ISSN: 2312-7694

Samer et al. / International Journal of Computer and Communication System Engineering (IJCCSE)

A NOVEL METHOD FOR HIDING

INFORMATION
Samer Thaaban Abaas Al-Shibley
Education College, Kufa University
samir-alshebly@uokufa.edu.iq

Abstract In this paper, we introduce a new method to

hide information in an image, the sequence of hiding
message bits in the cover pixels and the number of bits
used for hiding information are differ from one block to
another and depend on the gray scale values of the pixels
in the center of cover image blocks. The proposed system
like all steganography system consists of two stages. The
first stage used for hiding message by using two keys , the
first one used for determining the sequence that will be
used in hiding message pixels, while the second key used to
select the number of least significant bits in the cover
image that will be used in hiding information. The second
stage used for extracting and retrieving message
information and reconstruct the message image precisely.

II. ACCORDING TO COVER FILE TYPE

Image Steganography can be classified into three types

a) Least Significant Bits (LSBs):
Blind hide algorithm.
Hide seek algorithm.
Filter first algorithm.
Battle steg algorithm.
b) Masking and filtering techniques, take a
different approach to hiding a message.
These methods are effectively similar to
paper watermarks, creating markings in an
image. This can be achieved for example
by modifying the luminance of parts of the
image. While masking does change the
visible properties of an image, it can be
done in such a way that the human eye
will not notice the anomalies.
c) Transform Domain techniques utilize an
algorithm such as the Discrete Cosine
Transformation (DCT) or wavelet
transformation to hide information in
significant areas of the image.

Keywords: Steganography, hiding information, stego image,

cover.

I. INTRODUCTION
Steganography is the art and science of hiding information in a
deterministic sequence to prevent any person from detecting
the hiding Information without authentication, the secret
Information is embedded in a digital file by using a suitable
algorithm, there are two types of materials existing in
steganography system which are the message and the carrier
(cover), Message is the secret Information that should be
hidden and carrier is the material that takes the message in it
according to steganography algorithm and keys. The file
produced after hiding the message in the cover is called stego
object that translated from the source of the message to its
destination. There are many applications for steganography
which are military, diplomatic, and personal applications.
There are three related principles that determining the
effectiveness of steganography algorithm which are
1- The size of the message file.
2- The difficulty of detecting the message.
3- The difficulty of altering the message by simple
changing in the cover file
Steganography can be classified into three types as illustrated
in figure (1)

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Text steganography.
Image steganography.
Audio steganography.
Video steganography.

III. According to the type of the steganography key:

Pure steganography.

Secret key steganography.

IV. PROPOSED SYSTEM

In generl,the proposed system as illustrated in figure (2)
consist of two steges, the first one is Message hiding stage and
the second stage is message extracting from the stego object

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Samer et al. / International Journal of Computer and Communication System Engineering (IJCCSE)

Steganography

Classification according to how the

information has been hidden

Classification according to cover file type

Classification according to the type of the

key

Pure

Insertion

Text

Line shift

Word shift

Substitution

Image

Feature

LSBs

Blind hide

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Hide seek

Public Key

Generation

Audio

LSBs

Masking and filtering

Secret Key

Parity

Video

Phase

SS

Echo

Transformation

Filter first

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Battle

steg

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Cover
(Image)

Figure (1) classification of steganography systems

a. message hiding stage
this stage is divided into the following steps:Message
1- Divided cover image into non overlap blocks with
(Image)
size (33) pixels.
2- Check the three LSBs of the pixel in the center of
Message hiding stage
each block (TLSBS) .
3- Hiding the message in each pixel in the blocks except
the centers as illustrated in figure (3) to produce stego
object.

Divided into
non overlap
blocks with size
(33)

Check the value of

three LSBs of each
pixel in the center of
the block

(= 0) Hiding in two bits by starting from top left corner

(= 1) Hiding in one bit by starting from top left corner

(= 2) Hiding in two bits by starting from down right

corner

Case (1)

Case (2)

TLSB = 0

TLSB = 1

NBITS = 2

NBITS = 1

(= 3) Hiding in one bit by starting from down right

corner

(= 4) Hiding in two bits by starting from down left

corner

Case (3)

(= 5) Hiding in one bit by starting from down left corner

Case (4)

TLSB = 2

TLSB = 3

NBITS = 2

NBITS = 1

(= 6) Hiding in two bits by starting from top right corner

(= 7) Hiding in one bit by starting from top right corner

Message extracting stage

Case (5)

Stego
image

Divided into non

overlap blocks with size
(33)

Apply inverse proposed hiding

algorithm to extract message
from stego image

Image

Case (6)

