Transmission Of Secret Information Research Articles

Visible security ink blended by Prussian blue analogues encapsulated gold (Au@PBA) nanoparticles for information hiding

Developing visible security ink with simple preparation, high optical stability and interference-free secret signals are critical to hiding security information. Here, two Prussian blue analogue encapsulated gold nanoparticles (Au@PBA NPs) with different triple-bond Raman emissions were synthesized to prepared novel red inkjet inks for security labels. And the ink formulation was well optimized to obtain suitable surface tension and viscosity. The labels contain public information in red as well as secret information that can only be acquired using Raman spectroscopy. With the visible public information on the labels, the secret information is not easy to be noticed. Also, the secret information written by the triple-bond Raman scattering is readily identifiable without interference. This method improves the security of secret information transmission, providing a new strategy for information hiding technology.

Reversible data hiding in encrypted image with local-correlation-based classification and adaptive encoding strategy

In recent years, reversible data hiding in encrypted images has attracted more and more attention due to its wide application in secret information transmission and image content protection. In this paper, we propose a reversible data hiding scheme for encrypted image based on classification and multi-layer processing. The image owner utilizes a block-level encryption method, including block-level bitwise exclusive-or operation and block permutation, to obtain encrypted image such that the correlation of pixels in most blocks is preserved. Therefore, there provably exist identical consecutive high-order bit planes (ICHOBPs) from the most significant bit (MSB) where the number of ICHOBPs is defined as local correlation. Further, a local-correlation-based classification mechanism is proposed such that these blocks can be classified into different types. The data hider adopts multi-layer processing to fully exploit the local correlation in each block. First, ICHOBPs of each block are utilized as redundant space for data embedding. For those blocks with a small number of ICHOBPs, an adaptive coding strategy is proposed to improve embedding capacity. Especially for those blocks whose correlation is not well preserved, we propose a special processing method to exploit redundant space. Experimental results show that our method can effectively improve the embedding capacity than other similar ones with keeping high quality in security analysis.

Reversible Data Hiding in Encrypted Domain Based on the Error-Correction Redundancy of Encryption Process

The existing reversible data hiding methods in encrypted domain separate image encryption from information embedding and do not make full use of the redundant space in the process of image encryption. In order to improve the performance of reversible data hiding by using the technical characteristics of image encryption, a reversible data hiding method based on McEliece error correction is proposed. Firstly, the segmentation position of bit plane is determined according to the embedding requirement and texture characteristic, and the image is divided into high and low significant bits. Secondly, because of the error-correcting characteristic of McEliece encryption, reversible data embedding can be realized while encrypting low significant bits. Then, the high significant bits are compressed to reserve space for the ciphertext extension of the low significant bits. Finally, the whole high significant bits information is stream-encrypted. As long as the image receiver has the decryption key, the image can be restored without distortion. By concealing the relationship between error correction and secret information mapping, the concealment of secret information transmission can be realized. In addition, due to different processing for different pixels, it can be efficiently transmitted with low computational complexity for applications that only need general images. The simulation results show that this scheme can not only realize the separable operation of information extraction and image recovery but also resist the noise attack to a certain extent. The maximum embedding rates of 10 standard images from USC-SIPI and 50 standard images from BOSS-BASE are 2.228 and 2.323 bpp, respectively.

A Novel Coverless Text Steganographic Algorithm Based on Polynomial Encryption

Aiming at the problems of low text utilization rate and ambiguity of secret information extraction in the “tag + keyword” coverless information hiding methods, we propose a coverless information hiding method of Chinese text based on polynomial encryption in this paper. The secret data communication is realized by the analogously forged URLs transmission, which improves the security of mobile computing to avoid the risk that the carrier texts are attacked maliciously. The text utilization rate and retrieval success rate are improved by using tags to select multiple keywords to expand the number of keywords in the index table. The keyword’s location in secret message is obtained through text vocabulary matching, and the tag index and location information are encrypted by polynomial for secret information transmission. The split keywords of secret message can be transmitted in disorder. The experimental result shows that the secret message can be successfully extracted by sorting the extracted keywords according to the frequency and relevance of their combined tags. In our experiments with different test databases, both the hiding success rate and the average hiding capacity are improved with higher test values than other existing methods.

