An LSB based novel data hiding method using extended LBP

In this paper we have proposed an LSB based data hiding method. Here, first cover image is encoded by LBP based method (call as ELBP). In ELBP method, a 3 × 3 block is encoded by k bits (1 ≤ k ≤ 9) respect to the central pixel. For data hiding purpose, the cover image is encoded by ELBP then r (1 ≤ r < k) bits are embedded into each neighbor pixel by replacing least r bits of the encoded stream and then modified pixel is processed by OPAP method to improve the quality of the stego image. Proposed method gives high quality stego images with higher embedding rate compare to the state-of-the-art methods. The security of the proposed data hiding method is tested against the attacks like RS steganalysis and Chi-square attack and these methods fail to detect hidden data.

     

Hiding data in dual images based on turtle shell matrix with high embedding capacity and reversibility

Reversible data hiding (RDH) is a technology that embeds secret data into a carrier where both the secret data and the carrier can be recovered without any data loss. Inspired by dual images technology, this article proposes to employ a high capacity RDH scheme that is based on turtle shell (TS). We start by constructing a newly designed TS-based reference matrix. Then, two meaningful shadows will be generated after hiding the secret data in the cover image with the reference matrix’s help. Meanwhile, the location conflict problem is solved. On the decoder side, when both shadows are gathered, the data extraction and image recovery can be accomplished using the orientation relationship between two stego pixels that are located at the same coordinates in the two shadows and the reference matrix. Moreover, we introduce a security enhancement technology that improves the security of data extraction. The experiment shows that compared with other state-of-the-art RDH schemes, a higher embedding capacity is achieved by this method, and a good visual quality is retained. Simultaneously, the proposed scheme is effective against attacks on pixel value difference histograms (PDH) and regular singular (RS) analysis.

     

利用像素置换的自适应可逆信息隐藏

目的 像素置换作为一种可逆信息隐藏方式具有良好的抗灰度直方图隐写分析能力,但嵌入容量偏小一直是其缺陷。针对这一问题,提出了一种基于像素置换的自适应可逆信息隐藏算法。方法 首先,与传统2×2像素块结构相比构造了尺寸更小的像素对结构,使得载体图像可以被更稠密地分割,为嵌入容量的提升提供了基数条件。其次,提出适用于该新像素结构的可嵌像素对（EPP）筛选条件,避免嵌入过程引起图像质量大幅下降。之后,根据EPP的灰度趋势差异对其进行自适应预编码,提高Huffman编码压缩比,进一步提升算法嵌入容量。最终,通过像素置换嵌入信息。结果 与2×2像素块结构的非自适应图像隐写算法相比,在同样保证灰度直方图稳定性的情况下该算法的PSNR提高了32%左右,嵌入容量提高了95%以上。其中自适应性对嵌入容量提升的贡献极大。结论 本文算法同时具有抗灰度直方图隐写分析能力与高嵌入容量性的可逆信息隐藏。算法构造了更高效的可嵌单位,并且针对不同载体图像的特点对其可嵌区域进行差异化编码。实验结果表明,本文算法在具有更好的不可见性的同时,嵌入容量得到大幅提升。     

增强图像平滑度的可逆信息隐藏方案

随着互联网技术的发展和社交网络的普及,可逆信息隐藏技术因其具有无损恢复载体信息的特性而被广泛应用于医疗、军事等领域的隐蔽信息传输。传统的可逆信息隐藏方案大多聚焦于嵌入容量提升和载密图像失真率降低,并未过多关注人们对图像视觉细节的要求,难以抵抗隐藏信息检测方法。针对上述挑战,从增强图像视觉平滑度方面入手,提出了一种增强图像平滑度的可逆信息隐藏方案,在嵌入隐蔽信息的同时提升载密图像最终的视觉质量。具体来说,所提方案将目标图像分为参考区域与非参考区域,利用非参考区域的图像像素预测值与原始像素值的差值作为信息嵌入的判断依据,通过差值平移来嵌入信息;进而构造图像平滑机制,采用高斯滤波作为秘密信息嵌入时像素值修改的模板,对预测值进行滤波计算,将滤波差值无损地加入载体图像中,以达到图像平滑的效果;同时将参考区域的像素值作为边信息,用于实现信息提取方对原始载体图像和秘密信息的无损恢复和提取;并以高斯函数中的滤波系数作为预置秘密信息对嵌入信息进行加密处理以保证嵌入信息的机密性。大量经典图像数据集的测试与分析结果表明,所提方案处理过的载密图像视觉平滑度得到了显著增强,具有较低的失真率、较高的嵌入率和较高的嵌入提取效率。在典型环境下,其生成的载密图像与高斯滤波后的图像相似度可达0.996 3,且可获得37.346的峰值信噪比和0.328 9的嵌入容量。     

