Maximizing Steganographic Embedding Efficiency by Combining Hamming Codes and Wet Paper Codes

Abstract

For good security and large payload in steganography, it is desired to embed as many messages as possible per change of the cover-object, i.e., to have high embedding efficiency. Steganographic codes derived from covering codes can improve embedding efficiency. In this paper, we propose a new method to construct stego-codes, showing that not just one but a family of stego-codes can be generated from one covering code by combining Hamming codes and wet paper codes. This method can enormously expand the set of embedding schemes as applied in steganography. Performances of stego-code families of structured codes and random codes are analyzed. By using the stego-code families of LDGM codes, we obtain a family of near optimal embedding schemes for binary steganography and ±1 steganography, respectively, which can approach the upper bound of embedding efficiency for various chosen embedding rate.