Micro protocol engineering for unstructured carriers: On the embedding of steganographic control protocols into audio transmissions

Network steganography conceals the transfer of sensitive information within unobtrusive data in computer networks. So-called micro protocols are communication protocols placed within the payload of a network steganographic transfer. They enrich this transfer with features such as reliability, dynamic overlay routing, or performance optimization --- just to mention a few. We present different design approaches for the embedding of hidden channels with micro protocols in digitized audio signals under consideration of different requirements. On the basis of experimental results, our design approaches are compared, and introduced into a protocol engineering approach for micro protocols.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, 4 table

A Study of Data Security on E-Governance using Steganographic Optimization Algorithms

Steganography has been used massively in numerous fields to maintain the privacy and integrity of messages transferred via the internet. The need to secure the information has augmented with the increase in e-governance usage. The wide adoption of e-governance services also opens the doors to cybercriminals for fraudulent activities in cyberspace. To deal with these cybercrimes we need optimized and advanced steganographic techniques. Various advanced optimization techniques can be applied to steganography to obtain better results for the security of information. Various optimization techniques like particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithms with cryptography can be used to protect information for e-governance services. In this study, a comprehensive review of steganographic algorithms using optimization techniques is presented. A new perspective on using this technique to protect the information for e-governance is also presented. Deep Learning might be the area that can be used to automate the steganography process in combination with other method

Security during Transmission of Data Using Web Steganography

The project entitled Steganography is to give security to a content record. Since the security of the data over the internet has raised a concern to the people. There are many methods to protect the data from going into the access of unauthorized people. Steganography can be used along with the encryption technique to secure the data. Steganography is used to hide the data or a secret message whereas cryptography is used to encrypt the message and make it difficult the people to read. So, the proposed system is to combine both steganography and cryptography for the secret data transmission. The transmission can be done by using an image as a carrier of data. This paper uses high-performance BMP steganography along with a substitution encryption methodology. The approach that is used here is IDEA (International Data Encryption Algorithm) algorithm which is used for encryption. The IDEA algorithm works as follows, it will take the TEXT document and mystery key as the input and gives the encrypted and BMP picture as the output for the sender side. There can additionally be “Voice Recognition System” framework so that it can use voice to decrypt the message. This is the future expansion or scope of this paper

An Overview of Steganography for the Computer Forensics Examiner (Updated Version, February 2015)

Steganography is the art of covered or hidden writing. The purpose of steganography is covert communication-to hide the existence of a message from a third party. This paper is intended as a high-level technical introduction to steganography for those unfamiliar with the field. It is directed at forensic computer examiners who need a practical understanding of steganography without delving into the mathematics, although references are provided to some of the ongoing research for the person who needs or wants additional detail. Although this paper provides a historical context for steganography, the emphasis is on digital applications, focusing on hiding information in online image or audio files. Examples of software tools that employ steganography to hide data inside of other files as well as software to detect such hidden files will also be presented. An edited version originally published in the July 2004 issues of Forensic Science Communications

MP3 audio steganography technique using extended least significant bit

Audio Steganography is the process of concealing secret messages into audio file. The goal for using audio steganography is to avoid drawing suspicion to the transmission of the secret message. Prior research studies have indicated that the main properties in steganography technique are imperceptibility, robustness and capacity. MP3 file is a popular audio media, which provides different compression rate and performing steganography in MP3 format after compression is the most desirable one. To date, there is not much research work that embeds messages after compression. An audio steganographic technique that utilizes Standard Least Significant Bits (SLSB) of the audio stream to embed secret message has gained popularity over the years. Unfortunately the technique suffers from imperceptibility, security and capacity. This research offers an extended Least Significant Bit (XLSB) technique in order to circumvent the weakness. The secret message is scrambled before embedding. Scrambling technique is introduced in two steps; partitioning the secret message (speech) into blocks followed by block permutation, in order to confuse the contents of the secret message. To enhance difficulty for attackers to retrieve the secret message, the message is not embedded in every byte of the audio file. Instead the first position of embedding bit is chosen randomly and the rest of the bits are embedded only in even value of bytes of the audio file. For extracting the secret message, the permutation code book is used to reorder the message blocks into its original form. Md5sum and SHA-256 are used to verify whether the secret message is altered or not during transmission. Experimental results measured by peak signal to noise ratio, bit error rate, Pearson Correlation and chi-square show that the XLSB performs better than SLSB. Moreover, XLSB can embed a maximum of 750KB into MP3 file with 30db average result. This research contributes to the information security community by providing more secure steganography technique which provides message confidentiality and integrity

