Introducing a New Evaluation Criteria for EMD-Base Steganography Method

Steganography is a technique to hide the presence of secret communication. When one of the communication elements is under the influence of the enemy, it can be used. The main measure to evaluate steganography methods in a certain capacity is security. Therefore, in a certain capacity, reducing the amount of changes in the cover media, creates a higher embedding efficiency and thus more security of an steganography method. Mostly, security and capacity are in conflict with each other, the increase of one lead to the decrease of the other. The presence of a single criterion that represents security and capacity at the same time be useful in comparing steganography methods. EMD and the relevant methods are a group of steganography techniques, which optimize the amount of changes resulting from embedding (security). The present paper is aimed to provide an evaluation criterion for this group of steganography methods. In this study, after a general review and comparison of EMD-based steganography techniques, we present a method to compare them exactly, from the perspective of embedding efficiency. First, a formula is presented to determine the value of embedding efficiency, which indicates the effect of one or more changes on one or more pixels. The results demonstrate that the proposed embedding efficiency formula shows the performance of the methods better when several changes are made on a pixel compared to the existing criteria. In the second step, we have obtained an upper bound, which determines the best efficiency for each certain capacity. Finally, based on the introduced bound, another evaluation criterion for a better comparison of the methods is presented

A Multistage High Capacity Reversible Data Hiding Technique Without Overhead Communication

Reversible Data Hiding(RDH) has been extensively investigated, recently, due to its numerous applications in the field of defence, medical, law enforcement and image authentication. However, most of RDH techniques suffer from low secret data hiding capacity and communication overhead. For this, multistage high-capacity reversible data hiding technique without overhead is proposed in this manuscript. Proposed reversible data hiding approach exploits histogram peaks for embedding the secret data along with overhead bits both in plain and encrypted domain. First, marked image is obtained by embedding secret data in the plain domain which is further processed using affine cipher maintaining correlation among the pixels. In second stage, overhead bits are embedded in the encrypted marked image. High embedding capacity is achieved through exploiting histogram peak for embedding multiple bits of secret data. Proposed approach is experimentally validated on different datasets and results are compared with the state-of-the-art techniques over different images

Data hiding techniques in steganography using fibonacci sequence and knight tour algorithm

The foremost priority in the information and communication technology era, is achieving an efficient and accurate steganography system for hiding information. The developed system of hiding the secret message must capable of not giving any clue to the adversaries about the hidden data. In this regard, enhancing the security and capacity by maintaining the Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) of the steganography system is the main issue to be addressed. This study proposed an improved for embedding secret message into an image. This newly developed method is demonstrated to increase the security and capacity to resolve the existing problems. A binary text image is used to represent the secret message instead of normal text. Three stages implementations are used to select the pixel before random embedding to select block of (64 × 64) pixels, follows by the Knight Tour algorithm to select sub-block of (8 × 8) pixels, and finally by the random pixels selection. For secret embedding, Fibonacci sequence is implemented to decomposition pixel from 8 bitplane to 12 bitplane. The proposed method is distributed over the entire image to maintain high level of security against any kind of attack. Gray images from the standard dataset (USC-SIPI) including Lena, Peppers, Baboon, and Cameraman are implemented for benchmarking. The results show good PSNR value with high capacity and these findings verified the worthiness of the proposed method. High complexities of pixels distribution and replacement of bits will ensure better security and robust imperceptibility compared to the existing systems in the literature

Multi-Stage Protection Using Pixel Selection Technique for Enhancing Steganography

Steganography and data security are extremely important for all organizations. This research introduces a novel stenographic method called multi-stage protection using the pixel selection technique (MPPST). MPPST is developed based on the features of the pixel and analysis technique to extract the pixel's characteristics and distribution of cover-image. A pixel selection technique is proposed for hiding secret messages using the feature selection method. The secret file is distributed and embedded randomly into the stego-image to make the process of the steganalysis complicated.  The attackers not only need to deter which pixel values have been selected to carry the secret file, they also must rearrange the correct sequence of pixels. MPPST generates a complex key that indicates where the encrypted elements of the binary sequence of a secret file are. The analysis stage undergoes four stages, which are the calculation of the peak signal-to-noise ratio, mean squared error, histogram analysis, and relative entropy. These four stages are used to demonstrate the characteristics of the cover image. To evaluate the proposed method, MPPST is compared to the standard technique of Least Significant Bit (LSB) and other algorithms from the literature. The experimental results show that MPPST outperforms other algorithms for all instances and achieves a significant security enhancement

