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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO STEGANOGRAPHY

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The fast growth of the electronic era has led to all documentations,
audio and video being digitized. This has increased the requirement for
ensuring the safety and reliability of any document, audio and video to
maintain privacy, and to prevent piracy and mass reproduction. This
requirement varies from an individual to individual. The techniques used for
ensuring this are cryptography and steganography of which the former is
perceptible as noise while the latter is imperceptible to the human eye.

Current Digital multimedia provides robust and easy ways of

editing data. This data needs to be delivered safely over computer networks
without interference. Steganography is a method that hides data among the
bits of a cover file like a graphic or an audio file. The word Steganography is
Greek in origin and implies covered writing or hiding from plain sight
(Cachin 1998).

Steganography’s earliest usage is documented in History

(Herodotus 1992), around 440 B.C. American Revolution saw the usage of
invisible ink which could glow in heat, used by the British and Americans for
secret communication (Caldwell 2003). In world war two, German spies used
invisible dots in letters and changed heights of letter-strokes to hide messages
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(Petitcolas et al. 1999). World War I prisoners of war hid messages in Morse
code by using dots and dashes on alphabets like i.

Simmons G J (1984) illustrate the concept of steganography with an

example called the “Prisoners’ Problem.” Alice and Bob are the two
prisoners. Their goal is to develop an escape plan and bust out of jail, the
problem is that the only way to communicate is through Wendy, the warden.
If she is active, then she would interfere and try to remove or modify the
confidential message or simply stop the communication. Hence Alice and
Bob have to communicate with a shared secret key in such a way that Wendy
would not be able to decipher their plan without the key. This might be done
by steganography
Recent usage of steganography consists of special inks for hidden
messages on currencies, watermarking and fingerprinting for copyright
protection. Information hiding is disseminated in Figure 1.1 (Popa 1998).

Figure 1.1 Dissemination of information hiding

1.2 DIGITAL RIGHTS

The growth of the Internet has allowed multimedia content to

become available in digital form and is a major factor in the increased use of
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copyright marking. Though digital content can be distributed easily, it is also

easy to misuse copyrighted material. Internet copies can be easily shared. On
a peer to peer network, the material can be stored on a server and makes it
harder for the authorized users to locate and prosecute offenders.
Steganography can be fragile steganography or robust steganography. Fragile
Steganography destroys the file on modification. It is unsuitable for recording
the copyright information, but helps to prove that the file has been tampered.
Fragile steganography techniques are easier to implement. Robust
steganography embeds information into a file that is not easily destroyable.
Although no mark is truly indestructible, a file can be considered safe, when
changes in the file make it unusable.

1.3 STEGANOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES

Steganography provides a way to communicate secretly as long as

an attacker doesn’t find a way to detect the message. The most suitable types
of files for steganographic transmission being, media files due to their large
size. The host files concealing other files are usually called carriers. The
carrier files are functional files and does not raise a question or arouse
suspicion. This section lists a number of hiding techniques that are being used
presently. Data can be embedded within a file by taking advantage of human
perception. Audio files use frequency masking on tones with similar
frequencies and the casual listener does not hear the masked quieter tone.
Table 1.1 lists the comparison between secret communication techniques
(Umamaheswari et al. 2010).
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Table 1.1 Comparison of secret communication techniques

Privacy reliability Robustness

Encryption Yes No Yes
Digital Signatures No Yes No
Steganography Yes / No Yes / No Yes

1.3.1 Binary File Techniques

Though Binary executable files can be protected by serial keys,

internet searches yield serial key generators for most programs and thus serial
keys alone may not be sufficient to protect a file’s copyright. Secret
information inside a binary file causes a change in its execution. Even one
additional instruction can cause a different execution and may crash the
system. If W = {w1, …, wm } is a Watermark, the source is first divided into
‘m’ blocks with a value of 0 or 1. If the block has wm =0, it implies an
unchanged block and wm =1, implies additional statements in the source.

To extract the watermark, the original binary file is compared with

the marked file and statement switches are extracted. The method is simple,
but not resistant to attacks.

1.3.2 Text Book

It may be easy to trace copyright infringement on a photocopied

book, but very difficult in electronic versions, where copies are identical or
copies are difficult to distinguish. Information embedding can be done using
characteristics which can be altered such as text formatting, but may be
visible to third parties. The answer to this problem is, altering the document in
a way so that it is not visible to the human eye and yet decodes it using a
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computer. The embedding of information inside a document is depicted in

Figure 1.2. The encoder uses the codebook or a set of rules for encoding the
document.