UNDERWATER COMMUNICATIONS WITH ACOUSTIC STEGANOGRAPHY: RECOVERY ANALYSIS AND MODELING

In the modern warfare environment, communication is a cornerstone of combat competence. However, the increasing threat of communications-denied environments highlights the need for communications systems with low probability of intercept and detection. This is doubly true in the subsurface environment, where communications and sonar systems can reveal the tactical location of platforms and capabilities, subverting their covert mission set. A steganographic communication scheme that leverages existing technologies and unexpected data carriers is a feasible means of increasing assurance of communications, even in denied environments. This research works toward a covert communication system by determining and comparing novel symbol recovery schemes to extract data from a signal transmitted under a steganographic technique and interfered with by a simulated underwater acoustic channel. We apply techniques for reliably extracting imperceptible information from unremarkable acoustic events robust to the variability of the hostile operating environment. The system is evaluated based on performance metrics, such as transmission rate and bit error rate, and we show that our scheme is sufficient to conduct covert communications through acoustic transmissions, though we do not solve the problems of synchronization or equalization.Lieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Enhanced Multimedia Exchanges over the Internet

Although the Internet was not originally designed for exchanging multimedia streams, consumers heavily depend on it for audiovisual data delivery. The intermittent nature of multimedia traffic, the unguaranteed underlying communication infrastructure, and dynamic user behavior collectively result in the degradation of Quality-of-Service (QoS) and Quality-of-Experience (QoE) perceived by end-users. Consequently, the volume of signalling messages is inevitably increased to compensate for the degradation of the desired service qualities. Improved multimedia services could leverage adaptive streaming as well as blockchain-based solutions to enhance media-rich experiences over the Internet at the cost of increased signalling volume. Many recent studies in the literature provide signalling reduction and blockchain-based methods for authenticated media access over the Internet while utilizing resources quasi-efficiently. To further increase the efficiency of multimedia communications, novel signalling overhead and content access latency reduction solutions are investigated in this dissertation including: (1) the first two research topics utilize steganography to reduce signalling bandwidth utilization while increasing the capacity of the multimedia network; and (2) the third research topic utilizes multimedia content access request management schemes to guarantee throughput values for servicing users, end-devices, and the network. Signalling of multimedia streaming is generated at every layer of the communication protocol stack; At the highest layer, segment requests are generated, and at the lower layers, byte tracking messages are exchanged. Through leveraging steganography, essential signalling information is encoded within multimedia payloads to reduce the amount of resources consumed by non-payload data. The first steganographic solution hides signalling messages within multimedia payloads, thereby freeing intermediate node buffers from queuing non-payload packets. Consequently, source nodes are capable of delivering control information to receiving nodes at no additional network overhead. A utility function is designed to minimize the volume of overhead exchanged while minimizing visual artifacts. Therefore, the proposed scheme is designed to leverage the fidelity of the multimedia stream to reduce the largest amount of control overhead with the lowest negative visual impact. The second steganographic solution enables protocol translation through embedding packet header information within payload data to alternatively utilize lightweight headers. The protocol translator leverages a proposed utility function to enable the maximum number of translations while maintaining QoS and QoE requirements in terms of packet throughput and playback bit-rate. As the number of multimedia users and sources increases, decentralized content access and management over a blockchain-based system is inevitable. Blockchain technologies suffer from large processing latencies; consequently reducing the throughput of a multimedia network. Reducing blockchain-based access latencies is therefore essential to maintaining a decentralized scalable model with seamless functionality and efficient utilization of resources. Adapting blockchains to feeless applications will then port the utility of ledger-based networks to audiovisual applications in a faultless manner. The proposed transaction processing scheme will enable ledger maintainers in sustaining desired throughputs necessary for delivering expected QoS and QoE values for decentralized audiovisual platforms. A block slicing algorithm is designed to ensure that the ledger maintenance strategy is benefiting the operations of the blockchain-based multimedia network. Using the proposed algorithm, the throughput and latency of operations within the multimedia network are then maintained at a desired level

Steganography and steganalysis: data hiding in Vorbis audio streams

The goal of the current work is to introduce ourselves in the world of steganography and steganalysis, centering our efforts in acoustic signals, a branch of steganography and steganalysis which has received much less attention than steganography and steganalysis for images. With this purpose in mind, it’s essential to get first a basic level of understanding of signal theory and the properties of the Human Auditory System, and we will dedicate ourselves to that aim during the first part of this work. Once established those basis, in the second part, we will obtain a precise image of the state of the art in steganographic and steganalytic sciences, from which we will be able to establish or deduce some good practices guides. With both previous subjects in mind, we will be able to create, design and implement a stego-system over Vorbis audio codec and, finally, as conclusion, analyze it using the principles studied during the first and second parts