Steganographic System Research Articles

Anti-forensic steganography using multi-bit MER with flexible bit location

This work develops an anti-forensic steganography system using the proposed multi-bit MERs with flexible bit location embedding method multi-bit MER_FBL embedding method to overcome the problem of forensics and to achieve high performance including both large embedding capacity and high image quality. The proposed multi-bit MER_FBL embedding method hides multi-bit k-bit, k ≥ 1 logo/secret data into any adjoining starting with the ith location k-bit b

A Novel Approach of Combining Steganography Algorithms

Abstract Steganography is the act of hiding a message inside another message in such a way that the hidden message can only be detected by its intended recipient. In this paper, we combined two steganography algorithms namely JSteg and OutGuess algorithms, in order to exploit the beneficial characteristics and features of both algorithms to enhance the protection level for secret images. In our proposed approach, the secret message (image) is first concealed inside another image using JSteg algorithm and the resultant stego-image is further hidden inside a final image using OutGuess 0.1 algorithm. In this combine approach, the tricky nature of hiding an already hidden message is using two different algorithms increases the level of difficulty for a third party to suspect the existence of a secret image in the first place or even successful decode the it. Besides that, the priority given to the choice of a good image size and type in this approach further disguises the secret image and increases the chances that the image could go unnoticed. Results after calculating the capacity and PSNR for images proved that our approach is a good and acceptable steganography system. The model presented here is based on JPEG images.

Discrete ripplet transform based steganography system for imaging applications

Steganography is the art of hiding high sensitive information in digital image, text, video or audio. In this paper, we propose a frequency domain steganography method operating in the discrete ripplet transform (DRT). We engage the advantage of ripplet transform, which represent the image at different scales and different directions and in additional to this, it efficiently represents the images with edges. In this method, the most significant coefficients of DRT are selected to embed the secret data. The proposed method has the following advantages: a) imperceptibility of the stego image is increased because the secret data is hidden in the most significant coefficients; b) we employ the scrambling method to enhance the security. The experimental result demonstrates that peak signal-to-noise (PSNR) ratio of stego image generated by this method versus the cover image is guaranteed to be average of 47.56 dB. PSNR is much higher than that of all data hiding techniques reported in the literature.

Improved Approaches with Calibrated Neighboring Joint Density to Steganalysis and Seam-Carved Forgery Detection in JPEG Images

Steganalysis and forgery detection in image forensics are generally investigated separately. We have designed a method targeting the detection of both steganography and seam-carved forgery in JPEG images. We analyze the neighboring joint density of the DCT coefficients and reveal the difference between the untouched image and the modified version. In realistic detection, the untouched image and the modified version may not be obtained at the same time, and different JPEG images may have different neighboring joint density features. By exploring the self-calibration under different shift recompressions, we propose calibrated neighboring joint density-based approaches with a simple feature set to distinguish steganograms and tampered images from untouched ones. Our study shows that this approach has multiple promising applications in image forensics. Compared to the state-of-the-art steganalysis detectors, our approach delivers better or comparable detection performances with a much smaller feature set while detecting several JPEG-based steganographic systems including DCT-embedding-based adaptive steganography and Yet Another Steganographic Scheme (YASS). Our approach is also effective in detecting seam-carved forgery in JPEG images. By integrating calibrated neighboring density with spatial domain rich models that were originally designed for steganalysis, the hybrid approach obtains the best detection accuracy to discriminate seam-carved forgery from an untouched image. Our study also offers a promising manner to explore steganalysis and forgery detection together.

A Novel Text Steganography System in Financial Statements

A Novel Text Steganography System in Financial Statements

Current status and key issues in image steganography: A survey

Steganography and steganalysis are the prominent research fields in information hiding paradigm. Steganography is the science of invisible communication while steganalysis is the detection of steganography. Steganography means “covered writing” that hides the existence of the message itself. Digital steganography provides potential for private and secure communication that has become the necessity of most of the applications in today’s world. Various multimedia carriers such as audio, text, video, image can act as cover media to carry secret information. In this paper, we have focused only on image steganography. This article provides a review of fundamental concepts, evaluation measures and security aspects of steganography system, various spatial and transform domain embedding schemes. In addition, image quality metrics that can be used for evaluation of stego images and cover selection measures that provide additional security to embedding scheme are also highlighted. Current research trends and directions to improve on existing methods are suggested.

