Wave Steganography

Department of Information Technology, W.C.E. Sangli, Maharashtra, India 2 Tata Consultancy Services, Ahmadabad, Gujarat, India 3 Infosys, Kolkata, India 1 e-mails: anantumbarkar@rediffmail.com, 2abhijitpjoshi@gmail.com, 3jadhav.ajay11@gmail.com
1

Anant Umbarkar1, Abhijit Joshi2, Ajay Jadhav3

Abstract - Steganography is the art of hiding message in order to have a secure data communication. This paper addresses a technique for wave steganography. In this paper we proposed the idea to replace bits according to the distortion afforded with lossy or lossless and recovery methods. Carrier file bits are replaced by message file. Message embeded in this method is in form of wave. Hidden message can be recovered by applying reverse algorithm. Message file is hidden into the carrier file by using LSB technique, as modifications will usually not create audible changes to the sounds. Results show that the proposed methods are novel for wave steganography for 16 bit stereo wave files. . Keywords - Information hiding, Steganography, LSB.

I. INTRODUCTION
Steganography, coming from the Greek words stegos meaning roof or covered and graphia which means writing, is the art and science of hiding the fact that communication is taking place. Using steganography, you can embed a secret message inside a piece of unsuspicious information and send it without anyone knowing of the existence of the secret message. The prevalence of multimedia data in our electronic world exposes a new avenue for communication using digital steganography. Steganography, where the occurrence of communication is concealed, differs from cryptography, in which communication is evident but the content of that communication is camouflaged. To be useful, a steganographic system must provide a method to embed data imperceptibly, allow the data to be readily extracted, promote a high information rate or payload, and incorporate a certain amount of resistance to removal [1], [2]. The two primary criteria for successful embedding of a covert message are that the stego signal resulting from embedding is perceptually indistinguishable from the host audio signal, and the embedded message is recovered correctly at the receiver. Other requirements such as robustness of embedding, data recovery without the original carrier signal, etc. may depend upon the type of applications [3]. In general, direct extension of the bit modification technique to host audio signals is precluded by the higher sensitivity and dynamic range of the human auditory system (HAS) [4], compared with the visual system. With

a large power and dynamic range, the human ear can detect a change in an audio file as low as one part in 10 million. If the embedded message is another audio signal, one may perceive the intended message even if some errors are encountered during the recovery. This is particularly important in covert communication as the stego signal may he received with intentional and unintentional changes due to noise in the channel or attacks. The primary goal here is to convey the concealed message albeit with reduced speech quality. Additionally, some degradation in the perceptual quality of the stego signal from that of the original host signal may be acceptable. If the host used for carrying the covert message is not a common or familiar audio signal, the degraded quality of the stego signal may not be noticeable by attackers; hence, the presence of information hidden in the stego may stay imperceptible and, consequently, impervious. Based on this premise, a method of data embedding by manipulation of the host samples in accordance with the covert information is described in this paper. For CD quality sound [13], it is necessary to encode 16 bits per sample at a rate of 44.1 kHz. Since the majority of the sound signal is stored in the M most significant bits of the sound code, changing the lowest N significant bits leaves the sound signal somewhat changed in quality and definition, but still recognizable, and often indistinguishable from the original. Data hiding in the least significant bits (LSBs) [18] of audio samples in the time domain is one of the simplest algorithms with very high data rate of additional information [19,20]. LSB coding [5,6] is one of the earliest techniques studied in the information hiding. This paper proposes two techniques for wave steganography. First is lossless hiding and recovery, where message file doesnt change. Second is lossy, where message file somewhat changes but offer high capacity embedding (up to 100% of the carrier file) in carrier file.

II. RELATED WORKS In this section review of the works which has been done on audio steganography is presented. Time domain is one of the common domains used for steganography [7]. Time domain steganography is usually simple and fast [8]. For example wavelet domain [9] and Fourier domain [10] are used to hide information in audio signals.

978-1-4244-5967-4/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

Different domains have special features which made them suitable for different application. But when the hiding and unhiding procedures are done in another domain such as wavelet or Fourier, some error are introduced. The source of this error is usually rounding error occurred during transform or when the signal is saved as a file or transferred via a communication channel. So it must be considered to know the error rate [11]. There are Error Correction Coding (ECC) methods which can be used to achieve zero error rates [12], but it is more desirable to have a method with low error rate.

III. SAMPLE DATA

The methods proposed supports 16 bit stereo wave files. 16 bit stereo wave file has two channels with each sample of 16 bits. Each sample of wave signal is in the range of -1 to +1 and is double values. Table I shows the sample wave files used. Carrier.wav is a carrier wave file into which a message file M1F1-int12-AFsp.wav is to be hidden. And after hiding the new file called Stego.wav is created. Size of carrier file is 113KB, size of M1F1-int12AFsp.wav is 91.9KB and 113 KB of Stego.wav file.
TABLE I
SAMPLE WAVE FILES USED

2. Read the carrier and message files. 3. Filter the sample values by following method as shown in fig. 1. filtered=int - mod(int, 2^numbits); Where, int = the integer value of the sample calculated by shifting the bits. filtered = filtered sample value. 4. Convert the double valued message samples to integers. 5. These integer values encrypted and then converted to binary values. 6. Select most significant numbits bits of the message file and convert to decimal value. 7. Add this decimal value to the filtered value (filtered) by following formula: tmp = filtered + dec; where, dec = decimal value calculated in step 5. tmp = temporary combined integer value. 8. Convert value of tmp back to double and save. 9. Repeat step 5, 6, 7 until all 16 bits of message channel are selected then go to next sample. At the receiver side to recover the embedded message file from the carrier file reverse algorithm is used.