Total Secrecy From Anti-Eavesdropping Channel Estimation

Anti-eavesdropping channel estimation (ANECE) is useful for a network of cooperative full-duplex radio devices/users. Using ANECE, a secret key can be generated by each pair of users, and additional secret information can be transmitted between a pair of users. This paper analyzes the capacity of the secret key based on ANECE, and compares it with the conventional method for channel training. The paper also analyzes the secrecy capacity of information transmission using an one-way scheme, and compares it with a two-way scheme. It is shown that the total amount of secrecy generated from ANECE can be substantially larger than that based on the conventional method especially when an eavesdropper may have an unlimited number of antennas. The paper also formulates a total secure degree of freedom (TSDoF) of the ANECE based scheme, and compares it with a prior scheme of secret information transmission from a multi-antenna node to another against a multi-antenna eavesdropper where channel state information is unknown everywhere initially. The comparison shows that there is a substantial gain of TSDoF by exploiting full-duplex radios and reciprocal channels via ANECE. Most of the key insights are highlighted in twelve proven properties.

Transmission of Secret Information Based on Time Instances

This Paper presents improvement and extension of previous methodology about timing steganography based on network steganography. The previous article uses time interval between two successive time instances of transmissions mixed with cryptography prior to hiding. However, this improvement tends to extend and provide new methods based on single time instance unlike the previous methodology which depend on two-time instances such as hours, minutes, second, millisecond etc. It further examines how to handle effect of different time zone and high precision timing for ultrafast timing such as millisecond, and many more which human actions is too slow for perfect timing. In addition, the extension based on Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP-IP) status codes where each element of set of status code are index and the index represents certain numeric of combination for hiding. Finally, the cryptography method is improved and extended to series-based cryptography with any defined number of different cryptography methods combined altogether with multiple keys generated dynamically. The methods for both cryptography and steganography were integrated and each module carefully tested for their feasibility and appropriate analysis, comparisons presented too. A brief discussion of possible extension or application of Time Interval and Instance Steganography from network based to Video and Audio time Steganography are presented which depends on time such as rate of change of features in Video, or in Audio as well. However, these video and audio Time steganography are considered as out of scope for this article which is mainly about network Steganography.

Method for hiding text data in an image

The main problem: The article deals with the issues of hiding text information in a graphic file. A formula for hiding text information in image pixels is proposed. A steganography scheme for embedding secret text in random image pixels has been developed. Random bytes are pre-embedded in each row of pixels in the source image. As a result of the operations performed, a key image is obtained. The text codes are embedded in random bytes of pixels of a given RGB channel. To form a secret message, the characters of the ASCII code table are used. Demo encryption and decryption programs have been developed in the Python 3.5.2 programming language. A graphic file is used as the decryption key. Purpose: To develop an algorithm for embedding text information in random pixels of an image. Methods: Among the methods of hiding information in graphic images, the LSB method of hiding information is widely used, in which the lower bits in the image bytes responsible for color encoding are replaced by the bits of the secret message. Analysis of methods of hiding information in graphic files and modeling of algorithms showed an increase in the level of protection of hidden information from detection. Results and their significance: Using the proposed steganography scheme and the algorithm for embedding bytes of a secret message in a graphic file, protection against detection of hidden information is significantly increased. The advantage of this steganography scheme is that for decryption, a key image is used, in which random bytes are pre-embedded. In addition, the entire pixel bits of the container image are used to display the color shades. It can also be noted that the developed steganography scheme allows not only to transmit secret information, but also to add digital fingerprints or hidden tags to the image.

Smart Home Privacy Protection Based on the Improved LSB Information Hiding

Smart home is an emerging form of the Internet of Things (IoT), enabling people to enjoy a convenient and intelligent life. The data generated by smart home devices are transmitted through the public channel, which is not secure enough, so the secret data in smart home are easily intercepted by malicious adversaries. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a smart home privacy protection method combining DES encryption and the improved Least Significant Bit (LSB) information hiding algorithm, changing the practice of directly exposing smart home secret information to the Internet, first, using Data Encryption Standard (DES) encryption to encrypt the smart home information and second, the improved LSB information hiding algorithm is used to hide the ciphertext, so that the adversary cannot detect the smart home secret information. The goal of the scheme is to provide a double protection for the secure transmission of the smart home secret information. If an attacker wants to carry out an attack, it has to break through at least two defense lines, which seems impossible to do. Experiment results show that the improved LSB algorithm is more robust than the existing algorithms, and it is very safe. Therefore, the scheme proposed in this paper is very practical for protecting the smart home secret information.