Statistical Image Classification for Image Steganographic Techniques

Steganography is the method of information hiding. Free selection of cover image is a particular preponderance of steganography to other information hiding techniques. The performance of steganographic system can be improved by selecting the reasonable cover image. This article presents two level unsupervised image classification algorithm based on statistical characteristics of the image which helps Sender to make reasonable selection of cover image to enhance performance of steganographic method based on his specific purpose. Experiments demonstrate the effect of classification in satisfying steganography requirements.

METHODS TO INCREASE STABILITY STEGANOSYSTEM FROM UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS

We have made a systematic analysis of the currently existing methods for improving the stability of steganographic systems to various kinds of attacks to which the container may be subjected to steganographic channel transmission. All currently existing steganographic information security system can be divided into 3 groups, which include theoretically stable systems , ie those theoretical absolute reliability is mathematically proved in full. Robust steganographic system must implement three tier security model : Level 1 - steganography to hide confidential information; Level 2 - specific steganographic method , Level 3 - preliminary cryptographic encryption. In this paper, the systematization model stegosystem offender , as well as in accordance with this , the classification of types of attacks. As a result , are the most effective methods to protect steganographic data , and general recommendations on their use.

Chaos-based Spatial Steganography System for Images

In this paper, we propose a chaos-based enhancement of two spatial steganographic algorithms; the AE-LSB and the EA-LSBMR and our objective is to study their performances. The first algorithm is an adaptive LSB (Least Significant Bit) steganographic method using pixel value difference that provides a large embedding capacity and imperceptible stego images. The second method is an edge adaptive scheme which can select the embedding region according to the size of secret message and the difference between two adjacent pixels in the cover image. The two methods suffer from low security against attacks that try to recover secret data.To overcome this weakness, we propose to enhance the message security of these methods. The enhancement consists of using an efficient chaotic system in order to choose in a pseudo-chaotic manner the pixels in the cover image where the bits of the secret message will be embedded. In this way, the inserted message becomes secure against message recovery attacks and becomes as well spread over the whole image in a uniform manner. Experiments show that the security of the algorithms is increased.

Building a Reliable Steganography System Using Random Key in a spatial Domain of Image

With time progress importance of hiding information become more and more and all steganography applications is like computer games between hiding and extracting data, or like thieves and police men always thieve hides from police men in different ways to keep him out of prison. The sender always hides information in new way in order not to be understood by the attackers and only the authorized receiver can open the hiding message. This paper explores our proposed random method in detail, how chooses locations of pixel in randomly , how to choose a random bit to hide information in the chosen pixel, how it different from other approaches, how applying information hiding criteria on the proposed project, and attempts to test out in code, and in practice, through example.

Building a Reliable Steganography System Using Random Key in a spatial Domain of Image

With time progress importance of hiding information become more and more and all steganography applications is like computer games between hiding and extracting data, or like thieves and police men always thieve hides from police men in different ways to keep him out of prison. The sender always hides information in new way in order not to be understood by the attackers and only the authorized receiver can open the hiding message. This paper explores our proposed random method in detail, how chooses locations of pixel in randomly , how to choose a random bit to hide information in the chosen pixel, how it different from other approaches, how applying information hiding criteria on the proposed project, and attempts to test out in code, and in practice, through example.

Uniform Embedding for Efficient JPEG Steganography

Steganography is the science and art of covert communication, which aims to hide the secret messages into a cover medium while achieving the least possible statistical detectability. To this end, the framework of minimal distortion embedding is widely adopted in the development of the steganographic system, in which a well designed distortion function is of vital importance. In this paper, a class of new distortion functions known as uniform embedding distortion function (UED) is presented for both side-informed and non side-informed secure JPEG steganography. By incorporating the syndrome trellis coding, the best codeword with minimal distortion for a given message is determined with UED, which, instead of random modification, tries to spread the embedding modification uniformly to quantized discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients of all possible magnitudes. In this way, less statistical detectability is achieved, owing to the reduction of the average changes of the first- and second-order statistics for DCT coefficients as a whole. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is verified with evidence obtained from exhaustive experiments using popular steganalyzers with various feature sets on the BOSSbase database. Compared with prior arts, the proposed scheme gains favorable performance in terms of secure embedding capacity against steganalysis.

