Efficient data hiding with histogram-preserving property

Abstract

For improving the steganographic security, the data-hiders always hope to lower the distortion level and to preserve the original data distribution. A novel efficient data hiding scheme with a histogram-preserving property is proposed in this work. After decomposing cover samples into a series of binary sequences, a number of candidate vectors representing each secret bit-block are produced, and a criterion for lowering steganographic distortion and keeping flip balance is set up for optimal selection from the candidates. A combination of flipping rates for different binary sequences to maximize the secret capacity is also studied. This way, the original data distribution in cover sequence is preserved, and a payload-distortion performance approaching the theoretical upper bound can be achieved.