• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.570-595
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• 2017

Robust and perceptually-adaptive image watermarking algorithms have mainly targeted gray-scale images either at the modeling or embedding levels despite the widespread availability of color images. Only few of the existing algorithms are specifically designed for color images where color correlation and perception are constructively exploited. In this paper, a new perceptual and high-capacity color image watermarking solution is proposed based on the extension of Tsui et al. algorithm. The $CIEL^*a^*b^*$ space and the spatio-chromatic Fourier transform (SCFT) are combined along with a perceptual model to hide watermarks in color images where the embedding process reconciles between the conflicting requirements of digital watermarking. The perceptual model, based on an emerging color image model, exploits the non-uniform just-noticeable color difference (NUJNCD) thresholds of the $CIEL^*a^*b^*$ space. Also, spread-spectrum techniques and semi-random low-density parity check codes (SR-LDPC) are used to boost the watermark robustness and capacity. Unlike, existing color-based models, the data hiding capacity of our scheme relies on a game-theoretic model where upper bounds for watermark embedding are derived. Finally, the proposed watermarking solution outperforms existing color-based watermarking schemes in terms of robustness to standard image/color attacks, hiding capacity and imperceptibility.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.677-686
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• 2018

A novel data hiding technique based on modified histogram shifting that incorporates multi-bit secret data hiding is proposed. The proposed technique divides the image pixel values into embeddable and nonembeddable pixel values. Embeddable pixel values are those that are within a specified limit interval surrounding the peak value of an image. The limit interval is calculated from the number of secret bits to be embedded into each embeddable pixel value. The embedded secret bits can be perfectly extracted from the stego image at the receiver side without any overhead bits. From the simulation, it is found that the proposed technique produces a better quality stego image compared to other data hiding techniques, for the same embedding rate. Since the proposed technique only embeds the secret bits in a limited number of pixel values, the change in the visual quality of the stego image is negligible when compared to other data hiding techniques.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.404-421
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• 2020

A reversible data hiding scheme in JPEG compressed bitstreams is proposed, which could avoid decoding failure and file expansion by means of removing of bitstreams corresponding to high frequency coefficients and embedding of secret data in file header as comment part. We decode original JPEG images to quantified 8×8 DCT blocks, and search for a high frequency as an optimal termination point, beyond which the coefficients are set to zero. These blocks are separated into two parts so that termination point in the latter part is slightly smaller to make the whole blocks available in substitution. Then spare space is reserved to insert secret data after comment marker so that data extraction is independent of recovery in receiver. Marked images can be displayed normally such that it is difficult to distinguish deviation by human eyes. Termination point is adaptive for variation in secret size. A secret size below 500 bits produces a negligible distortion and a PSNR of approximately 50 dB, while PSNR is also mostly larger than 30 dB for a secret size up to 25000 bits. The experimental results show that the proposed technique exhibits significant advantages in computational complexity and preservation of file size for small hiding capacity, compared to previous methods.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.261-270
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• 2019

In order to protect secret digital documents against vulnerabilities while communicating, steganography algorithms are applied. It protects a digital file from unauthorized access by hiding the entire content. Pixel-value-difference being a method from spatial domain steganography utilizes the difference gap between neighbor pixels to fulfill the same. The proposed approach is a block-wise embedding process where blocks of variable size are chosen from the cover image, therefore, a stream of secret digital contents is hidden. Least significant bit (LSB) substitution method is applied as an adaptive mechanism and optimal pixel adjustment process (OPAP) is used to minimize the error rate. The proposed application succeeds to maintain good hiding capacity and better signal-to-noise ratio when compared against other existing methods. Any means of digital communication specially e-Governance applications could be highly benefited from this approach.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.103-114
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• 2012

The many DE based data hiding schemes and the many data hiding schemes based on Histogram shifting are researched in spatial domain. The data hiding scheme based on Histogram shifting have an advantage of low distortion of the stego image. But the capacity is low than other schemes. On the other hands, the DE based data hiding schemes have an advantage of high capacity. But the quality of the stego image is low. In this paper, new data hiding scheme which has the similar capacity but the increased quality of the stego image is proposed. The prediction error is divided into blocks to embed the secret data in this scheme. The prediction errors in the block are scanned before the secret data is embedded. If one prediction error is low than the threshold at least, the block is changed to embed the secret data. Otherwise the secret data is not embedded. The distortion of the stego image is minimized by this method. But the block that the secret data embedded is marked in location map. So the additional information to extract the secret data and recover the cover image is needed.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.11B no.4
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• pp.395-402
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• 2004

