Locating secret messages based on quantitative steganalysis

Chunfang Yang; Fenlin Liu; Shuangkui Ge; Jicang Lu; Junwei Huang; Chunfang Yang; Fenlin Liu; Shuangkui Ge; Jicang Lu; Junwei Huang

doi:10.3934/mbe.2019247

Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering

2019, Volume 16, Issue 5: 4908-4922. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2019247

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Research article Special Issues

Locating secret messages based on quantitative steganalysis

1.
State Key Laboratory of Mathematical Engineering and Advanced Computing, Zhengzhou, Henan, 450001, China
2.
Beijing Institute of Electronic Technology Application, Beijing, 100000, China
3.
HERE North American LLC, Burlington, Massachusetts, 01803, USA

Received: 26 January 2019 Accepted: 25 April 2019 Published: 29 May 2019

Steganography poses a serious challenge to forensics because investigators cannot identify even traces of secret messages embedded using a steganographer. Contrarily, the objective of locating steganalysis is to locate the embedded message, which should help extract the secret message. In this paper, a methodology of locating steganalysis using quantitative steganalysis is presented for multiple stego images with embedded messages along the same embedding path. Three typical quantitative steganalysis methods are applied to the methodology to locate the messages embedded using LSB re-placement. Experimental results show that the presented methods can reliably estimate the embedding positions, which verifies the validity of the presented methodology. The presented methodology points out a new use of quantitative steganalysis, and further demonstrates that it is necessary to design more precise quantitative steganalysis methods.
- steganalysis,
- steganography,
- locating steganalysis,
- embedding path
Citation: Chunfang Yang, Fenlin Liu, Shuangkui Ge, Jicang Lu, Junwei Huang. Locating secret messages based on quantitative steganalysis[J]. Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 2019, 16(5): 4908-4922. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2019247

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Abstract

Steganography poses a serious challenge to forensics because investigators cannot identify even traces of secret messages embedded using a steganographer. Contrarily, the objective of locating steganalysis is to locate the embedded message, which should help extract the secret message. In this paper, a methodology of locating steganalysis using quantitative steganalysis is presented for multiple stego images with embedded messages along the same embedding path. Three typical quantitative steganalysis methods are applied to the methodology to locate the messages embedded using LSB re-placement. Experimental results show that the presented methods can reliably estimate the embedding positions, which verifies the validity of the presented methodology. The presented methodology points out a new use of quantitative steganalysis, and further demonstrates that it is necessary to design more precise quantitative steganalysis methods.

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