using a secret key and then sent to the receiver. The receiver after receiving the message then decrypts the secret message to obtain the original one. In this paper, compared steganography with cryptography, which is an encrypting technique and explained how steganography provides better security in terms of hiding the secret message. In this paper, the various techniques are illustrated, which are used in steganography and studying the implementation of those techniques. Also, demonstrated the implementation process of one of the steganography techniques. A comparative analysis is performed between various steganographic tools by using the sample test images and test data. The quality metrics such as PSNR and SSIM are calculated for the final output images which are used for rating the tools. This paper also discusses about the Steganalysis which is known as the process of identifying the use of steganography

Blindspot: Indistinguishable Anonymous Communications

Communication anonymity is a key requirement for individuals under targeted surveillance. Practical anonymous communications also require indistinguishability - an adversary should be unable to distinguish between anonymised and non-anonymised traffic for a given user. We propose Blindspot, a design for high-latency anonymous communications that offers indistinguishability and unobservability under a (qualified) global active adversary. Blindspot creates anonymous routes between sender-receiver pairs by subliminally encoding messages within the pre-existing communication behaviour of users within a social network. Specifically, the organic image sharing behaviour of users. Thus channel bandwidth depends on the intensity of image sharing behaviour of users along a route. A major challenge we successfully overcome is that routing must be accomplished in the face of significant restrictions - channel bandwidth is stochastic. We show that conventional social network routing strategies do not work. To solve this problem, we propose a novel routing algorithm. We evaluate Blindspot using a real-world dataset. We find that it delivers reasonable results for applications requiring low-volume unobservable communication.Comment: 13 Page

A Review of 2D &3D Image Steganography Techniques

This examination displays an outline of different three-dimensional (3D) picture steganography methods from overview perspective. This paper exhibit scientific categorization of 3D picture steganography systems and distinguish the ongoing advances in this field. Steganalysis and assaults on 3D picture steganography calculations have likewise been examined. 3D picture steganography strategies in all the three spaces: geometrical, topological and portrayal areas have been contemplated and thought about among each other on different parameters, for example, inserting limit, reversibility and reaction towards assaults. A few difficulties which restrain the advancement of 3D steganography calculations have been recognized. This investigation finishes up with some valuable discoveries at last

A Review on Steganography Techniques

Steganography is the science of hiding a secret message in cover media, without any perceptual distortion of the cover media. Using steganography, information can be hidden in the carrier items such as images, videos, sounds files, text files, while performing data transmission. In image steganography field, it is a major concern of the researchers how to improve the capacity of hidden data into host image without causing any statistically significant modification. Therefore, this paper presents most of the recent works that have been conducted on image steganography field and analyzes them to clarify the strength and weakness points in each work separately in order to be taken in consideration for future works in such field.