Type Carrier Message Stego

Name carrier.wav (Stereo) M1F1-int12-AFsp.wav (Mono) Stego.wav

Size 113 KB 91.9 KB 113 KB

IV. IMPLEMENTATION
Numerous steganographic techniques have been presented, what is due to fact that multimedia objects have a highly redundant representation. The most common and simplest steganographic method is the least significant bit (LSB) insertion method that embeds message in the least-significant bit of host audio. Method replaces the least significant bits according to the percentage of the data to be hidden. The number of bits replaced in hiding is called the numbits. Message can be hidden in the carrier file by using two methods. A. Lossless method This method replaces least significant bits of the carrier file by bits of the message file for all the bits of the message file as we dont want to loose any information in lossless mode. It is used where importance given to the data and dont want to loose any information associated with the carrier file. Steps carried out in lossless method 1. Number of bits to be replaced i.e. numbits is selected.

Fig. 1. Lossless channel 1 for numbits=8

Fig. 2. Lossless channel 2 for numbits=8

Fig. 1 and 2, shows the hiding technique for channel 1 and channel 2 respectively for numbits=8. In this, the method filtered the sample of carrier channe1and places the first 8 bits of the message data in the filtered place.

B. Lossy method This method replaces least numbits bits of the carrier file by numbits bits of the message file for only numbits bits up to 8 most significant bits of the message file Since the majority of the sound signal is stored in the most significant bits of the sound code. Steps carried out in lossless method Number of bits to be replaced i.e. numbits is selected. 2. Read the carrier and message files. 3. Filter the sample values by following method as shown in fig. 1. filtered=int - mod(int, 2^numbits); Where, int = the integer value of the sample calculated by shifting the bits. filtered = filtered sample value. 4. Convert the double valued message samples to integers. 5. These integer values encrypted and then converted to binary values. 6. Select most significant numbits bits of the message file and convert to decimal value. 7. Add this decimal value to the filtered value (filtered) by following formula: tmp = filtered + dec; where, dec = decimal value calculated in step 5. tmp = temporary combined integer value. 8. Convert value of tmp back to double and save. 9. Repeat step 5, 6, 7 until 8 MSB bits of message channel is selected then go to next sample. 1. At the receiver side to recover the embedded message file from the carrier file reverse algorithm is used.

Fig. 4. Lossy channel 2 for numbits=8

Implementation of this proposed work is done in Matlab 7.1. Fig. 3 and 4, shows the hiding technique for channel 1 and channel 2 respectively for numbits=8. In this, the method filtered the sample of carrier channe1and places the first 8 bits of the message data in the filtered place and least 8 significant bits are not considered. C. Encryption of message To add another tier of security we added encryption algorithm. Simple XORing encryption is implemented before hiding message wave file in to the carrier wave file. D. Noise As wave file is digital data we calculate noise in no. of bits changed in stego wave file with respect to carrier wave file. We found that the noise level in stego wave file is negligible to carrier wave file.

V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fig. 5 carrier sample fig. 6 message sample fig. 7 stego sample and fig. 8 recovered sample show the plot of amplitude versus time for lossless method in which numbits = 8. As shown in fig. 5 and 7, there is no change in carrier and stego file samples, which are created after embedding the message samples. As numbits = 8 and method is lossless 50% message hiding is achieved with respect to carrier file size. Fig. 9 shows the percentage of hiding in carrier file with respect to no. of bits selected to be replaced (i.e. numbit) for lossless method. Fig. 10 shows the percentage of hiding in carrier file with respect to no. of bits selected to be replaced (i.e. numbit) for lossy method.

Fig. 3. Lossy channel 1 for numbits=8

Fig. 5. Carrier samples

Fig. 9. Lossless Trade-off (% hiding capacity versus numbits)

Maximum hiding & recovery:

TABLE II
RECOVERED FILES

Method Lossless Lossy Fig. 6. Message samples

Name of message wave M1F1-int16-AFsp.wav M1F1-int16-AFsp.wav

Size 92 KB 92 KB

Recovered file size 57 KB 92 KB

Table II shows the sizes of message file recovered. In lossless method the size of the recovered wave file is 57 KB and it is 92 KB in lossy method if 8 bits of the carrier wave file are replaced Lossless method has advantage that the data is recovered as it was at the time of hiding. But the limitation is hiding capacity is half of that of the lossy method for same value of the numbits.

