A New Robust Method of Hiding Text Characters for Secure Open Channel Transmission

Summary This paper discusses a new method of hiding ASCII characters based on match between bit value of the randomly selected image pixel and the data bits. Bit positions in the higher nibbles of the cover image are used for data hiding at a position indicated using a 2-bit code. Simulation results on Lena, Gibbon and Cat images [1] for hiding a large set of ASCII text characters indicate that suggested technique achieves PSNR up to 44.7 dB as against minimum required 34 dB for acceptable perceptual quality [2]. Also, the bounds of the change in the original pixel value due to data hiding are limited to ± 3. Therefore besides retaining perceptual quality of the original cover the proposed method offers high robustness as compared to the LSB insertion technique [3, 4], it is less prone to attacks by eaves droppers and hence it can be effectively used for secure open channel transmissions.

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

[2]  Sushil Jajodia,et al.  Information Hiding: Steganography and Watermarking-Attacks and Countermeasures: Steganography and Watermarking - Attacks and Countermeasures , 2000, IH 2012.

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

[4]  Subariah Ibrahim,et al.  Information hiding using steganography , 2003, 4th National Conference of Telecommunication Technology, 2003. NCTT 2003 Proceedings..

[5]  Jessica J. Fridrich,et al.  Detecting LSB Steganography in Color and Gray-Scale Images , 2001, IEEE Multim..

[6]  H.V. Singh,et al.  Minimizing Security Threats in Multimedia Systems , 2006, The 2nd International Conference on Distributed Frameworks for Multimedia Applications.

[7]  Sushil Jajodia,et al.  Information Hiding: Steganography and Watermarking-Attacks and Countermeasures , 2000, Advances in Information Security.

[8]  Ajith Abraham,et al.  Significance of steganography on data security , 2004, International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing, 2004. Proceedings. ITCC 2004..

[9]  Nasir D. Memon,et al.  Analysis of LSB based image steganography techniques , 2001, Proceedings 2001 International Conference on Image Processing (Cat. No.01CH37205).

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

[11]  Giuseppe Mastronardi,et al.  Steganography effects in various formats of images. A preliminary study , 2001, Proceedings of the International Workshop on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications. IDAACS'2001 (Cat. No.01EX510).

[12]  Ingemar J. Cox,et al.  A Secure, Robust Watermark for Multimedia , 1996, Information Hiding.

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