Title: Anti-forensic steganography using multi-bit MER with flexible bit location

Authors: Rong-Jian Chen; Shi-Jinn Horng; Po-Hsian Huang

Addresses: Department of Electronic Engineering, National United University, Miaoli, Taiwan ' Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan ' Department of Applied Digital Media, Jen-Teh Junior College of Medicine, Nursing & Management, Miaoli, Taiwan

Abstract: This work develops an anti-forensic steganography system using the proposed multi-bit MERs with flexible bit location embedding method (multi-bit MER_FBL embedding method) to overcome the problem of forensics and to achieve high performance including both large embedding capacity and high image quality. The proposed multi-bit MER_FBL embedding method hides multi-bit (k-bit, k ≥ 1) logo/secret data into any adjoining (starting with the ith location) k-bit b_ib_i−1…b_i−k+ of cover data only introduces MEE in the range of 0 to ±(2^k - 1)2^i−k; moreover, its flexible bit location enhances the embedded security as security increases as the embedding location closing to the MSBs of cover data. We thus develop a thresholding mechanic to evaluate the anti-forensics degree of the proposed method. Finally, antiforensics of the proposed steganography systems are demonstrated using the visual attack and the statistical attack of Chi-square analysis.

Keywords: steganographgy; anti-forensics; multi-bit embedding; minimum error replacement; flexible bit location; multi-bit MER; embedding capacity; image quality; embedded security; thresholding mechanic; visual attack; statistical attack; Chi-square analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2015.067788

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2015 Vol.18 No.1/2, pp.54 - 66

Received: 17 Sep 2013
Accepted: 19 May 2014
Published online: 05 Mar 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article