• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1521-1537
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• 2021

Through information hiding technique, secret message can be hidden in pictures. Stego-image quality and hiding capacity are two important metrics for information hiding. To enhance these metrics, many schemes were proposed by scholars in recent years. Some of them are effective and successful, but there is still a room for further improvement. A high capacity information hiding scheme (PAMO, Pixel-value Adjustment with Modulus Operation Algorithm) is introduced in this paper. PAMO scheme uses pixel value adjustment with modulus operation to hide confidential data in cover-image. PAMO scheme and some referenced schemes are implemented in Python and experiments are carried out to evaluate their performance. In the experiments, PAMO scheme shows better performance than other methods do. When secret message length is less than 72000 bits, the highest hiding capacity of PAMO can reach 7 bits per pixel, at the same time the PSNR of stego-images is greater than 30 dB.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.471-485
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• 2023

As data sharing increases explosively, such information encoded in QR code is completely public as private messages are not securely protected. This paper proposes a new 'PROMISE' framework for hiding information based on the QR code projection matrix by using image segmentation without modifying the essential QR code characteristics. Projection matrix mapping, matrix scrambling, fusion image segmentation and steganography with SEL(secret embedding logic) are part of the PROMISE framework. The QR code could be mapped to determine the segmentation site of the fusion image as a binary information matrix. To further protect the site information, matrix scrambling could be adopted after the mapping phase. Image segmentation is then performed on the fusion image and the SEL module is applied to embed the secret message into the fusion image. Matrix transformation and SEL parameters should be uploaded to the server as the secret key for authorized users to decode the private message. And it was possible to further obtain the private message hidden by the framework we proposed. Experimental findings show that when compared to some traditional information hiding methods, better anti-detection performance, greater secret key space and lower complexity could be obtained in our work.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.9 no.12
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• pp.5170-5188
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• 2015

This paper proposes a novel progressive secret image-hiding scheme based on the inpainting technique, the vector quantization technique (VQ) and the exploiting modification direction (EMD) technique. The proposed scheme first divides the secret image into non-overlapping blocks and categorizes the blocks into two groups: complex and smooth. The blocks in the complex group are compressed by VQ with PCA sorted codebook to obtain the VQ index table. Instead of embedding the original secret image, the proposed method progressively embeds the VQ index table into the cover images by using the EMD technique. After the receiver recovers the complex parts of the secret image by decoding the VQ index table from the shadow images, the smooth parts can be reconstructed by using the inpainting technique based on the content of the complex parts. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme not only has the advantage of progressive data hiding, which involves more shadow images joining to recover the secret image so as to produce a higher quality steganography image, but also can achieve high hiding capacity with acceptable recovered image quality.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.7 no.11
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• pp.2913-2927
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• 2013

A data hiding scheme in HTML files is presented in this paper. Web pages are a very popular medium for broadcasting information and knowledge nowadays, and web pages are a good way to achieve the goal of secret message delivery because the different HTML coding codes will render the same screen in any of the popular browsers. The proposed method utilizes the HTML special space codes and sentence segmentation to conceal secret messages into a HTML file. The experimental results show that the stego HTML file generated by the proposed method is imperceptible. Also, the proposed method can conceal one more secret bit in every between-word location.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.4788-4813
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• 2019

In this paper, we introduce concepts of optimal and near optimal secret data hiding schemes. We present a new digital image steganography approach based on the Galois field $GF(p^m)$ using graph and automata to design the data hiding scheme of the general form ($k,N,{\lfloor}{\log}_2p^{mn}{\rfloor}$) for binary, gray and palette images with the given assumptions, where k, m, n, N are positive integers and p is prime, show the sufficient conditions for the existence and prove the existence of some optimal and near optimal secret data hiding schemes. These results are derived from the concept of the maximal secret data ratio of embedded bits, the module approach and the fastest optimal parity assignment method proposed by Huy et al. in 2011 and 2013. An application of the schemes to the process of hiding a finite sequence of secret data in an image is also considered. Security analyses and experimental results confirm that our approach can create steganographic schemes which achieve high efficiency in embedding capacity, visual quality, speed as well as security, which are key properties of steganography.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.2 no.5
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• pp.266-276
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• 2013

LSB-based steganography is a simple and well known information hiding technique. In most LSB based techniques, a secret message is embedded into a specific position of LSB in the cover pixels. On the other hand, the main threat of LSB-based steganography is steganalysis. This paper proposes an asynchronous-cellular-automata(ACA)-based steganographic method, where secret bits are embedded into the selected position inside the cover pixel by ACA rule 51 and a secret key. As a result, it is very difficult for malicious users to retrieve a secret message from a cover image without knowing the secret key, even if the extraction algorithm is known. In addition, another layer of security is provided by almost random (rule-based) selection of a cover pixel for embedding using ACA and a different secret key. Finally, the experimental results show that the proposed method can be secured against the well-known steganalysis RS-attack.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.466-477
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• 2014

Many image hiding schemes based on least significant bit (LSB) transformation have been proposed. One of the LSB-based image hiding schemes that employs diamond encoding was proposed in 2008. In this scheme, the binary secret data is converted into base n representation, and the converted secret data is concealed in the cover image. Here, we show that this scheme has two vulnerabilities: noticeable spots in the stego-image, i.e., a non-smooth embedding result, and inefficiency caused by rough re-adjustment of falling-off-boundary value and impractical base translation. Moreover, we propose a new scheme that is efficient and produces a smooth and high quality embedding result by restricting n to power of 2 and using a sophisticated re-adjustment procedure. Our experimental results show that our scheme yields high quality stego-images and is secure against RS detection attack.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.7 no.7
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• pp.913-921
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• 2004

Steganography is a kind of data hiding which can hide secret information to digital media. It is performed so that another person does not recognize any information and make secret communication between each other. Specially, it is not easy to hide secret information without being visually recognized in scanned text image or cartoon image etc. In this paper, we propose an improved method that can embed a large quantity of secret information in a binary image without noticeable artifacts. Binary cartoon image is divided into block of 3-by-3 sizes. Secret information is embedded by using run-length of 8-neighborhood pixels except for the center pixel of the block. To improve the embedding capacity, we embed it into center pixel under to some condition.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.69-75
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• 2014

Audio seganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages that evolves as a new secret communication method. And audio steganography is similar to the process of modifying the Least Significant Bit of image files 8th LSB layer embedding has been done for desired binary messages. The effective of steganographic tools is to obtain imperceptible and robust way to conceal high rate of secret data. The objective of this paper is to propose a method for hiding the secret messages in safer manner from external attacks by modified LSB technique and encryption rearrangement key.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.1718-1734
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• 2012

The proposed method in this paper is derived from Mielikainen's hiding method. However, there exist some significant differences between two methods. In Mielikainen's method, pixels are partitioned into pairs and a LSB matching function is applied to two pixels for hiding. On the contrary, the proposed method partitions pixels into groups with three pixels in each group. The bits of pixels in each group are linked by using an exclusive OR (XOR) operator in a circular way. If the number of different values between the calculated XOR values and the secret bits is smaller than or equal to 2 in a group, the proposed method can guarantee that at most one pixel is needed to be modified by adding/subtracting its value to/from one, and three secret bits can be embedded to three pixels. Through theoretical analysis, the amount of the embedded secret data in the proposed method is larger than those in other methods under the same amount of pixel modifications. Taking real images in our experiments, the quality of stego-images in the proposed method is higher than those in other methods.