A steganographic method for images by pixel-value differencing

A new and efficient steganographic method for embedding secret messages into a gray-valued cover image is proposed. In the process of embedding a secret message, a cover image is partitioned into non-overlapping blocks of two consecutive pixels. A difference value is calculated from the values of the two pixels in each block. All possible difference values are classified into a number of ranges. The selection of the range intervals is based on the characteristics of human vision's sensitivity to gray value variations from smoothness to contrast. The difference value then is replaced by a new value to embed the value of a sub-stream of the secret message. The number of bits which can be embedded in a pixel pair is decided by the width of the range that the difference value belongs to. The method is designed in such a way that the modification is never out of the range interval. This method provides an easy way to produce a more imperceptible result than those yielded by simple least-significant-bit replacement methods. The embedded secret message can be extracted from the resulting stego-image without referencing the original cover image. Moreover, a pseudo-random mechanism may be used to achieve secrecy protection. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed method. Dual statistics attacks were also conducted to collect related data to show the security of the method.

[1]  Eckhard Koch,et al.  Towards Robust and Hidden Image Copyright Labeling , 1995 .

[2]  Jian Zhao,et al.  In business today and tomorrow , 1998, CACM.

[3]  Ahmed H. Tewfik,et al.  Multimedia data-embedding and watermarking technologies , 1998, Proc. IEEE.

[4]  D Goerke.  [At the limits]. , 1980, Krankenpflege Journal.

[5]  Sushil Jajodia,et al.  Exploring steganography: Seeing the unseen , 1998, Computer.

[6]  Edward J. Delp,et al.  Perceptual watermarks for digital images and video , 1999, Electronic Imaging.

[7]  Walter Bender,et al.  Techniques for Data Hiding , 1996, IBM Syst. J..

[8]  Andreas Pfitzmann,et al.  Steganography Secure against Cover-Stego-Attacks , 1999, Information Hiding.

[9]  Ali N. Akansu,et al.  Capacity estimates for data hiding in compressed images , 2001, IEEE Trans. Image Process..

[10]  Michael Scott,et al.  Fractal Based Image Steganography , 1996, Information Hiding.

[11]  Jiri Fridrich,et al.  Secure Steganographic Methods for Palette Images , 1999, Information Hiding.

[12]  I. Pitas,et al.  The use of watermarks in the protection of digital multimedia products , 1999, Proc. IEEE.

[13]  D. Artz,et al.  Digital steganography: hiding data within data , 2001 .

[14]  Wenjun Zeng,et al.  Image-adaptive watermarking using visual models , 1998, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..

[15]  Edward J. Delp,et al.  Digital watermarking: algorithms and applications , 2001, IEEE Signal Process. Mag..

[16]  Ingemar J. Cox,et al.  Watermarking applications and their properties , 2000, Proceedings International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing (Cat. No.PR00540).

[17]  Jessica J. Fridrich,et al.  Practical steganalysis of digital images: state of the art , 2002, IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging.

[18]  Jiri Fridrich,et al.  Image watermarking for tamper detection , 1998, Proceedings 1998 International Conference on Image Processing. ICIP98 (Cat. No.98CB36269).

[19]  Ingemar J. Cox,et al.  Secure spread spectrum watermarking for multimedia , 1997, IEEE Trans. Image Process..

[20]  Minerva M. Yeung,et al.  An invisible watermarking technique for image verification , 1997, Proceedings of International Conference on Image Processing.

[21]  Nicholas F. Maxemchuk,et al.  Electronic document distribution , 1994, AT&T Technical Journal.

[22]  Jessica J. Fridrich,et al.  Reliable detection of LSB steganography in color and grayscale images , 2001, MM&Sec '01.

[23]  Ross J. Anderson,et al.  On the limits of steganography , 1998, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..

[24]  Kineo Matsui,et al.  Embedding a seal into a picture under orthogonal wavelet transform , 1996, Proceedings of the Third IEEE International Conference on Multimedia Computing and Systems.

[25]  Markus G. Kuhn,et al.  Information hiding-a survey , 1999, Proc. IEEE.

[26]  Frank Hartung,et al.  Multimedia watermarking techniques , 1999, Proc. IEEE.

[27]  Andreas Pfitzmann,et al.  Attacks on Steganographic Systems Breaking the Steganographic Utilities EzStego , Jsteg , Steganos , and STools — and Some Lessons Learned , 2000 .

[28]  Ioannis Pitas,et al.  Robust image watermarking in the spatial domain , 1998, Signal Process..