An Adaptive FLV Steganography Approach Using Simulated Annealing

Abstract

Steganography is not only the art of hiding secret messages in cover media but also a process of communication and secure data transfer. Secret messages can be sent over the Internet with security by using several steganography techniques, but all of them present challenges in steganalysis. This study proposes a new secure technique called flash video (FLV) file steganography that keeps the frame video quality and is difficult to detect. The technique can hide any type of secret message inside a given FLV file. The secret message is divided into packets of the same length, reordered packet, and encrypted bytes before being hidden at the end of a selected video tag. A simulated annealing (SA) approach to select tags for steganography is presented to reduce or avoid the challenge of steganalysis. The proposed method uses SA as supporting framework to deal with the FLV file as a host for different types of secret messages. The system determines the minimum path within the host FLV file by using SA and hides the message bits inside each pixel in the minimum computed path. Analysis of the host FLV file cannot be performed without proper knowledge on the transformation process. Thus, the existence of the secret message is difficult to detect by steganalysis. Knowledge is represented by the key of finding the minimum path in the host FLV file, key of secret message length, key of additional bytes, key of message packets reordering and key of message extension. Experimental results show that the proposed technique satisfies the main requirements of steganography with regard to visual appearance, capacity, undetectability, and robustness against extraction.