Reversible data hiding based on histogram and prediction error for sharing secret data

Abstract

With the advancement of communication technology, a large number of data are constantly transmitted through the internet for various purposes, which are prone to be illegally accessed by third parties. Therefore, securing such data is crucial to protect the transmitted information from falling into the wrong hands. Among data protection schemes, Secret Image Sharing is one of the most popular methods. It protects critical messages or data by embedding them in an image and sharing it with some users. Furthermore, it combines the security concepts in that private data are embedded into a cover image and then secured using the secret-sharing method. Despite its advantages, this method may produce noise, making the resulting stego file much different from its cover. Moreover, the size of private data that can be embedded is limited. This research works on these problems by utilizing prediction-error expansion and histogram-based approaches to embed the data. To recover the cover image, the SS method based on the Chinese remainder theorem is used. The experimental results indicate that this proposed method performs better than similar methods in several cover images and scenarios.