Bit inverting map method for improved steganography scheme

Achieving an efficient and accurate steganography scheme for hiding information is the foremost priority in the information and communication technology era. The developed scheme of hiding the secret message must capable of not giving any clue to the adversaries about the hidden data. In this regard, enhancing the security and capacity by maintaining the Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) of the steganography scheme is the main issue to be addressed. This study proposes an improved Bit Inverting Map (BIM) method and a new scheme for embedding secret message into an image. This newly developed scheme is demonstrated to increase the security and capacity to resolve the existing problems. A binary text image is used to represent the secret message instead of normal text. Three stages implementations are used to select pixels before random embedding to select block of (64 64) pixels, followed by the Knight Tour algorithm to select sub-block of (8 8) pixels, and finally by the random pixels selection. The proposed BIM is distributed over the entire image to maintain high level of security against any kind of attack. One-bit indicator is used to decide if the secret bits are inserted directly or inversely, which enhanced the complexity of embedding process. Color and gray images from the standard dataset (USC-SIPI) including Lena, Peppers, Baboon, and Cameraman are implemented for benchmarking. Self-captured images are used to test the efficacy of the proposed BIM method. The results show good PSNR values of 72.9 and these findings verified the worthiness of the proposed BIM method. High complexities of pixels distribution and replacement of bits will ensure better security and robust imperceptibility compared to the existing scheme in the literature

Triple scheme based on image steganography to improve imperceptibility and security

A foremost priority in the information technology and communication era is achieving an effective and secure steganography scheme when considering information hiding. Commonly, the digital images are used as the cover for the steganography owing to their redundancy in the representation, making them hidden to the intruders. Nevertheless, any steganography system launched over the internet can be attacked upon recognizing the stego cover. Presently, the design and development of an effective image steganography system are facing several challenging issues including the low capacity, poor security, and imperceptibility. Towards overcoming the aforementioned issues, a new decomposition scheme was proposed for image steganography with a new approach known as a Triple Number Approach (TNA). In this study, three main stages were used to achieve objectives and overcome the issues of image steganography, beginning with image and text preparation, followed by embedding and culminating in extraction. Finally, the evaluation stage employed several evaluations in order to benchmark the results. Different contributions were presented with this study. The first contribution was a Triple Text Coding Method (TTCM), which was related to the preparation of secret messages prior to the embedding process. The second contribution was a Triple Embedding Method (TEM), which was related to the embedding process. The third contribution was related to security criteria which were based on a new partitioning of an image known as the Image Partitioning Method (IPM). The IPM proposed a random pixel selection, based on image partitioning into three phases with three iterations of the Hénon Map function. An enhanced Huffman coding algorithm was utilized to compress the secret message before TTCM process. A standard dataset from the Signal and Image Processing Institute (SIPI) containing color and grayscale images with 512 x 512 pixels were utilised in this study. Different parameters were used to test the performance of the proposed scheme based on security and imperceptibility (image quality). In image quality, four important measurements that were used are Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity Index (SSIM), Mean Square Error (MSE) and Histogram analysis. Whereas, two security measurements that were used are Human Visual System (HVS) and Chi-square (X2) attacks. In terms of PSNR and SSIM, the Lena grayscale image obtained results were 78.09 and 1 dB, respectively. Meanwhile, the HVS and X2 attacks obtained high results when compared to the existing scheme in the literature. Based on the findings, the proposed scheme give evidence to increase capacity, imperceptibility, and security to overcome existing issues

Enhancing The Performance Of Digital Image Data Hiding Using Reduced Difference Expansion Technique And Constant Base Point