Hiding Encrypted Data in Audio Wave File

at a time of globalization in which the whole planet become look like a small village and transport information through it with a push button in keyboard and at a time of huge evaluation in the digital world and for the millions of users to international net and some application importance, let us to use both cryptography and steganography as a means to protect the information from hacking and interlopers. Combinations of steganography and cryptography have been made in this paper to increase the level of security and to make the system more complex to be defeated by attackers. This paper presents a method of ciphering and hiding information into a cover of audio wave file. In the first step, the text is converted to its equivalent ASCII code. Text is scrambled using DES (Data Encryption Standard) technique according to secret key then the cipher text is embedded inside a cover audio wave file using time and frequency domain. The modeled system builds of a secret key steganographic system, which embeds certain text after scrambling into random positions inside audio wave file and the other technique used in this paper to analyze the cover audio into its frequency components is wavelet transform using Haar filter as a basis function. Tests were carried out to evaluate the performance of the modeled algorithm and results in successful hiding. From the simulation results on the time domain, it is noticed that value of Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) will decrease as the number of bits in the audio wave file to be replaced by the message increase and noticed that the value of SNR in frequency domain is higher than in time domain, so hiding in frequency domain is better than hiding in time domain.

Image Steganography with Cryptography using Multiple Key Patterns

Image Steganography is the art of hiding information into an innocent image. In this paper a new Steganography method is presented. First, the message is converted into ciphertext using a strong encryption algorithm with the help of secret key. In this proposed Steganography system, sender and receiver share multiple stego keys. Among the multiple stego keys, any one of the stego key is used for steganography. The information about the stego key (key number) is embedded in the first pixels of the original image. Based on the pattern given in the stego key, ciphertext is embedded in the pixels of original image. The receiver first extracts the key number and then obtains the stego key from the database. Using the pattern given in the stego key, ciphertext is retrieved from the pixels of Stego image. The ciphertext is decrypted using the secret key. Thus, it is difficult to recognize that some information is embedded in the cover image, called Stego image, which is same as original image. The proposed system is simple and robust against the attacks. General Terms Security, Cryptography, Steganography.

An Image Steganography Algorithm with Five Pixel Pair Differencing and Gray Code Conversion

Steganography involves hiding information in another media. PVD based steganography techniques uses the difference between the pixel values of a pair directly to hide the information. The proposed steganography system modifies the difference value before being used for hiding the information. This makes extraction of hidden data harder in case the steganography system fails. The algorithm divides the cover image in the block of 2 x 3 pixels and calculates average (N) of the bits that can be hidden in five pairs of that block. Thus if the difference value allows M-bits to be hidden in the pair, then only N-bits are hidden in that pair when M >N otherwise M (if M≤N) bits are hidden in that pair. Second level of security is added by converting the secret information into gray code before embedding it in the cover image. The algorithm provides good hiding capacity and improved quality of stego image with two levels of security for the secret information.

ENGLISH

The security of steganography system is improved by the scheme of steganography based on fractal images. Fractal image is a kind of non-linear graph. Fractal images can be easily generated using the non-linear model and computer graphics. But these images and their pattern depend upon initial conditions. In the proposed fractal image steganography, the secret information is inserted at the time of creation of fractal image by utilizing the initial parameters and the non-linear model. The fractal image that is generated at the sender side and receiver side are called as Cover-Image, and Stego-Image respectively. The receiver can extract secret information by comparing Stego-Image and Cover-Image with the same initial parameters. The effectiveness of steganography is amplified by combining it with cryptography and extending the non-linear model. So the security can be improved using RSA algorithm.

Temporal phase mask encrypted optical steganography carried by amplified spontaneous emission noise

A temporal phase mask encryption method is proposed and experimentally demonstrated to improve the security of the stealth channel in an optical steganography system. The stealth channel is protected in two levels. In the first level, the data is carried by amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise, which cannot be detected in either the time domain or spectral domain. In the second level, even if the eavesdropper suspects the existence of the stealth channel, each data bit is covered by a fast changing phase mask. The phase mask code is always combined with the wide band noise from ASE. Without knowing the right phase mask code to recover the stealth data, the eavesdropper can only receive the noise like signal with randomized phase.

