ADAPTIVE STEGANOGRAPHIC METHOD USING THE FLOOR FUNCTION WITH PRACTICAL MESSAGE FORMATS

Abstract

This paper proposes a secure steganography to preserve the PVD histogram even though the histogram of the messages is not uniform. Most researchers of steganographic algorithms have assumed that the histogram of the secret data becomes uniform due to encryption. However, although the practical message files for real communication are encrypted, these files do not create a uniform distribution differently from the initial assumption, which has many artifacts in the P VD histogram that could reveal the existence of the hidden message: steps, fluctuations and asymmetric properties. We present an adaptive and secure steganographic method that is tolerant of the distribution of the message and achieves high capacity and good image quality. A floor function is employed for the flexible modification of the PVD histogram. Also, a modulus function is adopted to provide high embedding capacity and good image quality. A Take Fill algorithm adjusts the PVD histogram to look similar to the cover image. Experimental results support that the proposed method achieves the security while providing maximum hiding capacity and good image quality.