The last few decades have been marked by a rapid growth and significant enhancement of the internet infrastructures, i.e., the internet has become a broad network enabling many enterprises around the world to interact while sharing multimedia data. Nevertheless, this technology has brought many challenges related to securing private and sensitive information which has led to the application of cryptography technique as a mean for securing data by encrypting them. However, since the encrypted data can be seen by active and sophisticated intruders during the transmission, this may lead to its suspicion which can result in unauthorized access. Thereby, data hiding (which is also called information hiding) is another technique for securing commutation via the public network. Data hiding is one of the best and most challenging fields dealing with securing organizational sensitive information due to many factors such as identity theft, information phishing, user privacy, network policy violation, contents and copyright protection. It is performed by utilizing some carriers to conceal private information which is further extracted later to verify and validate the genuineness. Digital steganography has been recognized among the recent and most popular data hiding techniques. Steganography is the practice of concealing confidential information in the codes that make up the digital files. Such digital files can be an image, audio, video, and text. Different from cryptography, however, steganography provides security by disguising the presence of communication. It originates from the concept that if the communication is visible, the suspicion or attack is obvious. Hence, the main goal is to always disguise the presence of the hidden confidential data. Recently, various data iv hiding methods based on digital image steganography have been already suggested by several researchers around the globe. The main goal was to improve the security, embedding capacity and the quality of the stego image. However, research have shown that there is still a challenge to achieve a good visual quality of the stego media while preserving a good embedding capacity. In this direction, this study aims at proposing a new data hiding approach that enhances the quality of the stego image and the embedding capacity. That is, the suggested approach enhances the existing data hiding methods by utilizing pixel block, constant base point for each pixel block and the reduced difference expansion scheme (RDE-scheme) for grayscale digital images. Accordingly, the suggested enhancement is detailed as follows. First, the existing reduced difference expansion scheme (RDE-scheme) for reducing the difference values is enhanced in order to get possible small values to be used while concealing the secret data into the cover image. The main objective behind this enhancement is to allow data to be concealed while preserving the quality of the stego image. Notice that the suggested RDE-scheme does not only enhance the quality but also it solves the problem of underflow and overflow. The underflow is encountered when the pixel value in the stego image is below 0 (Pixel value < 0) while the overflow occurs when it is greater than 255 (Pixel value > 255). Second, the new constant base point for each pixel block is chosen differently for the sake of increasing the visual quality of the stego image. Third, we have adjusted the size of the pixel block which achieves a high embedding capacity while distorting the cover media from quad of quad (4 × 4 ) to quad, block of size 2 by 2 (2 × 2). Besides, the effect of varying the size of the secret data with respect to the quality of the stego image is also investigated throughout this study. Overall, based on the experimental results, good visual quality of the stego image which is evaluated by measuring the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and good embedding capacity (measured in bits) are yielded compared to the previous approach, i.e., the proposed method is effective in terms of maintaining both visual quality of the stego image and the embedding capacity. Index terms— Data hiding, information security, reduced difference expansion, digital steganography, cover image, stego image, confidential data =================================================================================================== Beberapa dekade terakhir internet telah menjadi jaringan luas yang memungkinkan banyak perusahaan di seluruh dunia untuk berinteraksi sambil berbagi data multimedia. Ini merupakan tanda bahwa infrastruktur internet telah tumbuh dan berkembang secara signifikan. Namun, teknologi ini memiliki banyak tantangan dalam hal pengamanan informasi yang bersifat sensitif dan pribadi sehingga mendorong penerapan teknik kriptografi untuk mengamankan data dengan cara mengenkripsinya. Teknik kriptografi memiliki kekurangan yaitu hasil enkripsi dapat dilihat oleh penyusup (intruders) selama transmisi sehingga menyebabkan kecurigaan yang berakibat pada tindakan akses yang bersifat ilegal. Untuk mengurangi hal ini, data hiding dapat dimanfaatkan untuk mengamankan informasi tersebut. Data hiding adalah salah satu teknik terbaik untuk mendapatkan data tetapi memiliki banyak tantangan permasalahan seperti pencurian identitas, phising, pelanggaran kebijakan jaringan dan hak cipta. Untuk mendapatkan kemanan data, data hiding memanfaatkan beberapa media untuk menyembunyikan informasi dan dapat diekstrak untuk memverifikasi keasliannya. Salah satu teknik data hiding yang paling terkenal adalah steganografi digital. Teknik ini menyembunyikan informasi rahasia kedalam file digital seperti citra digital, audio, video dan teks. Berbeda dengan kriptografi, steganografi memberikan keamanan informasi dengan menyamarkannya dalam file digital. Penyebab digunakannya tindakan ini adalah jika komunikasi terlihat maka akan mengundang kecurigaan yang mengakibatkan terjadi serangan seperti yang dijelaskan sebelumnya. Oleh karena itu, tujuan utama dari teknik ini adalah menyamarkan informasi rahasia dengan vi menyembunyikannya kedalam file yang digunakan. Akhir-akhir ini, beberapa teknik data hiding dengan menggunakan citra digital telah banyak dikembangkan oleh beberapa peneliti di seluruh dunia. Tujuan utama mereka adalah untuk meningkatkan keamanan, kapasitas penyisipan dan kualitas dari citra stego. Sampai saat ini, banyak penelitian yang menunjukkan bahwa masih menjadi tantangan untuk mendapatkan kualitas media stego yang baik dengan kapasitas penyisipan yang tinggi. Dengan maksud yang sama, penelitian ini mengusulkan konsep pendekatan baru dalam hal data hiding yang dapat meningkatkan kualitas dan kapasitas dari citra stego. Pendekatan tersebut dilakukan dengan cara meningkatkan metode data hiding yang sudah ada dengan memanfaatkan blok piksel, penentuan base point yang konsisten untuk masing-masing blok dan mereduksi difference expansion untuk citra abu-abu. Rincian dari pendekatan tersebut adalah sebagai berikut. Pertama, skema reduksi difference expansion (RDE) ditingkatkan untuk mendapatkan nilai terkecil yang akan digunakan dalam penyembunyian data kedalam citra carrier. Tujuannya adalah memungkinkan data dapat disisipkan dengan tetap menjaga kualitas citra stego tetap baik. Perlu diketahui bahwa usulan skema RDE tidak hanya meningkatkan kualitas tetapi juga menyelesaikan masalah overflow dan underflow. Underfow merupakan kondisi piksel dalam citra stego bernilai kurang dari 0 sedangkan overflow terjadi ketika nilai piksel melebihi 255. Kedua, base-point yang bersifat konstan untuk masing-masing blok piksel akan dipilih secara berbeda untuk dapat meningkatkan kualitas visual dari citra stego. Ketiga, kami mengatur ukuran blok dari quad of quad (4x4) yang memiliki kualitas citra stego kurang baik menjadi 2x2. Hal lain yang kami lakukan adalah mengetahui efek dari besar ukuran data yang digunakan dalam proses penyisipan. Secara keseluruhan, berdasarkan hasil eksperimen, usulan pendekatan ini memiliki kemampuan yang lebih baik dibandingkan dengan penelitian sebelumnya yang ditandai dengan kapasitas penyisipan yang lebih tinggi dan kualitas visual citra stego yang baik yang diukur menggunakan metode signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR)