Codebook

Encoder
Original Document Marked Document

Figure 1.2 Document embedding

1.3.3 Line Shift Coding

In line shift coding, various lines inside the document are shifted up
or down by a small fraction like 1/300th of an inch based on a codebook. The
shifted lines are undetectable to the naked eye but detectable with a computer.
Differential encoding techniques like shifting a line without moving the
adjacent lines are also used. By shifting a line up or down, a single bit, 0 or 1
can be represented, thus hiding large amounts of information using this
encoding in a document.

1.3.4 Word Shift Coding

Word shift coding protocol is similar to line shift coding protocol,

except that words are shifted left or right. It uses the justification of a
document and represents a, 0 for left shift and 1 for right shift.
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1.3.5 Feature Coding

In feature coding, the document is examined by a parser and a

codebook specific to the document is automatically built. It picks on features
like height of certain alphabets, the dots above i and j, length of horizontal
lines of letters f and t, to hide information and each of these are marked in the
document.

1.3.6 White Space Manipulation

White spaces can be used to hide data. When used properly, white
spaces can be manipulated to store data bits. Adding certain amount of white
spaces towards the end of line can correspond to a certain bit value. Since all
text editors skip white spaces towards the end of lines, it goes unnoticed by a
casual viewer. In a large document this can result in hiding a few lines of text
or secret codes like SNOW (Kwan 2001).

1.3.7 Text Content

Information hiding can also happen with unobtrusive text where the
grammar can be used to store messages. Compris Intelligence, is a program,
which uses this technique to hide secret information. Sentences are changed
retaining the implied meaning. For example “An auto can be driven fast on a
slippery road over the hill.” means the same as “During downhill drive on an ice
covered hill road, the auto can be driven very fast”. Random words in text can
also be used to encode information, where different words have different values.
It is easy to decide clever implementation by creating a spam email with a secret
message (Wayner 2003). Sir Francis in the 16th Century used messages with two
font faces namely bold and normal fonts. A secret message could be decoded
by judging the positions of the bold characters (Hipschman 1995).
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1.3.8 XML

XML (Extensible Markup Language) standard is extensively used

for data exchange. XML formats give plenty of opportunities to hide data. It
can be used in document verification to check if they have been altered. Any
embedded code in an XML document can be traced back to the source.
University of Tokyo has devised a method for hiding information in XML.
Though XML related files like .xsl, .dtd and .css can be used to hide data, the
XML source file is the best to hide information owing to its larger size.
Elaborate techniques use a combination of XML and XML related files to
increase robustness.

XML tags can be used to hide secret information. For example bit
string 01110 can be encoded with the following code in XML document

Stego key: <img></img> -> 0 <img/> -> 1

Stego data: <img src=”pic1.jpg”></img><img src=”pic2.jpg”/>
<img src=”pic3.jpg”/><img src=”pic4.jpg”/><img src=”pic5.jpg”></img>

Empty space in an XML Tag and an attribute order can also be used
to hide information. For example, element A and then element B can be
implied to be a bit value of 1 while A followed by C could be 0.

1.4 INFORMATION HIDING TECHNIQUES

Information security is the most important asset because loss of

information will lead to many problems in electronic world. The three
techniques namely cryptography, steganography and watermarking form the
base for secure communications. Cryptography is a technique in which the
secret message is encrypted and sent in an unintelligible format. It scrambles
the confidential data in such a way that it appears to be garbage to any
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unauthorized user. The secret data to be communicated is a combination of

permutations and substitutions and hence illegitimate users could not access
the message.

Steganography is an art of hiding the secret information within some

other file generally known as the cover. The cover medium is chosen
carefully so that it reflects some non-suspicious form of communication.

Figure 1.3 General schematic description of steganography with

different types of covers

The main objective of steganography is to provide a covert

communication between any two users such that an unintended user does not
gain access to the information by just having a look at the cover file.
Steganography is different from cryptography. The basic difference is that
the latter scrambles the data while the former just hides its presence. In other
words steganography hides the data whereas cryptography encrypts the data.

Steganography provides much more security when compared to

cryptography because there is no chance of any unintended user to know that
a message is being sent whereas in cryptography, there will always be a
suspicion that a secret message is being sent. Hence these are more prone to
be hacked.
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Watermarking is generally used for authentication and copyrights

protection. It can be used for creating an image so that it is recognizable. It
can also be used to mark a digital file so that it is intended to be visible
(visible watermarking) or visible only to its creator (invisible marking). The
main objective of watermarking is to avoid the illegal copying or claim of
ownership of digital media. Cryptography and steganography could be used
on private communication; usually for peer to peer basis, but watermarking is
employed between one to many i.e. same watermark is embedded in many
covers. Fingerprinting is a special type of watermarking, which would embed
label and serial number to identify a unique copy among several. While
cryptography involves making the content undecipherable, the other two are
information hiding methods where the mere presence of information is
hidden. Since these three techniques are interlinked, the differences among
steganography, watermarking and cryptography are discussed (Zaidan et al.
2010).