Using Concept of Steganography and Visual Cryptography for Secured Data hiding

The most advanced and updated Shamir Encryption algorithm is efficient enough to prevent and stop unauthorized and illegal access to the secured encoded data. It is best to solution to ensure reliability and security of the data with the help of Steganography and Visual Cryptography. On the ground of the failure of the previous extensive research by expert to ensure security of the data. Index Terms: Data hiding, Efficient, Integrity, High performance, Reliable, Secured. I. INTRODUCTION Steganography is the art, Science, or practice in which messages, images, or files are hidden inside other messages, images or files. The person sending the hidden data and the person meant to receive the data are the only once who know about it, but to everyone else, the object containing the hidden data just seem likes an everyday normal object. When it comes to the data transformation algorithms Steganography and Visual Cryptography take advantages of different methodology in order to protect their respective payload. In steganography, only the sender and receiver aware of the hidden data and typically if the loaded file thing that comes to their mind is the question of what is the encrypted and how they can decrypt the hidden message . Steganography is concern with sending a secret message while hiding its existence. The word steganography is derived from the Greek words Steganos, meaning Covered, and Graphein meaning To Write. Cryptography is not concerned with hiding the existing of message, but rather its meaning by a process called Encryption. The word Cryptography derived from the Greek word Kryptos, meaning Hidden. Seganography embed the secret message in a harmless looking cover, such as digital image file. The need for steganography is obvious but what is less obvious is the need for more research in the field. Simple techniques are easily detectable and there is a whole field of defeating steganographic technique called steganalysis, advances in steganalysis which makes it constantly evolving field. Since most steganography system use digital image as cover, the whole field has borrowed methods and ideas from the closely related field of watermarking and finger printing which also manipulate digital audio and video, for the purpose of copyright. Even though, in principle, many aspect of image can be manipulated, in reality most stego system aim for the preservation of visual integrity of the image. Early Stego system goals were to make changes not detectable by the human eyes. This feature is not enough because statistical method can detect the changes in image even if it is not visible. Image compression also plays a role in steganography because it was found at on many occasion the result depend on the compression scheme used. Steganography struggle to find more efficient method to embed a secret message in cover object, only to be defeated by techniques derived by steganalysts.

Robust and secure image steganographic algorithm based on matrix embedding

Steganography is a sub-discipline of data hiding with an objective to modify a digital object, known as cover object, to encode and conceal a message so that it cannot be seen while it is transmitted on public communication channels such as computer network. The main requirements of steganography system are imperceptibility, high payload, security and robustness against transmission channel noise. The proposed work presented in this paper consist of a robust (non-fragile) steganography technique based on the matrix embedding using a self-synchronising variable length T-codes (to obtain compressed message from the original message) and RS codes (as error correction coding to provide robustness to the embedded message against transmission errors). The original message is first encoded using T-codes and then with RS-codes. The selection of the plane for embedding is made on the basis of variance of intensity resolutions. The secret message is then embedded in the selected 2nd, 3rd or 4th plane of the cover image using the matrix encoding technique. The proposed method is compared with other existing steganographic schemes based on error correcting codes. Experimental results show that the proposed method is an improvement over the existing methods.

The system to analyze of stability of robust steganographic algorithms

When building steganographic system for copyright protection, two requirements are presented to the algorithms. First of all, robustness requirement is presented: the resistance level of the data embedded into image to intentional or unintentional container distortion. Second, the requirement of minimal visible container changes when embedding data into an image. These requirements contradict one another; this is due to the fact that the smaller is value of distortion included into image while information imbedding, the less built-in data capability will be. Almost all the algorithms proposed allow to vary resistance parameters and the amount of included changes by changing a so-called embedding force coefficient P. Besides this, the data capability depends on format, size, and image palette, as well as on types and degree of distortion (attacks), to which the image may be exposed. Therefore, a compromise is needed between these two parameters for constructing a reliable and effective steganographic system.This paper describes the software solution developed for a practical evaluation of the stability of steganographic methods for hiding information in digital images.The results received allow us, when creating the system of steganographic data embedding into digital images, to reasonably choose the most appropriate methods and parameters of algorithms that provide the needed capability level to certain container distortions simultaneously with possible "invisibility" of embedded messages. Implementation of the most appropriate methods and parameters of algorithm obtained with the help of system developed into information security area will improve the existing steganographic systems efficiency.