Fig. 7. Stego samples

Fig. 10 Lossy Trade-off (% hiding capacity versus numbits)

Fig. 8. Recovered samples

Lossy method has advantage that the hiding capacity is double of that of the lossless method for same value of the numbits. But the limitation is that there is insignificant loss of message data as least 8 significant bits are not considered.

VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper we present a simple and effective wave steganography method on LSB technique. This Method replaces the least significant bits according to the percentage of the data to be hidden. This method has high capacity for hiding data. Another advantage of the technique is that the hidden information is extracted by methods; lossless and lossy. In Lossless data hiding, the proposed scheme employs data hiding and recovery of the data without any damage or loss to the message data. For lossy hiding, there is insignificant loss of message data to achieve maximum hiding. Experimental results show the proposed method has high transparency, full recovery and demonstrates correctness of the recovered data. Encryption is adding another tier of security. Future scopes of work include advanced encryption to add higher security for message. As carrier is uncompressed this method has scope for hiding even more data by compressing message before hiding into the carrier. Wave as message can be compressed by using vector quantization [16, 17] to achieve hiding more data into carrier file.

REFERENCES
[1] W. Bender, D. Gruhl, N. Morimoto, and A. Lu, Techniques for data hiding, IBM Syst. J., vol. 35, 1996. [2] I. J. Cox, J. Kilian, T. Leighton, and T. Shamoon, Secure spread spectrum watermarking for images, audio and video,

in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Image Processing, Lausanne, Switzerland, Sept. 1996, vol. 111, pp. 243246. [3] I. Cox, M. Miller "Electronic watermarking: the first 50 years", Proc. 4th IEEE Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing, Cannes, France, October 2001, pp. 225-230. [4] F. Hartung, M. Kutter "Multimedia Watermarking Techniques", Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 87, No. 7, July 1999, pp. 1709-1107. [5] C. Yeh, C. Kuo "Digital Watermarking through Quasi mArrays", Proc. IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Systems, Taipei, Taiwan, October 1999, pp. 456-461. [6] T. Cedric, R. Adi, I. Mcloughlin "Data concealment in audio using a nonlinear frequency distribution of PRBS coded data and frequency-domain LSB insertion", Proc. IEEE Region 10 International Conference on Electrical and Electronic Technology, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, September 2000, pp. 275-278. [7] W. Bender, D. Gruhl, N. Morimoto, and A. Lu, "Techniques for data hiding," IBM Systems Journal, vol. 35, issue 3-4, September 1996, pp. 313-336. [8] N. Cvejic and T. Seppanen, "Channel capacity of high bit rate data hiding algorithms in diverse transform domains, Proceeding of IEEE international Symposium on Communications and Information Technology (ISCIT 2004), October 2004, vol.1, pp. 84- 88. [9]N. Taraghi - Delgarm, Speech Watermarking, M.Sc. Thesis, Computer Engineering Department, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, IRAN, May 2006. [10]L. Gang, A.N. Akansu, and M. Ramkumar, "MP3 resistant oblivious steganography," Proceedings of 2001 IEEE

International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP'01), May 2001 vol.3, pp. 1365-1368. [11] D. Kirovski and H.S. Malvar, "Spread-spectrum watermarking of audio signals," IEEE Transaction on Signal Processing, vol. 51, issue 4, April 2003, pp. 1020- 1033. [12] P. Sweene, Error Control Coding (An Introduction), Prentice-Hall International Ltd., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1991. [13] Tag Vaughan, Multimedia Making it work, 5th edition, TMGH, 2004. [14] Johnson, N. F. and Jajodia, S, Exploring steganography: Seeing the unseen, IEEE Computer Magazine, pp. 26-34, February 1998. [15] S. K. Bandyopadhyay, Debnath Bhattacharyya, Poulumi Das, S. Mukherjee, D. Ganguly, A Tutorial Review on Steganography, IC3 Noida, pp. 106-114, August 2008. [16] M. Barlaud, P. A. Chou, N. M. Nasrabadi, D. Neuhoff, M. J.T. Smith, J. W. Woods, Introduction to the Special Issue on Vector Quantization, IEEE Trans. on Image Processing - Special issue on Vector Quantization, Vo1.5, No.2, pp. 197-199,February 1996. [17] Y. Linde, A. Buzo, R. M. Gray, An Algorithm for Vector Quantizer Design, IEEE Trans. on Communications, Vo1.28, [7] N. M. Nasrabadi and R. A. King, Image coding using vector quantization: A review, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 36, pp. 84-95, 1980. [18] A. J. Umbarkar, A. P. Joshi, A. A. Jadhav, A. R. Buchade, Wave Steganography Approach by Modified LSB , Proc. 2nd International Conference on Emerging Trends in Engineering and Technology, ICETET-09, Nagpur, India, June 2009, pp. 862-865, IEEE Computer Society [19] K. Gopalan, "Audio steganography by cepstrum although the algorithm is applicable to other resolution modification," In Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Acoustics, Speech, levels of wavelet and Signal Processing, Vol. 5, pp. 481-484, March 2005. [20] W. Bender, D. Gruhl, N. Morimoto and A. Lu, Techniques for data hiding, IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 35, Nos. 3 & 4, pp. 313-336, 1996.