2014 Sixth International Conference on Measuring Technology and Mechatronics Automation

Image Steganography Combined with DES Encryption Pre-processing

Yang Ren-er, Zheng Zhiwei, Tao Shun, Ding Shilei
College of Information Science and EngineeringˈNingbo University, Ningbo 315211, China

Abstract—In order to improve the security of

steganography, this paper studied image steganography II. IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY COMBINED WITH
combined with pre-processing of DES encryption. When ENCRYPTION
transmitting the secret information, firstly, encrypt the
information intended to hide by DES encryption is A. DES Encryption
encrypted, and then is written in the image through the DES uses a 56-bit key and an additional 8-bit parity
LSB steganography. Encryption algorithm improves the bit, resulting in the largest 64-bit packet size. This is an
lowest matching performance between the image and the iterative block cipher, using the technology known as the
secret information by changing the statistical Feistel, which will encrypt the text block half. The use of
characteristics of the secret information to enhance the
sub-key pair, half of which application circulatory
anti-detection of the image steganography. The
experimental results showed that the anti-detection function, and then the output with the other half to "
robustness of image steganography combined with exclusive or" operator followed by the exchange of the
pre-processing of DES encryption is found much better two and a half, this process will continue, but in the end
than the way using LSB steganography algorithms directly. a cycle of non-exchange. DES uses 16 cycles, using xor,
Keywords-Information hiding; Steganography; DES replacement, substitution, four basic arithmetic shift
encryption; High security operations[5]. After the hidden information is encrypted,
not only the invisibility of information is increased, but
I. INTRODUCTION also the statistical characteristics of the information and
Steganography is an information hiding technique the correlation between information are changed in the
developed in recent years. It is a procedure that makes same time, which makes the information become 0-1
use of human perceptive sense of visual or aural bitstream, which is in the probability distribution. In
redundancy to digital multimedia, and that embeds the order to verify the characteristics of encryption algorithm,
secret information in the public media to transfer digital download three English document of 32768 characters
media carrying confidential information to achieve from the Internet, and inspect the 0 -1 distribution in the
covert communications[1]. Imperceptibility is an document before and after encryption. From table 1,
important feature of steganography, also called before the encryption, the number of 0 and 1 is not
transparency or anti-detection performance which balanced because of correlation between characters in the
includes visual imperceptibility and statistical natural document, but after the encryption, binary stream
imperceptibility. The imperceptibility of steganography of 0 s and 1 s close to equal probability distribution in
is enhanced by improving the method of steganography[2], the document.
or selecting an appropriate steganographic carrier[3], or
improving the matching relationship between carrier Table 1ˊ the 0 -1 Distribution in the Document before and after
Encryption
image and secret information.
doc before the after the
Steganography is different from traditional encryption,
which is theoretically based on cryptography to hide ume encryption encryption
communication contents by encrypting plaintext, but it is nt the the the the
difficult to mask the fact that communication occurred, number number number number
and ciphertext transmission will easily arouse the of 0 of 1 of 0 of 1
attacker’s suspicions, and then it could be intercepted, 1 143674 118470 130931 131213
attacked or cracked. Steganography complements the 2 143698 118446 131218 130926
deficiency of concealment of the encryption. Through 3 141719 120425 131069 131075
transmitting communication contents hidden secretly in 4 142757 119387 131665 130479
public media, it covers up the facts of real
communication purpose and that communication
occurred. It is not a competitive relation between
steganography and encryption, but they can reinforce
each other, to further ensure the safety of covert
communication[4]. This paper studied image
steganography based on encryption, which combines the
traditional encryption and information steganography. It
not only makes the secret information transmission
"incomprehensible" and "invisible", but makes the
steganographic system have a higher anti-detection
performance.

978-1-4799-3435-5/14 $31.00 © 2014 IEEE

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DOI 10.1109/ICMTMA.2014.80
 information. At the transmitting terminal, we firstly
choose the appropriate image as the carrier, and then
encrypt text information or documents designed to hide
by DES encryption followed by using the LSB
steganography algorithm to hide the encrypted
information in the image; at the receiving terminal,
firstly extract the encrypted information from the carrier
image by the algorithm which is contrary to
steganography algorithm, and then recover the hidden
information by DES decryption algorithm.
the secret carrier
information image

Figure 1.Frequency of sequences of 0 and 1 in the tour
DES LSB
Encryption imbedding