Utilizing pseudo-spaces to improve Arabic text steganography for multimedia data communications

Steganography is used for multimedia data security. It is a process of hiding the data within multimedia communication between the parties embedding the secret data inside a carrier file to be protected during its transmission. The research focus is on hiding within Arabic text steganography as a current challenging research area. The work innovation is utilizing text pseudo-spaces characters for data hiding. We present two studies for this text Steganography utilizing pseudo-spaces alone as well as combined with Kashida (extension character) as the old Arabic text stego techniques. Experimental results have shown that the proposed algorithms achieved high capacity and security ratio as compared to state-of-the-art Steganography methods presented for Arabic language. The proposed pseudo-spaces stego technique is of great benefit that can be further used for languages similar to Arabic such as Urdu and Persian as well as opening direction of text-stego research for other languages of the world.

     

Hybrid wet paper coding mechanism for steganography employing n-indicator and fuzzy edge detector

Data hiding technique can facilitate security and the safe transmission of important information in the digital domain, which generally requires a high embedding payload and good stego image quality. Recently, a steganographic framework known as wet paper coding has been utilized as an effective strategy in image hiding to achieve the requirements of high embedding payload, good quality and robust security. In this paper, besides employing this mechanism as a fundamental stage, we take advantage of two novel techniques, namely, an efficient n-indicator and a fuzzy edge detector. The first is to increase the robustness of the proposed system to guard against being detected or traced by the statistics methods while allowing the receiver without knowledge of secret data positions to retrieve the embedded information. The second is to improve the payload and enhance the quality of stego image. The experimental results show that our proposed scheme outperforms its ability to reduce the conflict among three steganography requirements.     

Separable reversible data hiding in encrypted images based on scalable blocks

This paper proposes a new separable reversible data hiding method for encrypted images. Proposed scheme employs the pixel redundancy of natural images to construct embedding space. First, cover image is divided into multiple blocks with different scales. According to the pixel average value of each block, the lowest two bits of every pixel are vacated as reserved rooms. Subsequently, the whole image is encrypted by using stream cipher and the secret messages are finally embedded into the reserved rooms by the embedding key. Proposed scheme is separable in the sense that the recipient can achieve different function by the following ways: (a) If the recipient has only decryption key, an approximation plaintext image containing the embedded information can be obtained. (b) If the recipient has only embedded key, secret messages can be extracted correctly. (c) If the recipient has both decryption key and embedded key, he can not only extract the secret messages, but recover the original cover image perfectly. Extensive experiments are performed to show that our proposed schemes outperform existing reversible data hiding schemes in terms of visual quality, embedding capacity and security performance, even if a large-scale image database is used.

     

Reversible data hiding for high quality images exploiting interpolation and direction order mechanism

Reversible data hiding can restore the original image from the stego image without any distortion after the embedded secret message is exactly extracted. In this paper, a novel, reversible, data hiding scheme for high quality images is proposed in spatial domain. To increase embedding capacity and enhance image quality, the proposed scheme classifies all pixels as wall pixels and non-wall pixels. For wall pixel, the interpolation error is used to embed secret data over the interpolation prediction method. In contrast, the difference value between the non-wall pixel and its parent pixel, which is defined by the direction order, is computed to hide secret data based on the histogram shifting. The experimental results demonstrate that our scheme provides a larger payload and a better image quality than some existing schemes. Moreover, the performance of the proposed scheme is more stable for different images.     

Reversible data hiding for high quality images using modification of prediction errors

In this paper, a reversible data hiding scheme based on modification of prediction errors (MPE) is proposed. For the existing histogram-shifting based reversible data hiding techniques, though the distortion caused by embedding is low, the embedding capacity is limited by the frequency of the most frequent pixel. To remedy this problem, the proposed method modifies the histogram of prediction errors to prepare vacant positions for data embedding. The PSNR of the stego image produced by MPE is guaranteed to be above 48 dB, while the embedding capacity is, on average, almost five times higher than that of the well-known Ni et al. techniques with the same PSNR. Besides, MPE not only has the capability to control the capacity-PSNR, where fewer data bits need less error modification, but also can be applied to images with flat histogram. Experimental results indicate that MPE, which innovatively exploits the modification of prediction errors, outperforms the prior works not only in terms of larger payload, but also in terms of stego image quality.     