Table 1.2 Comparison of steganography, cryptography and watermarking

Steganography Cryptography Watermarking

Techniques LSB, Spatial Transposition, compensated
Domain, Jsteg, Substitution, RSA prediction, DCT
Outguess
Robust Yes Yes Yes
Imperceptibility High Low High
Selection of Any cover can be N/A Restriction in cover
Cover Chosen selection
Attacks Steganalysis detects Cryptanalysis Image processing
the presence of deciphers the aids in removal
information Encrypted /replacement of
information watermarks
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1.4.1 Steganography in Spatial Domain (LSB Substitution)

The Least Significant Bit ((LSB) substitution method, is a simple

but effective method to hide information in an image. The least significant
bits or the most significant bits of each pixel in an image can be loaded. The
loading of message bits in the image creates a new image by combining pixels
of the images. For Example Host Pixel: 10110001 and Secret Pixel: 00111111
then New Image Pixel: 10110011. The count of bits used for storing secret
image needs to be known to get the message bits. Figure 1.4 depicts a host
image with its stego image. LSB works well where priorities are equal in both
images. If one image has more room than the other it results in lower quality.
LSB has been found to be easy in recovering hidden information (Swanson
et al. 1996).

Figure 1.4 Original and stego images (LSB)

1.4.2 Steganography in Frequency Domain

1.4.2.1 Discrete cosine transform

Discrete cosine transform (DCT) is an important component in

compression of JPEG images (Leurs 2001). The image is split into squares of
8 x 8, where each block is transformed. The output of the transformation is a
multi dimensional array with Sixty four coefficients. Coefficients with small
values are rounded off to 0 producing a coefficients array.

They are further compressed using Huffman encoding scheme and

decompressed by an inverse DCT (Chao, AK & Chao, C 2000, Gailly 1999).
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Information hiding is more evenly distributed in the image, making it robust.

Figure 1.5 depicts a DCT

Figure1.5 Original and compressed images

1.4.2.2 Wavelet transform

Wavelet transform technique uses wavelets to encode an image.

This technique performs better than DCT, mainly due to its high compression
levels. It is a robust technique for information hiding and mostly used in
watermarking an image (Chan & Cheng 2004). The wavelets compress
images storing high frequency details separately from lower frequencies and
then compresses the wavelets. Quantization technique is further applied while
compressing images and hide secret messages in the wavelet information.

1.5 OTHER STEGANOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES

1.5.1 Video

Video steganography is a combination of sound and image

techniques. The video files usually have separate inner files for picture and
sound. Steganographic techniques can be applied to video and sound. The
mere size of any video file indicates the scope for hiding large amounts of
secret information and yet goes undetected.

1.5.2 DNA

Information hiding is done in DNA strands as explained by

Peterson (2000) DNA strands are made up of bases like adenine (A), thymine
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(T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G), which protrude from a sugar-phosphate
backbone. Tabulation is drawn representing three base combinations. To
create a secret message, DNA is synthesized using this tabulation of bases.
Secret information is placed between DNA strands and act as markers for
secret communication. DNA strands are added randomly to prevent the
detection of the secret message. DNA’s being minute like dot are sent on a
book, thus making it difficult to trace and retrieve.

1.6 ISSUES IN STEGANOGRAPHY

Steganography issues are specific in its domain. A common danger

in steganography is hiding malware, spyware, virus or trojans in pictures of
email attachments. The simplest way to hide malware is using double
extensions. Microsoft Windows hides the last part of file extensions. A file
with double extension like AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs is shown as a picture file,
overlooked and then executed. Embedded Macros in Microsoft word execute
on file open and automatically multiply using the email addresses stored in an
address book like the Melissa virus. Virus or Trojan can be programmed to
hide important documents in a computer and unhide them for a ransom like a
variant of the Melissa virus. Controversies continue to rage between
government and individuals, mainly due to the publishing and broadcasting
industry interest in hiding copyright, serial numbers and multimedia
documents. Current options for cryptographic options are limited and the
availability of public encryption can be put. Though strong encryption
methods are available to the general public, it is also a threat to public
security and safety, since it can be put to wrong use by criminals.
Steganography can be used by terrorists and criminals for their
communication as Steganographic exchanges have limited traceability.
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1.7 STEGANOGRAPHY LIMITATIONS

Steganography has its own set of limitations. The often quoted

Demerit’s secret message (Herodotus 1992), almost fooled the recipient, since
he almost did not understand there was a secret message. With encryption, the
recipient is sure of a secret message, irrespective of the file status. In
steganography, the recipient needs to know, there is a hidden message and
ways to unearth the message (Artz 2003). The size of the carrier for secret
messages is another limitation. The hidden message should not change the
embedding object in any way, attracting attention. Compressed files lose
embedded data.

