Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription or Fee Access

A Secure Steganography Method in Low Dynamic Range Images

Dr.G. Zayaraz, Dr.V. Vijayalakshmi, L. Mary Shyamala, V. Nagaraj

Abstract


To improve security, as well as to improve the quality of the stego-image, a steganographic technique by edge adaptive Least Significant Bits (LSB) substitution for Low Dynamic Range (LDR) images is proposed. The smooth and complicated areas of the image are determined by exploiting the dependency of a pixel on their neighborhood. In smooth areas, the method embeds one bit of secret information. In the complicated areas, variable number of bits is embedded. The scheme exploits the neighborhood information to estimate the amount of data to be embedded into an input pixel of cover image without producing perceptible distortions. Also, an optimal pixel adjustment process is used to enhance stego-image visual quality obtained by simple LSB substitution method. The proposed methodology enhances the embedding capacity and improves the stego image quality by adapting Zig-Zag Traversing Scheme (ZZTS). Additionally, modular operation and error correction scheme are also implemented to heighten the image quality and for reliable secret data transfer. The experimental results reveals that the proposed method can achieve higher embedding capacity and better stego-image quality compared with some existing adaptive spatial domain methods. On an average the proposed method can achieve a PSNR value of 42dB.

Keywords


Dynamic Range, LDR Images, LSB Steganography, PVD Steganography, Zig-Zag Traversing Scheme.

Full Text:

PDF

References


Nan. I Wu and M. S. Hwang, “Data Hiding: Current Status and Key Issues”, International Journal of Network Security, vol.4, no.1, pp.1–9, Jan. 2007.

Mielikainen. J, “LSB matching revisited”, IEEE Signal Processing Letters, vol.13, no. 5, pp. 285– 287, May 2006.

W. Luo, F. Huang and J. Huang, “Edge Adaptive Image Steganography Based on LSB Matching Revisited,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 201 – 214, June 2010.

Hengfu Yang, et al., “A High-Capacity Image Data Hiding Scheme Using Adaptive LSB Substitution”, Radio Engineering, vol. 18, no. 4, Dec 2009.

C. H. Yang, C. Y. Weng, S. J. Wang and H.M. Sun, “Adaptive data hiding in edge areas of images with spatial LSB domain systems,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 488–497, Sept 2008.

C.K. Chan and Cheng L.M., “Improved hiding data in images by optimal moderately-significant-bit replacement,” IEEE electronics letters, vol. 37, no. 16, p. 1017-1018, Aug 2001.

C. Chang and H. W. Tseng, “A steganographic method for digital images using side match,” Pattern Recognition, Letter, no 25, pp. 1431-1437, June 2004.

J. C. Joo, H. Y. Lee and H.K. Lee, “Improved Steganographic Method Preserving Pixel-Value Differencing Histogram with Modulus Function”, EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing, Volume 2010.

C. M. Wang, N. I. Wu, C. S. Tsai and M. S. Hwang, “A high quality steganographic method with pixel-value differencing and modulus function,” Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 81, no. 1, pp. 150–158, 2008.

Masoud Afrakhteh, Subariah Ibrahim,” Steganography Using More Surrounding Pixels”, Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering, vol.1, June 30 - July 2, 2010, London, U.K.

H. C. Wu, N. I. Wu, C. S. Tsai, and M. S. Hwang, “Image steganographic scheme based on pixel-value differencing and LSB replacement methods,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., Vis. Images Signal Process., vol. 152, no. 5, pp. 611-615, Oct 2005.

D.C. Wu and W. H. Tsai, “A steganographic method for images by pixel-value differencing,” ACM digital library, Pattern Recognition Letters, vol. 24, no. 9-10, pp. 1613–1626, June 2003.

J. Fridrich, M. Goljan and R. Du, “Reliable detection of LSB steganography in color and gray scale images,” Proceedings of ACM Workshop on Multimedia and Security, pp. 27–30, 2001.

M. Padmaa and Y. Venkataramani, “Zig-Zag PVD-A Nontraditional Approach”, International Journal of Computer Applications, vol. 5, no. 7, Aug 2010.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.