Inter-view local texture analysis based stereo image reversible data hiding

To enhance security of three-dimensional images, an inter-view local texture analysis (ILTA) based stereo image reversible data hiding method is presented. Due to low accuracy of existing predictors, two novel predictors are proposed to improve the prediction precision. In the first predictor, a texture analysis model is built by using ILTA, in which the texture similarity between a pair of matched pixels in the stereo image is used to classify pixels into horizontal texture, vertical texture, smooth and complex types. Thus, the accurate prediction is adaptively computed by considering the pixel type. Moreover, an intra-view based predictor as the second predictor is also described to predict pixels by optimal weights finding (OWF). Since ILTA and OWF predictors are combined to predict pixels in the stereo image, sharp prediction error histograms of two views are both constructed, and then multi-level histogram shifting is used to embed secret data reversibly for obtaining low image distortion and high embedding capacity. Experimental results demonstrates that ILTA and OWF predictors can obtain precise predicted values, and the proposed data hiding method outperforms some state-of-the-art data hiding methods in terms of embedding capacity and quality of stego stereo image.     

A novel algorithm for colour image steganography using a new intelligent technique based on three phases

A three-phase intelligent technique has been constructed to improve the data-hiding algorithm in colour images with imperceptibility. The first phase of the learning system (LS) has been applied in advance, whereas the other phases have been applied after the hiding process. The first phase has been constructed to estimate the number of bits to be hidden at each pixel (NBH); this phase is based on adaptive neural networks with an adaptive genetic algorithm using upwind adaptive relaxation (LS_ANN__AGAUpAR1). The LS of the second phase (LS_ANN__AGAUpAR2) has been introduced as a detector to check the performance of the proposed steganographic algorithm by creating a rich images model from available cover and stego images. The LS of the last phase (LS_CANN__AGAUpAR3) has been implemented through three steps, and it is based on a concurrent approach to improve the stego image and defend against attacks. The adaptive image filtering and adaptive image segmentation algorithms have been introduced to randomly hide a compressed and encrypted secret message into a cover image. The NBH for each pixel has been estimated cautiously using 32 principle situations (PS) with their 6 branch situations (BS). These situations have been worked through seven layers of security to augment protection from attacks. In this paper, hiding algorithms have been produced to fight three types of attacks: visual, structural, and statistical attacks. The simulation results have been discussed and compared with new literature using data hiding algorithms for colour images. The results of the proposed algorithm can efficiently embed a large quantity of data, up to 12 bpp (bits per pixel), with better image quality.     

A local variance-controlled reversible data hiding method using prediction and histogram-shifting

The stego image quality produced by the histogram-shifting based reversible data hiding technique is high; however, it often suffers from lower embedding capacity compared to other types of reversible data hiding techniques. In 2009, Tsai et al. solved this problem by exploiting the similarity of neighboring pixels to construct a histogram of prediction errors; data embedding is done by shifting the error histogram. However, Tsai et al.’s method does not fully exploit the correlation of the neighboring pixels. In this paper, a set of basic pixels is employed to improve the prediction accuracy, thereby increasing the payload. To further improve the image quality, a threshold is used to select only low-variance blocks to join the embedding process. According to the experimental results, the proposed method provides a better or comparable stego image quality than Tsai et al.’s method and other existing reversible data hiding methods under the same payload.     

Using contourlet transform and cover selection for secure steganography

In this paper, we present a new adaptive contourlet-based steganography method that hides secret data in a specific or automatically selected cover image. Our proposed steganography method primarily decomposes the cover image by contourlet transform. Then, every bit of secret data is embedded by increasing or decreasing the value of one coefficient in a block of a contourlet subband. Contourlet coefficients are manipulated relative to their magnitudes to hide the secret data adaptively. In addition to proposing contourlet-based steganography method, this work investigates the effect of cover selection on steganography embedding and steganalysis results. We demonstrate, through the experiments, that choosing suitable cover image by a proper selection measure could help the steganographer reduce detectability of stego images. The proposed technique is examined with some state-of-the-art steganalysis methods, and the results illustrate that an image can successfully hide secret data with average embedding capacity of 0.02 bits per pixel in a random selected cover image. Cover selection improves the embedding capacity up to 0.06 bits per pixel. Several experiments and comparative studies are performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed technique in enhancing the security of stego images, as well as to demonstrate its gain over the previous approaches in literature.     

