Sahib Khan

Varying index varying bits substitution algorithm for the implementation of VLSB steganography

Variable least significant bits (VLSB) steganography is a pretty powerful and secure technique for data hiding in cover images, having variable data hiding capacity, signal-to-noise ratio, peak signal-to-noise ratio, and mean square error (MSE). This study presents a new algorithm for the implementation of VLSB steganography named varying index varying bits substitution (VIVBS). The VIVBS algorithm is a very secure, high capacity, flexible, and statistically unpredictable mechanism to conceal information in cover images. The method uses a secret stego-key comprising a reference point, and variation of the number of bits to be hidden with varying indices of pixels in the cover image. The secret key adds an extra feature of security to steganography, making it much immune to steganalysis. The VIVBS algorithm is capable of providing variable data hiding capacity and variable key size which can be changed by changing the range of least significant bits used. A data hiding capacity of 43.75% with a negligible MSE 14.67 dB has been achieved using the VIVBS algorithm. For larger data hiding capacity, the MSE and distortion increases significantly which make the existence of information predictable but the key size also increases significantly, making the retrieval of hidden information difficult for the unauthorized person.

A secure true edge based 4 least significant bits steganography

In this paper true edge based data hiding technique is proposed to take advantage of less sensitivity of human visual system to changes in complex regions of the image. This method utilizes edge detection and Steganography techniques. The Canny edge detection technique is used to identify true edge pixels and 4LSB Steganography technique is used to hide a secret message in the 4 least significant bits of edge pixels in the cover image. By hiding data in edges improve the quality of stego-image significantly. The results obtained show that the proposed technique hides large amount secret information in the cover image with better visual image quality than other techniques. The experimental results demonstrate the average hiding capacity of 4%, and the PSNR and MSE are 45dB and 1.60 respectively.

Enhanced stego block chaining (ESBC) for low bandwidth channels

This paper presents a new enhanced stego block chaining (ESBC) technique for data hiding to address the bandwidth and transmission time issues of simple stego block chaining (SBC). In simple SBC data hiding method, the security of the hidden information is increased by increasing the number of stages, but the addition of each stage decreases the hiding capacity. This increases the size of the data needed to transmit the secret message and thus results in an increase in the required bandwidth and transmission time. The proposed ESBC technique addresses the bandwidth and transmission time issues of the simple SBC method. The output of the ESBC is a high quality stego image with peak signal-to-noise ratio above 40 dB and provides the same additional security as simple SBC but reduces the requirements of the bandwidth and transmission time by one half of that of the simple SBC and, thus, solves the hiding capacity issues of SBC for low bandwidth channels. Copyright

Traffic estimation for centralized resource allocation in meshed High Data Rate WPANs

High Data Rate (HDR) Meshed Wireless Personal Area Networks (MWPANs) primarily use TDMA as the medium access mechanism. The Mesh Piconet Coordinators (MPNCs) need to reserve channel time slots for inter cluster and intra cluster communication in a superframe shared by MPNCs in the transmission vicinity of each other. In case of distributed channel reservation schemes for single flows, the issues of increased control traffic overhead and channel reservation conflicts can arise. To realize the possibility of using a centralized channel reservation scheme for the MPNCs to reserve channel time in bulk (more than one flow) for its current queued traffic as well as expected inter cluster and intra cluster flows, the need of using traffic estimation schemes becomes mandatory. A traffic estimation scheme based on the Matrix Balancing (MB) problem has therefore been proposed for the MPNCs to predict their total cluster traffic requirements. Simulation results are provided that prove the superiority of the proposed approach when compared with simple mean based estimations.

