A new data embedding method for mpeg layer III audio steganography

A new method of MP3 steganography is proposed with emphasis on increasing the steganography capacity of the carrier medium. This paper proposes a data embedding algorithm to hide more information for compressed bitstream of MP3 audio files. The sign bits of Huffman codes are selected as the stego-object according to the Huffman coding characteristic in region of Count1. Embedding process does not require the main MP3 audio file during the extraction of hidden message and the size of MP3 file cannot be changed in this step. Our proposed method caused much higher information embedding capacity with lower computational complexity compared with MP3Stego tools. Experimental results show an excellent imperceptibility for the new algorithm

On the data hiding theory and multimedia content security applications

This dissertation is a comprehensive study of digital steganography for multimedia content protection. With the increasing development of Internet technology, protection and enforcement of multimedia property rights has become a great concern to multimedia authors and distributors. Watermarking technologies provide a possible solution for this problem. The dissertation first briefly introduces the current watermarking schemes, including their applications in video,, image and audio. Most available embedding schemes are based on direct Spread Sequence (SS) modulation. A small value pseudo random signature sequence is embedded into the host signal and the information is extracted via correlation. The correlation detection problem is discussed at the beginning. It is concluded that the correlator is not optimum in oblivious detection. The Maximum Likelihood detector is derived and some feasible suboptimal detectors are also analyzed. Through the calculation of extraction Bit Error Rate (BER), it is revealed that the SS scheme is not very efficient due to its poor host noise suppression. The watermark domain selection problem is addressed subsequently. Some implications on hiding capacity and reliability are also studied. The last topic in SS modulation scheme is the sequence selection. The relationship between sequence bandwidth and synchronization requirement is detailed in the work. It is demonstrated that the white sequence commonly used in watermarking may not really boost watermark security. To address the host noise suppression problem, the hidden communication is modeled as a general hypothesis testing problem and a set partitioning scheme is proposed. Simulation studies and mathematical analysis confirm that it outperforms the SS schemes in host noise suppression. The proposed scheme demonstrates improvement over the existing embedding schemes. Data hiding in audio signals are explored next. The audio data hiding is believed a more challenging task due to the human sensitivity to audio artifacts and advanced feature of current compression techniques. The human psychoacoustic model and human music understanding are also covered in the work. Then as a typical audio perceptual compression scheme, the popular MP3 compression is visited in some length. Several schemes, amplitude modulation, phase modulation and noise substitution are presented together with some experimental results. As a case study, a music bitstream encryption scheme is proposed. In all these applications, human psychoacoustic model plays a very important role. A more advanced audio analysis model is introduced to reveal implications on music understanding. In the last part, conclusions and future research are presented

AN INVESTIGATION OF DIFFERENT VIDEO WATERMARKING TECHNIQUES

Watermarking is an advanced technology that identifies to solve the problem of illegal manipulation and distribution of digital data. It is the art of hiding the copyright information into host such that the embedded data is imperceptible. The covers in the forms of digital multimedia object, namely image, audio and video. The extensive literature collected related to the performance improvement of video watermarking techniques is critically reviewed and presented in this paper. Also, comprehensive review of the literature on the evolution of various video watermarking techniques to achieve robustness and to maintain the quality of watermarked video sequences

Data Hiding in Digital Video

With the rapid development of digital multimedia technologies, an old method which is called steganography has been sought to be a solution for data hiding applications such as digital watermarking and covert communication. Steganography is the art of secret communication using a cover signal, e.g., video, audio, image etc., whereas the counter-technique, detecting the existence of such as a channel through a statistically trained classifier, is called steganalysis. The state-of-the art data hiding algorithms utilize features; such as Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) coefficients, pixel values, motion vectors etc., of the cover signal to convey the message to the receiver side. The goal of embedding algorithm is to maximize the number of bits sent to the decoder side (embedding capacity) with maximum robustness against attacks while keeping the perceptual and statistical distortions (security) low. Data Hiding schemes are characterized by these three conflicting requirements: security against steganalysis, robustness against channel associated and/or intentional distortions, and the capacity in terms of the embedded payload. Depending upon the application it is the designer\u27s task to find an optimum solution amongst them. The goal of this thesis is to develop a novel data hiding scheme to establish a covert channel satisfying statistical and perceptual invisibility with moderate rate capacity and robustness to combat steganalysis based detection. The idea behind the proposed method is the alteration of Video Object (VO) trajectory coordinates to convey the message to the receiver side by perturbing the centroid coordinates of the VO. Firstly, the VO is selected by the user and tracked through the frames by using a simple region based search strategy and morphological operations. After the trajectory coordinates are obtained, the perturbation of the coordinates implemented through the usage of a non-linear embedding function, such as a polar quantizer where both the magnitude and phase of the motion is used. However, the perturbations made to the motion magnitude and phase were kept small to preserve the semantic meaning of the object motion trajectory. The proposed method is well suited to the video sequences in which VOs have smooth motion trajectories. Examples of these types could be found in sports videos in which the ball is the focus of attention and exhibits various motion types, e.g., rolling on the ground, flying in the air, being possessed by a player, etc. Different sports video sequences have been tested by using the proposed method. Through the experimental results, it is shown that the proposed method achieved the goal of both statistical and perceptual invisibility with moderate rate embedding capacity under AWGN channel with varying noise variances. This achievement is important as the first step for both active and passive steganalysis is the detection of the existence of covert channel. This work has multiple contributions in the field of data hiding. Firstly, it is the first example of a data hiding method in which the trajectory of a VO is used. Secondly, this work has contributed towards improving steganographic security by providing new features: the coordinate location and semantic meaning of the object

High capacity data embedding schemes for digital media

High capacity image data hiding methods and robust high capacity digital audio watermarking algorithms are studied in this thesis. The main results of this work are the development of novel algorithms with state-of-the-art performance, high capacity and transparency for image data hiding and robustness, high capacity and low distortion for audio watermarking.En esta tesis se estudian y proponen diversos métodos de data hiding de imágenes y watermarking de audio de alta capacidad. Los principales resultados de este trabajo consisten en la publicación de varios algoritmos novedosos con rendimiento a la altura de los mejores métodos del estado del arte, alta capacidad y transparencia, en el caso de data hiding de imágenes, y robustez, alta capacidad y baja distorsión para el watermarking de audio.En aquesta tesi s'estudien i es proposen diversos mètodes de data hiding d'imatges i watermarking d'àudio d'alta capacitat. Els resultats principals d'aquest treball consisteixen en la publicació de diversos algorismes nous amb rendiment a l'alçada dels millors mètodes de l'estat de l'art, alta capacitat i transparència, en el cas de data hiding d'imatges, i robustesa, alta capacitat i baixa distorsió per al watermarking d'àudio.Societat de la informació i el coneixemen