Hide and Seek: Embedding Audio into RGB 24-bit Color Image Sporadically Using Linked List Concepts

Abstract

Although people have hidden secrets in plain sight now called steganography throughout the ages, the recent growth in computational power and technology has propelled it to the forefront of today’s security techniques. Steganography is the art and science of hiding communication; a steganographic system thus embeds hidden content in unremarkable cover media so as not to arouse an eavesdropper’s suspicion. In the past, people used hidden tattoos or invisible ink to convey steganographic content. Today, computer and network technologies provide easy to use communication channels for steganography. The embedding process creates a stego medium by replacing bits with data from the hidden message. In this paper, the existing techniques for image Steganography have some serious drawbacks and this new approach is presented to overcome those drawbacks. It will be done using the concepts of linked list data structure. Initially the audio file is encrypted using Rijndael algorithm. Then first, creating a “stego-key” by the address of message blocks. Second, it makes the detection of audio message harder. Possible countermeasure to prevent detection included hiding encrypted-audio message in perceptually less significant areas of image and scattering that encrypted-audio message throughout the image. The concept of “adaptive steganography”, where relatively busy areas of carrier are selected that are less likely to convey the existence of hidden audio.