Increasing Distance Increasing Bits Substitution (IDIBS) Algorithm for Implementation of VTVB Steganography

Cryptography and steganography are two important and related fields of information security. But, steganography is slightly different in the sense that it hides the existence of secret information from unauthorized users. It is one of the most appealing research domains, have applications like copyright protection, data integrity protection and manipulation detection. Several steganography techniques have been proposed in literature. But, in this work a new information hiding algorithm is presented. The proposed technique de-correlates frequency components of cover image using discrete cosine transform and uses the least significant bits of frequency components for hiding secret information. The tech-nique hides variable number of bits of secret message in different frequency components. Therefore, it hides different amount of secret information in different regions of cover im-age and results in enhancement of security. The algorithm has the flexibility to change the hiding capacity and quality of final stego image. It has been observed from experimental results that a hiding a capacity from 3% to 43% can be achieved with significantly good quality of 41 dB to 37 dB in term of peak signal to noise ratio. The successful recovery of the hidden information need the pattern, called stego key, in which is used in hiding process. The algorithm provides twofold security; hiding keeps the existence of hidden information secret and the large key size makes the retrieval of hidden information difficult for intruders.

Age Classification using Facial Image Features in DCT Domain

Age estimation or age based classification can be achieved using different facial features both in spatial and transform domain. In this paper, transform domain features are used to classify facial images into appropriate age group. This paper provide technique which is helpful in classifying images efficiently using only transform domain features. This algorithm can be used in real time environment for different purposes in human computer interaction. Initially DCT cheeks’ energy are used as a threshold parameter to classify images into two broader age based categories. These two main categories are further subdivided into 6 age based sub categories based on Left Cheek wrinkle energy (E-I), cheeks wrinkle energy (E-II) and forehead wrinkle energy (E-III) energy.

Dual lossless compression based image steganography for low data rate channels

Steganography is one of the most important fields of information security. Spatial domain steganography technique hides secret information in the least significant bits of cover image. Security of hidden information and hiding efficiency are two main objectives of a steganographic technique. High data hiding efficiency and good visual quality of stego image are always attempted to be achieved. However, to transmit a secret message securely, final stego image is transmitted which is large in size than that of original secret message. And as result more data rate is required to transmit the secret message hidden in stego image. This work presents a new image steganography technique to increase the hiding efficiency and hence reduce the data rate required for transmitting the final stego file. The proposed technique uses lossless image compression technique to enhance data hiding capacity and apply compression before and after data hiding. In pre-compression, lossless compression technique is applied on secret message to reduce its size and in post-compression the stego image is subjected to lossless compression technique. A significant hiding capacity has been achieved with a reasonable high PSNR (i.e. greater than 30dB limit). The hiding efficiency is controlled by using different lossless compression technique, without the lost of secret information.

Analysis of data hiding in R, G and B channels of color image using various number of LSBs

In todays world of fast communication, to insure, the security and integrity of information is a big challenge. Data hiding also known as Steganography is one of the fields that deal in methods related information security and hide secret information and message other information. This paper elucidates the effect of data hiding in different number of least significant bits in the primary colors of RGB color image. These individual color channels are analyzed at different hiding capacity level and its has been observed that high quality Stego images with PNSR 30dB and above can been obtained by hiding secret information in 5 least significant bits of red, green and blue channels, specially the green and blue channels give a very high visual quality. The individual channels can hide 20% data, i.e. one fifth of the overall size of cover image, with undetectable changes in cover image.

Wrinkles energy based age estimation using discrete cosine transform

Humans faces are true representative of a human and information like gender, age and origin about a human. Age estimation on the bases of facial image is a complex phenomenon for the computer vision systems to predict humans age effectively. Facial image based Age estimation analysis has a lot of real world applications e.g. human computer interaction (HCI) and multimedia communication. In this paper a new method to predict humans age is presented. The proposed method is focusing on cheeks area and wrinkles analysis using discrete cosine transform (DCT). As the wrinkles on human face increase with increasing age, so it has been used as discriminating factor for age estimation. DCT is applied on the wrinkle detected. The energy in higher coefficients of DCT increases with the increasing wrinkle in other words with increasing age.