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Steganography framework for easy secret sharing through images

Conference Paper · December 2013

DOI: 10.1109/ICIIP.2013.6707604

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 A Steganography Framework for Easy Secret
Sharing through Images
Praveen Palanisamy
Student, SELECT,
VIT University,
Chennai, India.
praveenofpersia@gmail.com
Abstract—this paper presents a robust framework for secured
communication of data through images using steganography.
The framework will help in developing applications that make
sharing secrets and confidential information as easy as sharing
pictures, while making the users feel more secure about the
information exchanged. We have developed the framework to
create steg-images in JPEG format, which is more widely used
than other formats. A pilot implementation is developed using
this framework on an embedded platform and the results are
discussed.
Keywords—Steganography frame work, jpeg steganography,
steganography application framework.
I. INTRODUCTION
Over the years, various Methods have been investigated and
developed to protect personal privacy. Encryption is
probably the most obvious one, and then comes
steganography. Encryption lends itself to noise and is
generally prone to detection while steganography is not
easily detectable. The concepts of steganography has long
been in existence in the history of research but has not been
widely adopted as a means of secured communication.
The goal of cryptography is to secure communications by
changing the data into a form that an eavesdropper cannot
understand. Steganography techniques, on the other hand,
tend to hide the very existence of the data. Sending
encrypted information may draw attention, while invisible
information will not. In this framework the two techniques
are combined to increase the degree of security. Encryption
makes it unreadable, steganography makes it invisible.
Images were chosen as the cover medium, as
communicating secret information through commonly
shared images will be less suspicious of carrying sensitive
data as there are millions of photos shared everyday on
many different platforms. Even though image
steganography has many advantages and has potential, it is
not even as popular as the QR codes and bar codes even
with the advent of millions of smart phone users mainly
because it's not available easily for the use of common
people. If two people want to share some secret digitally,
Manoj Kumar Rajagopal
Associate Professor,
VIT University,
Chennai, India.
manojkumar.r@vit.ac.in
they still rely on password encrypted files which
automatically draws eaves-droppers attention just because it
is password protected. Since steganography overcomes this
drawback, it can be put to use as a primary tool to share
secrets, share confidential data, etc. For this use case
scenario, we propose a robust, high capacity, and visually
imperceptible steganography framework tailored for the use
by common people with the presumption that strong steg-
analysis on large number of un-suspiciously shared images
is difficult.
II. BACKGROUND
JPEG compression attains higher compression ratios
compared to most other standards while retaining the quality
of the image. For this reason smartphones save the captured
images in .jpg format. Also JPEG is the widely used image
format when it comes to photo sharing. Therefore the steg-
image ought to be in JPEG format. For this, the
steganography algorithm employed should be resistant to
the lossy compression by the JPEG standard in order to be
able to efficiently retrieve the embedded data back at the
intended receiving end.
The data flow diagram of embedding data in a JPEG image
is shown in Fig. 1. JPEG compression uses the DCT to
transform successive sub-image blocks of 8x8 pixels, into
64 DCT coefficients. Several steganography techniques for
data hiding in JPEGs have been developed: Jsteg, JP Hide&
Seek, F5 [1], Outguess [2]. All these techniques manipulate
the quantized DCT coefficients to embed the hidden
message. Using the generalized chi-square attack, Jsteg and
JP Hide &Seek with sequential message embedding are
detectable [3][4][8]. An effective approach to attack F5 and
Outguess were also proposed in [5]. Perturbed Quantization,
PQ [6] aims to achieve high efficiency, with minimal
distortion, rather than a large capacity. This method with
lesser capacity is not fit for the scenario being discussed.
Most of the steganography evaluation papers and steg
analysis reports apply statistical and perceptual evaluation
using a direct comparison between the original and the
stego-image. But in the peer to peer photo sharing scenarios,
it’s very unlikely to get a copy of the original image for steg
analysis and only the stego-image is available. This limits
the capability of the steg analysis systems against this use
case scenario.

Fig. 2. Block diagram of the proposed framework for

Fig. 1. General data flow diagram of embedding in JPEG embedding
images

III. PROPOSED FRAMEWORK

In the JPEG compression, images are divided into non-

overlapping 8 × 8 blocks. Each 8 × 8 block is converted to a
frequency-domain representation, by using a normalized,
two-dimensional DCT. Then the quantized DCT
coefficients are computed by dividing the components in the
frequency domain with the JPEG quantization table, and
then rounding to the nearest integers. The framework is
depicted in Fig. 2. A JPEG decoding library can be used to
decode the coefficients from the cover image. The 64
coefficients for each of the total N number of 8x8 blocks are
obtained. In the Coefficient selection process, Unlike few Fig. 3. The message block
other methods where the coefficients are selected at random
using a pseudo random number generator (PRNG) for
embedding, in this framework, a multi band technique [7], The header along with the encrypted message is passed on
or a statistics preserving method by considering statistical to the Data embedder which embeds the data using the
global features of the cover image can be used to select the following modified LSB plus algorithm:
coefficients to embed the secret data. A bit value is embedded by modifying DCT
The selected coefficients are then chosen at random using coefficient to as:
the pseudo-random number generator (PRNG). The
message block in the framework can be elaborated as shown i, if LSB (i )  b
in Fig. 3. The Hash calculated from the message data is used i  1, if LSB (i )  b and i  vmin