面向可逆图像处理网络的可证安全自然隐写

目的 自然隐写是一种基于载体源转换的图像隐写方法,基本思想是使隐写后的图像具有另一种载体的特征,从而增强隐写安全性。但现有的自然隐写方法局限于对图像ISO(International Standardization Organization)感光度进行载体源转换,不仅复杂度高,而且无法达到可证安全性。为了提高安全性,本文结合基于标准化流的可逆图像处理模型,在隐空间完成载体源转换,同时通过消息映射的设计做到了可证安全的自然隐写。方法 利用目前发展迅速的基于可逆网络的图像处理方法将图像可逆地映射到隐空间,通过替换使用的隐变量完成载体源的转换,从而避免对原始图像复杂的建模。同时,改进了基于拒绝采样的消息映射方法,简单地从均匀分布中采样以获得需要的条件分布,高效地将消息嵌入到隐变量中,并且保证了嵌入消息后的分布与原本使用的分布一致,从而实现了可证安全的自然隐写。结果 针对图像质量、隐写容量、消息提取准确率、隐写安全性和运行时间进行了实验验证,结果表明在使用可逆缩放网络和可逆去噪网络时能够在每个像素值上平均嵌入5.625 bit消息,且具有接近99%的提取准确率,同时隐写分析网络SRNet(st...     

结合块旋转和马赛克拼图的生成式伪装方法

目的 搜索式无载体信息隐藏容量低,涉及大量载体密集传输;纹理合成无载体隐藏只能生成简单质地的纹理图像;马赛克拼图信息隐藏尽管能产生有意义图像,但需修改嵌入参数。针对以上问题,提出一种结合块旋转和马赛克拼图的生成式伪装方法。方法 将灰度图像进行圆形化并添加随机转角构建马赛克,通过随机坐标决定秘密信息的隐藏位置;在隐藏位置,根据密钥和放置位置来放置代表秘密比特串的圆形图像和施加认证转角,对于非隐藏位置则放置最接近圆形图像来掩盖秘密信息;将放置过程产生的偏差通过误差扩散分散给周围未处理像素。在提取时,结合质心旋转匹配提取秘密比特并进行转角认证。结果 采用圆形图像表达秘密信息而不涉及修改式嵌入,通过马赛克拼图产生有意义含密掩体,可通过质心旋转匹配提取秘密比特并进行转角认证。对密钥严格依赖,在遭受质量因子为50~80的JPEG压缩和随机转角攻击时,秘密信息可完整恢复,在遭受强度为8%~20%的椒盐噪声攻击时,提取信息的误码率低于5%,且对秘密信息的认证成功率均在80%以上。结论 所提方法具有较好的抗攻击能力,可抵御信道攻击且具备较高的安全性。     

Reversible data hiding in compressed and encrypted images by using Kd-tree

In this paper, a joint scheme and a separable scheme for reversible data hiding (RDH) in compressed and encrypted images by reserving room through Kd-tree were proposed. Firstly, the plain cover image was losslessly compressed and encrypted with lifting based integer wavelet transform (IWT) and set partition in hierarchical tree (SPIHT) encoding. Then, several shift operations were performed on the generated SPIHT bit-stream. The shifted bit-stream was restructured into small chunks and packed in the form of a large square matrix. The binary square matrix was exposed to Kd-tree with random permutations and reserving uniform areas of ones and zeros for secret data hiding. After that, a joint or a separable RDH scheme can be performed in these reserved spaces. In the joint RDH scheme, the secret data were embedded in the reserved spaces before encrypting with multiple chaotic maps. Thus, secret data extraction and cover image recovery were achieved together. In the separable RDH scheme, the secret data were embedded in the reserved spaces after encrypting with multiple chaotic maps. Since message extraction and cover image recovery are performed separately, anyone who has the embedding key can extract the secret message from the marked encrypted copy, while cannot recover the cover image. A complete encoding and decoding procedure of RDH for compressed and encrypted images was elaborated. The imperceptibility analysis showed that the proposed methods bring no distortion to the cover image because there was no change to the original cover image. The experimental results showed that the proposed schemes can perform better for secret data extraction and can restore the original image with 100% reversibility with much more embedding capacity and security. The proposed schemes significantly outperform the state-of-the-art RDH methods in the literature on compressed and encrypted images.