In this paper, we proposed a new method of the large capacity steganography using adaptive threshold on bit planes. Applying fixing threshold, if we insert information into all bit planes, all bit planes showed different image quality. Therefore, we first defined the bit plane weight to solve the fixing threshold problem. We then proposed a new adaptive threshold method using the bit plane weight and the average complexity to increase insertion capacity adaptively. In the experiment, we inserted information into the standard images with the same image quality and same insertion capacity, and we analyzed the insertion capacity and image duality. As a result, the proposed method increased the insertion capacity of about 6% and improved the image quality of about 24dB than fixed threshold method.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.856-873
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• 2011

Reversible watermarking is an open problem in information hiding field, with embedding the encoded bit '1' or '0' into some sensitive images, such as the law enforcement, medical records and military images. The technique can retrieve the original image without distortion, after the embedded message has been extracted. Histogram-based scheme is a remarkable breakthrough in reversible watermarking schemes, in terms of high embedding capacity and low distortion. This scheme is lack of capacity control due to the requirement for embedding large-scale data, because the largest hidden capacity is decided by the amount of pixels with the peak point. In this paper, we propose a reversible watermarking scheme to enlarge the number of pixels with the peak point as large as possible. This algorithm is based on an adaptive edge-guided interpolation, furthermore, hides messages by interpolation-error, i.e. the difference between the original and interpolated image value. Simulation results compared with other state-of-the-art reversible watermarking schemes in this paper demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.961-973
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• 2005

In this paper, we proposed an adaptive steganography of color image using bit-planes and multichannel characteristics. Applying fixing threshold, if we insert information into all bit-planes of RGB channel, each channels showed different image quality. Therefore, we first defined the channel weight and the bit-plane weight to solve the fixing threshold problem of BPCS (bit-plane complexity steganography) method. We then proposed a new adaptive threshold method using the bit-plane weight of channels and the bit-plane complexity of cover image to increase insertion capacity adaptively In the experiment, we inserted information into the color images with the same image quality and same insertion capacity, and we analyzed the Insertion capacity and image quality. As a result, the proposed method increased the insertion capacity and improved the image quality than BPCS method.

• Annual Conference of KIPS
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.109-112
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• 2003

본 논문은 비트 플레인의 위치에 따라 정보 삽입량에 대한 주관적이고 고정적인 임계치가 아니라 비트 플레인의 가중치를 고려하여 각 영상의 비트 플레인별 적응적인 임계값에 따라 최대 정보량을 삽입하고 추출하는 알고리즘을 연구하였다. 다양한 이미지를 대강으로 고정 임계값을 적용하는 기존의 방법과 영상의 특징에 따라 비트 플레인별 임계값이 적응적으로 산출되는 제안한 방법에 대해서 최대용량을 측정하고, 같은 양의 정보를 삽입한 후 화질을 비교 분석하였다. 그 결과 기존의 방법보다 용량면이나 화질면에서 나은 결과를 얻을 수 있었다.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.27-33
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• 2018

This paper presents a new adaptive LSB steganography for high capacity in spatial color images. The number of least signi ficant bit (LSB) of each RGB component in a color image pixel, to replace with the data bits to be hidden, was determine d through analysis of the worst case peak signal noise ratio (PSNR). In addition, the combination of the number of bits is determined adaptively according to image content. That is, 70% of the data to be hidden is proposed to be replaced with 3 bit LSB of two components, 2 bit LSB of the rest component, and 30% be replaced with 4 bit LSB of each RGB compon ent. To find edge areas in an image, delta sorting in local area is also suggested. Using the proposed method, the data cap acity is 9.2 bits per pixel (bpp). The average PSNR value of the tested images with concealed data of up to 60Kbyte was 43.9 db and also natural histograms were generated.