B. LSB Steganography Combined with

Digital Image secret key secret image
The LSB (Least Significant Bit) which hides the
secret information to the least significant bit of carrier
information, is the most classic and simplest decryption Extraction
steganography algorithm, which also features of a large algorithm algorithm
capacity and concealment. It is still widely considered
most practical and applied up to today.
The LSB steganography uses the secret information the secret
instead of the last bit of the image pixels value, which is information

equivalent to superimposing a weak signal upon the Figure 2.the flow chart of Image Steganography Combined with Encryption
original carrier signal, and therefore it’s difficult to
realize visually. But during the embedding process, if the D. The Evaluation Method of
lowest bit of secret information is different from that of Steganography Algorithm
pixel value, we need to change the lowest bit of pixel 1) Histogram Difference and the Sum of Histogram
value, namely change the pixel value 2i to 2i+1 or 2i+1 absolute Difference
to 2i. The parity value transform in the LSB
steganography produces parity asymmetry. Fridirich et al. We denote h(n) as the image gray histogram’s
proposed the method of using this asymmetrical parity function. For the gray level image of 8 bits,
value transform of LSB to go on RS attack[7], and n  [0,255] . And h(n) is a sequence which
Westfield et al. proposed Chi-square test[8] to attack LSB represents the number of each pixel values in the image,
steganography algorithm. If steganographic method can namely
minimize the distortion of the histogram, it can
fundamentally resist the attack of analysis methods W 1 H 1
aforementioned. So in this paper, we propose the h(n)   (n, p(i, j )) (1)
steganography combined with encryption, encrypting the i 0 j 0
information intended to hide before the steganalysis with Where
encryption pre-processing, and the imperceptibility of the

1, if u  v
steganography algorithm can be improved by reducing  (u, v)  ,
the distortion of the histogram. 0 if u  v ˈ
C. Image Steganography Combined with And p (iˈj ) indicates the image’s pixel value
Encryption
In order to improve the imperceptibility of at (i, j ) , W is the image’s width, H is the image’s
steganography algorithm, this paper studied the height.
steganography combined with encryption algorithm,
which reach the goal by changing the matching
relationship between carrier image and secret

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317
 We denote h(n) as the histogram of the original

image and h (n) as the encryption image, n  [0,255] .

'

Then, hm[n] denote Histogram difference, namely

Hm[n]  h[n]  h[n] (2)
255
Hae   | h(i )  h' (i ) | (3)
i 0
The absolute difference of histogram expresses how the
image changes before and after the steganography. The
smaller Hae is, the better imperceptibility of the
steganography is.
2) Relative Entropy of the Image before and after
Steganography (K–L divergence)
Relative entropy of the image before and after
steganography or the K–L divergence is used to measure
the security of the steganographic system put forward by
Cachin[6].The decrease of the K–L divergence shows the 
improvement of the steganographic system’s safety
performance. If the K_L divergence is zero, the
steganographic system is absolutely safe, namely
D( Pc || Ps)  ,  0 is absolutely safe
2 5 5
p [ n]
D( Pc || Ps)   pc [n] l o g c (4)
n 0 p s [ n]
Where

pc [n] is gray level’s probability distribution of
Figure 4. the histogram difference before and after steganography in two
carrier image, p s [n] is that of steganasis image. ways

III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 

Simulation experiments embed information that Table 2. steganasis image effects without encryption
needs to hide and the information after DES encryption ,PDJH WKHKLVWRJUDP .̢/
respectively to 512 x 512 pixel image 1-3 by LSB
PRGLILFDWLRQ GLYHUJHQFH
steganography algorithm. It is showed in Figure 3.
    
    
    

Table 3. steganasis image effects with encryption

Figure3. the experimental picture ,PDJH WKHKLVWRJUDP .̢/
PRGLILFDWLRQ GLYHUJHQFH
From the experimental results in Figure 3, we can see
    
the figure on the left, if the information is unencrypted
before the LSB algorithm , the difference between carrier     
image and the steganasis image is large, if not, we can
    
see it from the figure on the right, the difference is small.
The smaller the histogram difference is, the better the
performance of steganographic system is.
From table 1 and its experimental results, we can also IV. CONCLUSIONS
see that after the encryption, the histogram modification This paper mainly probes the steganography carried by
and K–L divergence decrease, suggesting that after the image, which combines DES encryption with LSB
encryption, the anti-interference performance of the algorithm, and implements dual protect of hidden
steganography gets better. Thus, steganography system information, making the hidden information
combined with encryption is superior to direct
steganalysis.

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318
incomprehensible and invisible. Besides, the DES [4]Marwaha, P.,Visual cryptographic steganogrpahy in
encryption algorithm changes the statistical images[C], Computer Communication and Networking
characteristics of the secret information, and improves Technologies(ICCCNT),2010 International Conference 2010:1-6.
the lowest matching degree of its bitstream and carrier [5] Huanguo ZhangˈXiutao FengˈZhongpin TanˈYuzhen Liuˈ
image, leading to a better imperceptibility of Evolutionary cryptosystems and
steganographic algorithm. evolutionary design for DES [J], JOURNAL OF CHINA
INSTITUTE OF COMMUNICATIONSˈ2002ˈ23(5)˖57-64.
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