An Image Steganography Scheme using Randomized Algorithm and Context-Free Grammar
About this article
Abstract
Currently, cryptography is in wide use as it is being exploited in various domains from data confidentiality to data integrity and message authentication. Basically, cryptography shuffles data so that they become unreadable by unauthorized parties. However, clearly visible encrypted messages, no matter how unbreakable, will arouse suspicions. A better approach would be to hide the very existence of the message using steganography. Fundamentally, steganography conceals secret data into innocent-looking mediums called carriers which can then travel from the sender to the receiver safe and unnoticed. This paper proposes a novel steganography scheme for hiding digital data into uncompressed image files using a randomized algorithm and a context-free grammar. Besides, the proposed scheme uses two mediums to deliver the secret data: a carrier image into which the secret data are hidden into random pixels, and a well-structured English text that encodes the location of the random carrier pixels. The English text is generated at runtime using a context-free grammar coupled with a lexicon of English words. The proposed scheme is stealthy, and hard to be noticed, detected, and recovered. Experiments conducted showed how the covering and the uncovering processes of the proposed scheme work. As future work, a semantic analyzer is to be developed so as to make the English text medium semantically correct, and consequently safer to be transmitted without drawing any attention.
References
[1] Peter Wayner, Disappearing cryptography: information hiding: steganography & watermarking, 3rd Edition, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2009.
[2] Greg Kipper, Investigator's Guide to Steganography, Auerbach Publications, 2004.
[3] Jessica Fridrich, Steganography in Digital Media: Principles, Algorithms, and Applications, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
[4] Eric Cole, Hiding in Plain Sight: Steganography and the Art of Covert Communication, Wiley Publishing, 2003.
[5] J. R. Smith and B. O. Comisky, “Modulation and information hiding in images”, in information hiding, first international workshop, Germany: Springer-Verlag, vol. 1174, pp. 207–226, 1996.
View more references (12)
[6] Fabien A. P. Petitcolas, Ross J. Anderson and Markus G.Kuhn, “Information Hiding - A Survey”, Proceedings of the IEEE, special issue on protection of multimedia content, vol. 87, no.7, pp.1062-1078, 1999.
[7] Tovée, Martin J., “An introduction to the visual system”, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
[8] W. Bender, D. Gruhl, N. Morimoto, and A. Lu, “Techniques for data hiding”, IBM Systems Journal, vol. 35, no. 3-4, pp. 313-336, 1996.
[9] Johnson, N. F. and Jajodia, S., “Exploring steganography: Seeing the unseen”, Computer Journal, vol. 31, no.2, pp.26–34, 1998.
[10] T. Zhang and X. Ping, “A Fast and Effective Steganalytic Technique Against JSteg-like Algorithms”, Proceedings of the 8th ACM Symposium, Applied Computing, ACM Press, 2003.
[11] Eiji Kawaguchi and Richard O. Eason, “Principle and applications of BPCS-Steganography”, Proceedings of SPIE: Multimedia Systems and Applications, vol.35, no.28, pp.464-473, 1998.
[12] A. K. Jain, Fundamentals of Digital Image Processing, Englewood Cliffs publications, Prentice-Hall, 1989.
[13] Daniel Jurafsky and James H. Martin, Speech and Language Processing, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall, 2008.
[14] N. Chomsky, “Three models for the description of language”, IRI Transactions on Information Theory, vol.2, no.3, pp.113.124, 1956.
[15] J.W. Backus, “The syntax and semantics of the proposed international algebraic language of the Zurch”, ACM-GAMM Conference, In Information Processing: Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Processing, Paris, pp. 125-132, 1959.
[16] Knuth, Donald E., “Backus Normal Form vs. Backus Naur Form”, Communications of the ACM, vol.7, no.12, pp.735–736, 1964.
[17] Aho A.V., Sethi R. and Ullman J.D., Compilers: principles, techniques, and tools, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing, 1986.