TLSB = 4

TLSB = 5

NBITS = 2

NBITS = 1

Case (7)

Case (8)

TLSB = 6

TLSB = 7

NBITS = 2

NBITS = 1

Messag
e

figure (3)
Figure (2) block diagram of the proposed system

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Samer et al. / International Journal of Computer and Communication System Engineering (IJCCSE)
Figure (3) the direction of hiding information and number of
bits for eight cases of variable (TLSBS)
Where
NBITS is the number of bits used in hiding information.
TLSB is the value of three least significant bits.
In addition to above operations in hiding stage, hiding
information starting by substituting message bits in cover
blocks with (TLSBS = 0) then in blocks with (TLSBS = 1) and
so on. This make hiding operation progress in random fashion.
If the message pixels are (104, 128), this mean
(01101000, 10000000, .), and the cover block is

1- Divided stego object image into non overlap blocks

with size (33) pixels.
2- Check the three LSBs of the pixel in the center of
each block (TLSBS).
3- Extracting the message in each pixel in the blocks
except the centers as illustrated in figure (3).
For the same block resulted in hiding stage the center of block
(202) represented in binary as
1

The variable (TLSBTS= 2), so case 3 will be applied to extract

message bits as follow

190

200

210

185

202

207

201

180

190

200

190

182

204

186

208

200

188

TLSBS = 2, so case (3) will be applied, Then the numbers are

represented in binary as

202

Values

Values

Before

LSBs

LSBs

After

hiding

Before

After

hiding

200

0
0
hiding

0
1
hiding

201

190

190

180

182

207

204

185

186

210

208

200

200

190

188

Te message bits are ( 01 10 10 00

(104, 128)
V. RESULTS

1- The cover image is gray scale image of size

(552340) pixels, while message is gray scale image
of size (144144) pixels, the peak signal to noise
ratio is (47)
which calculated by applying the
following equation

(l 1)
log 1
[ g (r,c) I (r,c)]
nm
2

SNR

peak

10

10

n 1 m 1

r 0 c 0

At the end this block becomes

b.

10 00 00 00 ) that mean

188

200

208

186

202

204

182

190

201

Where, l is the number of gray levels in cover

image.
I(r,c) are the pixels before embedding process in cover
image.
g(r,c) are the pixels after embedding process in stego
image.
n,m are the width and height of cover image
respectively.
Figure (4) result (1) of the proposed system

Message extracting stage

This stage consist of the following steps

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(1)

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Samer et al. / International Journal of Computer and Communication System Engineering (IJCCSE)

a- Original image
b - Message

b- Message

a- Stego image
c- Stego image

2- The cover image is gray scale image of size (256384)

pixels, while message is gray scale image of size (13693)
pixels, the peak signal to noise ratio is (46)
Figure (5) result (2) of the proposed system

3-The cover image is gray scale image with size of

(256256) pixels, while the message is gray scale image
with size of (102102) pixels, the peak signal to noise
ratio is (45.5)
Figure (6) result (3) of the proposed system

a- Original image
a-

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Original image

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b - Message

REFERENCES
[1]- Eric Cole, and Ronald D. Krutz " Hiding in Plain
Sight: Steganography and the Art of Covert
Communication", Wiley Publishing USA, 2003.
[2]- Sabu M Thampi "Information Hiding Techniques: A
Tutorial Review" Department of Computer Science &
Engineering LBS College of Engineering, Kasaragod
Kerala, India, 2004.

b- Stego image
VI. CONCLUSIONS

The size of message cannot be expected from the size

of the cover image because it depends on the values
of pixel in the center of the blocks.
The change in cover image is unnoticeable therefore
peak signal to noise ratio in high rate .
The number of bits used in hiding information
change from one block to another, the direction of
hiding message bits also change from one block to
another, and the blocks are not used in sequential
arrange, so information may be hidden in last block
before the first one in the same row, these features
make this algorithm strong against the attackers.

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[3]- Samir K Bandyopadhyay, Debnath Bhattacharyya,

Debashis Ganguly, Swarnendu Mukherjeeand
Poulami Das "A Tutorial Review on Steganography"
,University of Calcutta ,2008.
[4]- Dr.M.Umamaheswari, Prof.S. Sivasubramanian, and
S.Pandiarajan "Analysis of Different Steganographic
Algorithms for Secured Data Hiding", IJCSNS
International Journal of Computer Science and
Network Security, 2010.
[5]- Shrikant s. khaire, and dr.sanjay l.nalbalwar
"Review: Steganography Bit Plane Complexity
Segmentation (BPCS) Technique " International
Journal of Engineering Science and Technology,
2010.

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