Reversible Data Hiding in Encrypted Image Based on (7, 4) Hamming Code and UnitSmooth Detection.

With the development of cloud storage and privacy protection, reversible data hiding in encrypted images (RDHEI) plays the dual role of privacy protection and secret information transmission. RDHEI has a good application prospect and practical value. The current RDHEI algorithms still have room for improvement in terms of hiding capacity, security and separability. Based on (7, 4) Hamming Code and our proposed prediction/ detection functions, this paper proposes a Hamming Code and UnitSmooth detection based RDHEI scheme, called HUD-RDHEI scheme for short. To prove our performance, two database sets—BOWS-2 and BOSSBase—have been used in the experiments, and peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and pure embedding rate (ER) are served as criteria to evaluate the performance on image quality and hiding capacity. Experimental results confirm that the average pure ER with our proposed scheme is up to 2.556 bpp and 2.530 bpp under BOSSBase and BOWS-2, respectively. At the same time, security and separability is guaranteed. Moreover, there are no incorrect extracted bits during data extraction phase and the visual quality of directly decrypted image is exactly the same as the cover image.

Towards a high capacity coverless information hiding approach

Most of the coverless information hiding approaches use a set of cover images as stego-images which make them unsuitable for real-time applications. Moreover, the parameters that affect the hiding capacity and the robustness against image processing attacks are not explicitly studied. This paper explores the effectiveness of coverless information hiding using only one cover image to transmit secret information based on eigen decomposition. The proposed approach performs coverless information hiding by establishing mapping relationships between the hash codes of the image blocks and the characters of the secret message. The hash code is calculated by splitting the block into 9 sub-blocks and then comparing the largest eigenvalues of the sub-blocks according to four arrangements. To speed up the embedding process, we build a lookup table to store the pre-computed hash codes with the corresponding block locations. The approach has three important parameters: overlapping blocks, arrangements of sub-blocks, and block sizes. Several experiments are conducted to analyze the effect of these parameters on performance. The results of the analyses indicate that the overlapping between image blocks is necessary to generate a sufficient number of unique hash codes. Otherwise, the embedding process could not be completed using a single image. The arrangement between sub-blocks has a lower impact on the number of unique hash codes and the resilience against image processing attacks. The block size is another important parameter. As the block size increases, the hiding capacity decreases and the resilience against image processing attacks improves. Compared with other coverless information hiding approaches, the proposed approach has a higher hiding capacity and better resilience against image processing attacks. Moreover, the approach has short execution time and better resistance to detecting tools.

CNN based watermarking technique for authentication of valid subscribers

The use of Watermarking has become very important technique for security and authentication and also many more as we are that plays a important role in providing very good security and authentication for image transmission and also in the reception, In the case of broadcasting and general transmission of confidential secret information. The deep learning techniques with multiple layers having multiple waits. The deep learning techniques are adding Intelligence (AI) to the existing models, In the recent past it has presented great success proficiencies for number of tasks, like visual investigation, speech detection, natural language processing and etc. In this process there have come up many usable models. Building up a creation level profound learning structure is a non-insignificant assignment, which requisites a lot of preparing information, amazing processing assets, and human algorithmic. Therefore, it is a very importance which can actually harm human exploration. Ill-conceived recreating, conveyance, and the induction of exclusive profound learning models can prompt copyright encroachment and it is financial mischief to demonstrate makers. Hence, it is vital for devises method to ensure the licensed innovation of profound learning model.