An improved image steganography scheme based on distinction grade value and secret message encryption

Steganography is an emerging and greatly demanding technique for secure information communication over the internet using a secret cover object. It can be used for a wide range of applications such as safe circulation of secret data in intelligence, industry, health care, habitat, online voting, mobile banking and military. Commonly, digital images are used as covers for the steganography owing to their redundancy in the representation, making them hidden to the intruders, hackers, adversaries, unauthorized users. Still, any steganography system launched over the Internet can be cracked upon recognizing the stego cover. Thus, the undetectability that involves data imperceptibility or concealment and security is the significant trait of any steganography system. Presently, the design and development of an effective image steganography system are facing several challenges including low capacity, poor robustness and imperceptibility. To surmount such limitations, it is important to improve the capacity and security of the steganography system while maintaining a high signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). Based on these factors, this study is aimed to design and develop a distinction grade value (DGV) method to effectively embed the secret data into a cover image for achieving a robust steganography scheme. The design and implementation of the proposed scheme involved three phases. First, a new encryption method called the shuffle the segments of secret message (SSSM) was incorporated with an enhanced Huffman compression algorithm to improve the text security and payload capacity of the scheme. Second, the Fibonacci-based image transformation decomposition method was used to extend the pixel's bit from 8 to 12 for improving the robustness of the scheme. Third, an improved embedding method was utilized by integrating a random block/pixel selection with the DGV and implicit secret key generation for enhancing the imperceptibility of the scheme. The performance of the proposed scheme was assessed experimentally to determine the imperceptibility, security, robustness and capacity. The standard USC-SIPI images dataset were used as the benchmarking for the performance evaluation and comparison of the proposed scheme with the previous works. The resistance of the proposed scheme was tested against the statistical, X2 , Histogram and non-structural steganalysis detection attacks. The obtained PSNR values revealed the accomplishment of higher imperceptibility and security by the proposed DGV scheme while a higher capacity compared to previous works. In short, the proposed steganography scheme outperformed the commercially available data hiding schemes, thereby resolved the existing issues

New Digital Audio Watermarking Algorithms for Copyright Protection

This thesis investigates the development of digital audio watermarking in addressing issues such as copyright protection. Over the past two decades, many digital watermarking algorithms have been developed, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. The main aim of this thesis was to develop a new watermarking algorithm within an existing Fast Fourier Transform framework. This resulted in the development of a Complex Spectrum Phase Evolution based watermarking algorithm. In this new implementation, the embedding positions were generated dynamically thereby rendering it more difficult for an attacker to remove, and watermark information was embedded by manipulation of the spectral components in the time domain thereby reducing any audible distortion. Further improvements were attained when the embedding criteria was based on bin location comparison instead of magnitude, thereby rendering it more robust against those attacks that interfere with the spectral magnitudes. However, it was discovered that this new audio watermarking algorithm has some disadvantages such as a relatively low capacity and a non-consistent robustness for different audio files. Therefore, a further aim of this thesis was to improve the algorithm from a different perspective. Improvements were investigated using an Singular Value Decomposition framework wherein a novel observation was discovered. Furthermore, a psychoacoustic model was incorporated to suppress any audible distortion. This resulted in a watermarking algorithm which achieved a higher capacity and a more consistent robustness. The overall result was that two new digital audio watermarking algorithms were developed which were complementary in their performance thereby opening more opportunities for further research