1.8 MOTIVATION OF THE THESIS

A few paramilitary elements have been arrogating to themselves

unscrupulous methods to harm innocent people the world over. And one such
modus operandi is hacking. Steganography is one of the digital deterrents to
stop unethical people from attacking law-abiding citizens. This is the prime
motivation behind settling on steganography.

Moreover the contemporary market opportunities created by the

state-of-the-art digital distribution coupled with apprehensions that digital
works would be easy to copy is another reason for fixing on steganography.
Many a time people who seek complete confidentiality, look for
steganography in place of cryptography.

Although powerful encryption tools are available, the downside is

that, an encrypted message divulges itself that it carries a piece of information
and this prompts the hackers to start investigating possible links. Encryption
ensures confidentiality but not secrecy, while steganography disguises
information and by looking at a picture, it would be difficult even to guess
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that it has secret information. The scope of steganography combined with

encryption is additional security and invokes interest in the subject.

The spirit that virtuous engineers should also burn the midnight oil with
courage and determination to thwart the plans of equally hard-working
hackers is yet another reason to pursue the research on this area.

1.9 OBJECTIVE OF THIS RESEARCH

The prime objective of this research is to identify new techniques for

steganography, to develop a novel technique for effective steganography. The
study also aims to develop measures that objectively evaluate the usefulness
of steganography. This research aims to demonstrate steganography as a
complimentary tool for encryption where restrictions are in force.

This research work aspires,

 to develop security algorithms for secured data

communication using steganography

 to meet Confidentiality, Integrity, Authentication and Non-

repudiation requirements

 to implement new techniques of best possible pure and secret

key steganography

 to implement an effective stego system with maximum

payload, good imperceptibility, minimum key length with
more complexity against hackers through Random scan,
Cryptography, Compression and Pixel Indicator
methodologies
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1.10 ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE THESIS

Development of

 Algorithm for finding the Grey value Difference among three

Neighbour pixels ( GDN) - to decide the number of bits to be
embedded in each pixel

 Data Embedding algorithm using zigzag traversing scheme to

enhance security and the quality of image in spite of high
capacity of concealed information. Error correction
mechanism using hamming code is applied to ensure reliable
secret communication

 Random image steganography algorithm for multiple users to

achieve flexibility of using the same cover for sending
information to two users, increased embedding capacity,
randomization .and robustness of the cover image

 Data hiding algorithm based on finding match to minimize

the MSE and increase the PSNR without compromising
payload

 Adaptive data hiding algorithm - Cryptography, visual

cryptography and steganography are put together to obtain
high security and robustness

 Novel algorithm to get stego image with high imperceptibility

by reducing mean square error of stego image

1.11 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS

The first chapter introduces steganography and the various

available techniques. Chapter 2 deals with classification of steganography,
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comparison of cryptography, watermarking and steganography, overview of

existing stego algorithms and literature survey.

Chapter 3 explains the method of implementation of image

steganography using random scanning (ZZTS) to confuse the hackers.
Chapter 4 discusses a new technique, Random Image Steganography
Algorithm for multiple users (RISAMU). In this algorithm, how pixel
indicator method is effectively used for sending information to more than
one recipient has been explained elaborately. Chapter 5 explains
steganography algorithm (DHFM) that has been developed in this research to
minimize the MSE without compromising on the embedding capacity.
Chapter 6 concentrates on combination of visual cryptography, cryptography
and steganography to enhance information security. Chapter 7 describes a
novel steganographic technique which demonstrates dynamic encryption
based technique in the spatial domain to minimize the MSE and increase
imperceptibility. .Chapter 8 deals with results and discussions of all our
proposed methods described from Chapter 3 to Chapter 7. The proposed
algorithms are all simulated using Mat lab 7.1 The performance of proposed
algorithms are evaluated in terms of MSE, PSNR, Bpp, embedding capacity
and MSSIM. Chapter 9 describes the conclusion and the future scope of the
research work.