A simple image encoding method with data lossless information hiding

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we propose a simple reversible data hiding method in the spatial domain for block truncation coding (BTC) compressed grayscale images. The BTC method compresses a block of a grayscale image to a bitmap and a pair of quantization numbers. The proposed method first embeds secret bits into a block by changing the order of those two quantization numbers. The compression rate is not enlarged by this embedding scheme. To further improve the hiding capacity, the proposed method embeds the secret bits into the bitmap of the block by exploiting the correlation characteristic of neighboring blocks' bitmap in natural images. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves very good hiding capacity at low compression rate.

References

1. Chang, C. C., Chen, T. S., and Chung, L. Z. 2002. A steganographic method based upon JPEG and quantization table modification. Inf. Sci. 141, 1 (Mar. 2002), 123--138.
2. Chen, T. S., Chang, C. C., and Hwang, M. S. 1998. A virtual image cryptosystem based on vector quantization. IEEE Trans. Image Process. 7, 10 (Oct. 1998), 1485--1488.
3. Chiang, Y. K., Tsai, P. 2008. Steganography using overlapping codebook partition. Signal Processing. 88, 5 (May 2008), 1203--1215.
4. Cox, I. J., Kilian, J., Leighton, F. T., and Shamoon, T. 1997. Secure spread spectrum watermarking for multimedia. IEEE Trans. Image Process. 6, 12 (Dec. 1997), 1673--1687.
5. Delp, E. J., Mitchell, O. R. 1979. Image compression using block truncation coding. IEEE Trans. Commun. 27, 9 (Sep. 1979), 1335--1341.
6. Hsieh, Y. P., Chang, C. C. and Liu, L. J. 2008. A two-codebook combination and three-phase block matching based image-hiding scheme with high embedding capacity. Pattern Recognition. 41, 10(Oct. 2008), 3104--3113.
7. Lin, C. C., Tai, W. L. and Chang, C. C. 2008. Multilevel reversible data hiding based on histogram modification of difference images. Pattern Recognition. 41, 12 (Dec. 2008), 3582--3591.
8. Lin, Y. C., Wang, C. C. 1999. Digital images watermarking by vector quantization. In Proceedings of National Computer Symposium. (Taiwan, Nov. 13, 1999), 76--87.
9. Linde, Y., Buzo, A., and Gray, R. M. 1980. An algorithm for vector quantizer design. IEEE Trans. Commun. 28, 1 (Jan. 1980), 84--95.
10. Rhee, M. Y. 1994. Cryptography and Secure Communication, McGraw-Hill.
11. Spaulding, J., Noda, H., Shirazi, M. N., and Kawaguchi, E. 2002. BPCS steganography using EZW lossy compressed images. Pattern Recogn. Lett. 23, 13 (Nov. 2002), 1579--1587.
12. Tsai, P., Hu, Y. C., and Chang, C. C. 2002. An image hiding technique using block truncation coding. In Proceedings of Pacific Rim Workshop on Digital Steganography. (Kitakyushu, Japan, July 2002), 54--64.
13. Tai, W. L., Yeh, C. M. and Chang, C. C. 2009. Reversible data hiding based on histogram modification of pixel differences. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology. 19, 6 (June 2009), 906--910.
14. Wang, J. X., Lu, Z. M. 2009. A path optional lossless data hiding scheme based on VQ joint neighboring coding. Information Sciences. 179, 19 (Sep. 2009), 3332--3348.
15. Wu, D. C., Tsai, W. H. 1998. Data hiding in images via multiple-based number conversion and lossy compression. IEEE Trans. Consumer Electron. 44, 4 (Dec.1998), 1406--1412.

Index Terms

• Computing methodologies

  • Artificial intelligence

    • Computer vision

      • Computer vision tasks