     

无损载体和鲁棒代价结合的JPEG图像鲁棒隐写

目的传统隐写技术在实际社交网络信道上难以保护秘密信息的完整性。在社交网络中,图像往往经过有损压缩信道进行传输,从而导致隐蔽通信失效。为了保证经过压缩信道传输的载密图像鲁棒性,设计安全鲁棒的隐蔽通信技术具有实际应用价值。基于最小化图像信息损失,本文提出无损载体和鲁棒代价结合的JPEG图像鲁棒隐写。方法首先,指出构造无损载体能有效维持隐写安全性和鲁棒性的平衡,对经过压缩信道前后的JPEG图像空域像素块进行差分,构造无损载体以确定鲁棒嵌入域;其次,通过对离散余弦变换(discrete cosine transform, DCT)系数进行"±1"操作,并计算空域信息在压缩传输前后的损失,设计衡量DCT系数抗压缩性能的鲁棒代价;同时,验证在低质量因子压缩信道下鲁棒代价更能区分DCT系数的鲁棒能力,最后,利用校验子格编码(syndrome-trellis code, STC),结合无损载体和鲁棒代价对秘密信息进行嵌入。结果实验在BossBase1.01图像库上进行对比实验,相比于传统JPEG隐写技术,构造无损载体作为嵌入域能有效地将信息平均提取错误率降低24.97%,图像的正确提取成功率提高了21...     

Data hiding based on overlapped pixels using hamming code

Most data hiding schemes change the least significant bits to conceal messages in the cover images. Matrix encoding scheme is a well known scheme in this field. The matrix encoding proposed by Crandall can be used in steganographic data hiding methods. Hamming codes are kinds of cover codes. “Hamming + 1” proposed by Zhang et al. is an improved version of matrix encoding steganography. The embedding efficiency of “Hamming + 1” is very high for data hiding, but the embedding rate is low. Our proposed “Hamming + 3” scheme has a slightly reduced embedding efficiency, but improve the embedding rate and image quality. “Hamming + 3” is applied to overlapped blocks, which are composed of 2^k+3 pixels, where k=3. We therefore propose verifying the embedding rate during the embedding and extracting phases. Experimental results show that the reconstructed secret messages are the same as the original secret message, and the proposed scheme exhibits a good embedding rate compared to those of previous schemes.     

Weighted matrix based reversible watermarking scheme using color image

High capacity, secure, reversible watermarking scheme using a color image for image authentication and tampered detection is still an important area of research. In this investigation, we have proposed a weighted matrix based reversible watermarking scheme using the color image which provides image authentication and tampered detection. Here, we decomposed the original image into R, G, B color components and partitioned into (3 × 3) pixel blocks then we performed the sum of entry-wise-multiplication operations using a modified weighted matrix to embed the watermark. The watermark embedding locations are stored within an index file to enhance security, increase data hiding capacity, gain good visual quality, achieve reversibility and confirm authenticity. The proposed watermarking scheme not only perform authentication and tampered detection but also improved both data embedding capacity up to 8.00 (bpp) as well as increase visual quality measured by PSNR, 50.03 (dB). Finally, the scheme is compared with other existing state-of-the-art methods and gives a reasonably better performance in terms of visual quality and hiding capacity. Our scheme has been evaluated through various steganographic analysis and observed that the scheme is secure and robust against various attacks.     

An efficient data hiding method based on adaptive directional pixel value differencing (ADPVD)

Steganography is an important secret information communication technology in which one may send messages without others having knowledge of their existence. This paper proposes a new adaptive steganography method for color images using adaptive directional pixel-value differencing (ADPVD). The proposed method increases the capacity of the hidden secret data and improves the security of the stego-color image as well. The hiding capacity of the original PVD method is investigated by considering three directional edges: horizontal, vertical and diagonal directions using color cover image. The cover image is partitioned into 2-pixel blocks in a non-overlapping fashion and scanned in raster-scan order in all three directions. The proposed method adaptively selects the appropriate embedding directions for each color channel according to the largest embedding capacity. The security is improved since different pixel directions are employed adaptively to embed different number of message bits in each color channel. The experimental results show that the proposed method provides both larger embedding capacity and better visual quality of the stego color image compared with other PVD-based algorithms.