High-capacity reversible data hiding in encrypted image based on specific encryption process

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel reversible data hiding method in encrypted images based on specific encryption process. In the proposed specific encryption algorithm, the stream cipher and prediction error are combined to vacate room for data embedding. After that, a permutation operation is performed on the encrypted image to improve the security. In the embedding process, we can embed a large amount of secret data in the encrypted image by pixel value expansion because most of the pixel values are less than 128 by the specific encryption process. At the receiver end, the encrypted image can be recovered from the marked encrypted image without knowing the secret data. Therefore, even if the recipient only has the encryption key, the original image will be perfectly recovered. If the recipient only has the data-hiding key, the secret data will be extracted. And if the recipient has both keys, the original image and the secret data are both available. The proposed method achieves a higher embedding capacity than that of methods based on vacating room after encryption. It does not require the image owner to perform reversible data hiding techniques on the original image, which is more convenient than methods based on reserving room before encryption. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art methods.