as the key to the PRNG. The header info contains the hash i'  
of the secret message and a key which is required during the i  1, if LSB (i )  b and i  vmax
decoding process. i  1or i  1 if LSB (i )  b and vmin  i  vmax
The last case in the embedding operation i.e.
and is dynamically determined by
counting the times of modifying to and during
the embedding process, respectively denoted by and
. Similarly the times of modifying i+1 and i-1 to i are
denoted by , .The values of and
are calculated to guide the embedding operation in the
case of and by:
i  1or i  1 if tii 1  tii1  tii 1  tii1

i '  i  1, if tii 1  tii1  tii 1  tii1

i  1, if tii 1  tii1  tii 1  tii1
After the embedding in any case of , the value
or needs to be updated. Histogram compensation is
used to balance all the coefficients changed during the
embedding process. The resultant image is then encoded to
JPEG format using a JPEG encoding library. This image is
then shared as a normal image. The intended recipient needs
to know the secret key used while encrypting the message.
The hash of the message can optionally be embedded into
the stego-image by exploiting the EOF tag. This doesn’t
affect the image quality or the embedded message and it’ll
be rendered as a normal image by any image editing
software. Only when it’s opened in a word processor, the
Hash is evident. The Hash alone is of no use if it’s
discovered by an analyst. Fig. 4 demonstrates how the EOF
tag can be exploited to append the secret message’s SHA-
256 hash into the stego image without altering the stego
image.
Fig. 4. Embedding the hash after EOF tag.
Further the hash can be encoded with 256 bit encoding so
that it resembles the image data when opened in a word
processor which makes it even more imperceptible as shown
in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. Encode the hash after EOF tag of the steg-image
The block diagram representation of the framework for
decoding is as shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 6. Decoding Process
The smart data parser doesn’t read all the values. Instead it
looks into those probable coefficients which may contain
hidden info using the key generated in the encoding process.
If embedded data is found in the supplied image, it is
extracted by the message extractor provided the secret key
provided by the user is correct. The extracted message is
then displayed in its original format (image/text).
IV. IMPLEMENTATION
Since most of the real world applications of this frame work
will be on portable and low power devices, an application
using this framework was developed and executed on the
Pandaboard ES, featuring a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9
OMAP4460 processor and 1 GB ram running Ubuntu 12.04.
A typical user’s profile picture was used as cover image.
Libjpeg was used to entropy decode the jpeg cover image.
The coefficient blocks obtained were first arranged in
zigzag order. Then the last non-zero coefficient was found
out. Only when the last non-zero coefficient was the
one, the coefficients before it were selected. ` was chosen
based on the statistical model of the cover image. The order
of the selected coefficients during data embedding process
was randomized by using a PRNG using the hash of the
secret message as the random seed for the PRNG. The hash
of the secret message, an image in this case was obtained
using the sha256sum utility. AES encryption library with a
8 character password was used to encrypt the secret image’s
data. The data embedder algorithm as discussed above was
implemented in C and libjpeg was again used to encode the
steg-image in jpeg format. The steg-image was then
successfully decoded to obtain the secret message without
any loss of data using the decoding framework.
V. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION
The total encoding process on the embedded processor
running on two threads took 1.348 seconds while the
decoding took 2.18 seconds which are quite reasonable. The
cover image (Fig. 7), the secret image (Fig. 8) and the stego-
image (Fig. 9) are shown. As seen, there are no visible
changes in the cover and the stego-image and there’s no loss
of the data. This easy to use framework for building
steganography applications could be used by common
people. This framework will likely popularize the use of
steganography for secret information sharing and other
applications like embedding confidential medical diagnosis Fig. 9. Stego-Image
information in a patient’s photograph, E-patient records,
payment cards and so on. The applications developed
should have options to easily share the steg-image through
commonly used sharing platforms and applications like REFERENCES
Facebook, google+, Instagram (facebook camera), flickr,
whatsapp, photo bucket and so on to make it easier for the
users to share.
[1] A. Westfeld, "High Capacity Despite Better
Steganalysis (F5–A Steganographic Algorithm)," in 4th
International Workshop Information Hiding, 2001.

[2] N. Provos, "Defending Against Statistical Steganalysis,"

in Proceedings of 10th USENIX Security Symposium,
Washington, 2001.

Fig. 7. Cover image. A typical profile picture of a user.

[3] N. Provos and P. Honeyman, "Detecting Steganographic
(Original size: 800x600) Content on the Internet. CITI," 2001.

[4] A. Westfeld and A. Pfitzmann, "Attacks on

Steganographic Systems," in 3rd International
Workshop Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2000.

[5] J. Fridrich, M. Golijan and D. Hogea, "Attacking the

OutGuess," in Proceedings of ACM: Special session on
Multimedia security and watermarking, Juan-les-
Pins,France, 2002.

[6] J. Fridrich, M. Golijan and D. Soukal, "Perturbed

quantization steganography," in ACM Multimedia
System Journal, 2005.

[7] H.-T. Wu and J.-W. Huang, "Secure JPEG

steganography by LSB+ matching and multi-band
embedding," in 18th International Conference on Image
Processing, Bussels,Belgium, 2011.

[8] A. Westfeld, "Detecting Low Embedding Rates," in 5th

International Workshop in information processing,
2002.
Fig. 8. The person’s medical data as the image to be
hidden (original size: 240x320)

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