On the security and confidentiality of quantum key distribution

AbstractCryptography is a scientific method that is used to transmit secret information. In contrast, quantum cryptography depends on physical laws to encrypt information; when the quantum computer appeared, the classic encryption method becomes inefficient. The quantum method is commonly used to distribute keys, a process called as quantum key distribution (QKD). In this paper, we consider the efficiency of the quantum method compared to classical methods. Also, we discuss the security of QKD against several attacks and provide security analysis based on probabilistic models. Additionally, the paper explains how to encrypt random numbers into a sequence of photons using a QKD system for the distribution of a key. This research demonstrates the efficiency and security of QKD in sending and distributing keys between communication parties. Thus, both the sender and the receiver would be able to obtain a security key using the quantum method rather than classical methods.

A coverless steganography method based on generative adversarial network

The traditional information hiding is realized by embedding the secret information into the multimedia, but it will inevitably leave the modification mark in the carrier. This paper proposed a new method of coverless information hiding. First, the improved Wasserstein GAN (WGAN-GP) model is constructed, and the model is trained with disguised images and secret images. Then, after the model is stable, a disguised image is passed to the generator. Finally, the generator generates the image that is visually the same as the secret image, thereby achieving the same effect as transmitting the secret image. Experimental results show that this method not only has a good effect on the security of secret information transmission, but also increases the capacity of information hiding.

Quantum key establishment via a multimode fiber.

Quantum communication aims to provide absolutely secure transmission of secret information. State-of-the-art methods encode symbols into single photons or coherent light with much less than one photon on average. For long-distance communication, typically a single-mode fiber is used and significant effort has been devoted already to increase the data carrying capacity of a single optical line. Here we propose and demonstrate a fundamentally new concept for remote key establishment. Our method allows high-dimensional alphabets using spatial degrees of freedom by transmitting information through a light-scrambling multimode fiber and exploiting the no-cloning theorem. Eavesdropper attacks can be detected without using randomly switched mutually unbiased bases. We prove the security against a common class of intercept-resend and beam-splitting attacks with single-photon Fock states and with weak coherent light. Since it is optical fiber based, our method allows to naturally extend secure communication to larger distances. We experimentally demonstrate this new type of key exchange method by encoding information into a few-photon light pulse decomposed over guided modes of an easily available multimode fiber.

Full key dependent coverless test disguise method by interval-extension-based double authentications

In traditional search-based coverless information hiding methods, there are some problems such as the low hidden capacity, high cost of database creation and search, dense transmission of data, and absence of authentication. To avoid these problems, we propose a full key dependent coverless test disguise method by interval-extension-based double authentications. We transform secret information into a coded sequence by a random codebook sequence that is generated by user keys. The initialized codebook sequence is used to hinder the direct transmission of secret information. Then, we use candidate answers’ orders and question set indexes to express the coded index sequence. In the restoration process, the extracted information can be authenticated efficiently by the legal interval and a comparison. The experimental results and analysis show that our method achieves a high hidden capacity with a simpler test database, avoids dense transmission of data and authenticates extracted information well. Without the correct user keys, the secret information cannot be acquired.

Reversible-Enhanced Stego Block Chaining Image Steganography: A Highly Efficient Data Hiding Technique

The secure exchange of secret information is one of the most important challenges in the era of modern communication. To address the issue and establish secure communication, various techniques have been developed. Transmitting secret information in a hidden manner is one of the numerous possible solutions. It can be used to transmit secret information, hidden in other media called cover medium. However, this increases the amount of transmittable data and bandwidth requirements. The work proposed technique is an effort to hide secret information in a cover medium to achieve secure communication, reduce the bandwidth requirement, and ensure the retrieval of secret information in full-strength. The proposed data hiding technique has a high data hiding capacity (HC), provides a high level of security, and results in high-quality stego images. The proposed technique, reversible-enhanced stego block chaining (RESBC), has demonstrated very good results as compared to the state-of-the-art steganography techniques. The RESBC successfully solves the data rate requirement of SBC. It has an improved security level of secret information as compared to the 4-least significant bits (4LSB) steganography. The RESBC has solved the problem of information recovery, associated with ESBC and ensures full health recovery.

