A high-capacity coverless image steganography method based on double-level index and block matching

Xianyi Chen; Anqi Qiu; Xingming Sun; Shuai Wang; Guo Wei; Xianyi Chen; Anqi Qiu; Xingming Sun; Shuai Wang; Guo Wei

doi:10.3934/mbe.2019236

Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering

2019, Volume 16, Issue 5: 4708-4722. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2019236

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Research article Special Issues

A high-capacity coverless image steganography method based on double-level index and block matching

1.
School of Computer and Software, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Ning Liu Road, No. 219, Nanjing, 210044, China
2.
Jiangsu Engineering Centre of Network Monitoring, Ning Liu Road, No. 219, Nanjing, 210044, China
3.
Department of Radiology and BRIC, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
4.
Mathematics and Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, North Carolina 28372, USA

Received: 13 January 2019 Accepted: 31 March 2019 Published: 23 May 2019

Recently, a new information hiding technology called coverless information steganography (CIS) is proposed, which uses the original natural image as stego image for the transmission of secret information which can resist the detection of image steganalysis algorithm, so it received extensive attention and support. However, it is still a low hidden capacity of the CIS methods up to now. This paper proposes a high-capacity coverless information steganography technology. In which we divide the cover image into several image blocks and every image block can represent one bit secret information which improves the capacity greatly. Then we retrieve the image blocks for replacement from the image block database based on secret information and then synthesize them into stego image. The quality of the stego image is still high because the required image blocks are similar to cover image blocks and they are all from natural images. Moreover, in order to improve the retrieval efficiency, we have established a double-level index structure. The experimental results show that compared with the existing CIS methods, the proposed method has larger capacity and better visual quality.
- coverless-information-steganography (CIS),
- high capacity,
- big data,
- data hiding
Citation: Xianyi Chen, Anqi Qiu, Xingming Sun, Shuai Wang, Guo Wei. A high-capacity coverless image steganography method based on double-level index and block matching[J]. Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 2019, 16(5): 4708-4722. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2019236

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Abstract

Recently, a new information hiding technology called coverless information steganography (CIS) is proposed, which uses the original natural image as stego image for the transmission of secret information which can resist the detection of image steganalysis algorithm, so it received extensive attention and support. However, it is still a low hidden capacity of the CIS methods up to now. This paper proposes a high-capacity coverless information steganography technology. In which we divide the cover image into several image blocks and every image block can represent one bit secret information which improves the capacity greatly. Then we retrieve the image blocks for replacement from the image block database based on secret information and then synthesize them into stego image. The quality of the stego image is still high because the required image blocks are similar to cover image blocks and they are all from natural images. Moreover, in order to improve the retrieval efficiency, we have established a double-level index structure. The experimental results show that compared with the existing CIS methods, the proposed method has larger capacity and better visual quality.

References

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