Is image steganography natural?
Journal Article (Journal Article)
Steganography is the art of secret communication. Its purpose is to hide the presence of information, using, for example, images as covers. We experimentally investigate if stego-images, bearing a secret message, are statistically "natural." For this purpose, we use recent results on the statistics of natural images and investigate the effect of some popular steganography techniques. We found that these fundamental statistics of natural images are, in fact, generally altered by the hidden "nonnatural" information. Frequently, the change is consistently biased in a given direction. However, for the class of natural images considered, the change generally falls within the intrinsic variability of the statistics, and, thus, does not allow for reliable detection, unless knowledge of the data hiding process is taken into account. In the latter case, significant levels of detection are demonstrated.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Martín, A; Sapiro, G; Seroussi, G
Published Date
- December 2005
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 14 / 12
Start / End Page
- 2040 - 2050
PubMed ID
- 16370457
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1941-0042
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 1057-7149
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1109/tip.2005.859370
Language
- eng