Detection and Localization of the Eavesdropper in MIMO Systems

The pilot spoofing attack (PSA) is one kind of active eavesdropping that happens in the channel training phase, in which an intelligent eavesdropper transmits identical pilot sequences synchronously with the legitimate user to spoof the transmitter. This attack leads to the estimated channel being a mix of a legitimate channel (the channel from the transmitter to the legitimate user) and an eavesdropper channel (the channel from the transmitter to the eavesdropper). And as a result, confidential information is leaked to the eavesdropper during the data transmission phase. Especially when the eavesdropper utilizes sufficiently large power, the channel rate at the legitimate user end decreases observably and increases dramatically at the eavesdropper. To against the active PSA, we propose a new effective scheme called the spatial spectrum method (SSM) which can be applied in situations in which the eavesdropper attacks not only the transmitter but also the legitimate user in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems. Specifically, this method utilizes the spatial spectrums that are attained by the uplink training phase to detect the eavesdropper. Besides it also can locate the legitimate user and the eavesdropper by identifying the direction-of-arrival (DOA) of the legitimate user and the eavesdropper based on the symmetry of the uplink and downlink channels in a time-division-duplex (TDD) system and estimating the geographical distance between the legitimate user and the eavesdropper. Consequently, the secure transmission of secret information can be guaranteed by utilizing spatial information, such as by adopting beamforming technology. Numerical results show that our method can effectively detect and locate the eavesdropper.

A Novel Behavior Steganography Model Based on Secret Sharing

This article proposes a novel behavior steganography model based on secret sharing, the main idea of which is to use secret messages as random elements in the secret sharing process to generate shadow images. Based on the introduced model and analyzing two secret image sharing algorithms — threshold secret image sharing (SIS) and threshold visual secret sharing (VSS), two specific behavior steganography schemes are presented, which are implemented by utilizing secret sharing behavior. In the embedding phase, the random selection behavior is employed to hide secret messages. In the extraction phase, when the secret image is recovered from shadow images, secret messages can also be extracted successfully. The contribution of the authors model is that two secret information transmission channels are opened, which provides a large amount of hidden capacity and has loss tolerance and so on. Experimental results and analyses demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. It has both good imperceptibility and large capacity, but the robustness of their scheme is poor.

A high-capacity coverless image steganography method based on double-level index and block matching.

Recently, a new information hiding technology called coverless information steganography (CIS) is proposed, which uses the original natural image as stego image for the transmission of secret information which can resist the detection of image steganalysis algorithm, so it received extensive attention and support. However, it is still a low hidden capacity of the CIS methods up to now. This paper proposes a high-capacity coverless information steganography technology. In which we divide the cover image into several image blocks and every image block can represent one bit secret information which improves the capacity greatly. Then we retrieve the image blocks for replacement from the image block database based on secret information and then synthesize them into stego image. The quality of the stego image is still high because the required image blocks are similar to cover image blocks and they are all from natural images. Moreover, in order to improve the retrieval efficiency, we have established a double-level index structure. The experimental results show that compared with the existing CIS methods, the proposed method has larger capacity and better visual quality.

Low-Cost and Secure Firmware Obfuscation Method for Protecting Electronic Systems From Cloning

The continuous growth of the cloning of electronic devices poses a severe threat to our critical infrastructure that uses the Internet, as cloned devices can transmit secret information and cause security concerns. Cloned devices can also be unreliable as they may be manufactured with inferior quality materials, and they may have many defects as they may not be tested properly. It is thus extremely important to protect these electronic devices from cloning. An efficient way to prevent a device being cloned is to prevent the firmware from being copied because, without the proper firmware, the device will not function like the original. In this paper, we present a novel firmware obfuscation method without encrypting the entire memory. The firmware is obfuscated by swapping a subset of instructions. The instructions to be swapped are specifically chosen so that an attacker cannot discover their location. During operation, the hardware reconstructs the original program using a physically unclonable function-generated identifier and a small memory that stores the swapped instructions. An adversary cannot make a program work completely without knowing which instructions have been swapped, as the program will execute in the wrong sequence and produce the incorrect result. Our proposed solution requires only a small overhead to reconstruct the firmware, making it practical for devices with strict resource constraints. This solution also allows remote updates of new obfuscated firmware without any modification and is practical for the rising trend of ubiquitous computing.