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Efficient and Secure Biometric Image Stegnography using Discrete Wavelet Transform Sunita Barve, Uma Nagaraj and Rohit Gulabani
Department of Computer Engineering
Maharashtra Academy of Engineering, Alandi
Abstract Steganography is the science of concealing the existence of data in another
transmission medium. It does not replace cryptography but rather boosts the
security using its obscurity features. As proposed method is Biometric
Steganography, here the Biometric feature used to implement Steganography is Skin
tone region of images. Proposed method introduces a new method of embedding
secret data within the skin portion of the image of a person, as it is not that much
sensitive to HVS (Human Visual System). Instead of embedding secret data
anywhere in image, it will be embedded in only skin tone region. This skin region
provides excellent secure location for data hiding. So, firstly skin detection is
performed in cover images and then Secret data embedding will be performed in
DWT domain as DWT gives better performance than DCT while compression. This
biometric method of Steganography enhances robustness than existing methods.
I. INTRODUCTION
Steganography is defined as science or art of hiding (embedding) data in
transmission medium. Steganography is a type of hidden communication that
literally means “covered writing” (from the Greek words stegano or “covered” and
graphos or “to write”). The first use of the term steganography was recorded in
1499 by Johannes Trithemius in his “Steganographia”, a dissertation on
cryptography and steganography disguised as a book on magic. The goal of
steganography is to hide an information message inside harmless cover medium in
such a way that it is not possible even to detect that there is a secret message.
Oftentimes throughout history, encrypted messages have been intercepted but have
not been decoded. While this protects the information hidden in the cipher, the
interception of the message can be just as damaging because it tells an opponent or
enemy that someone is communicating with someone else. Steganography takes the
opposite approach and attempts to hide all evidence that communication is taking
place.
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
The earliest recordings of Steganography were by the Greek historian Herodotus
in his chronicles known as "Histories" and date back to around 440 BC. In the 15th
and 16th century, Romans used invisible inks, which were based on natural
substances such as fruit juices and milk. During the times of WWI and WWII,
significant advances in Steganography took place. Concepts such as null ciphers
(taking the 3rd letter from each word in a harmless message to create a hidden
message, etc), image substitution and microdot (taking data such as pictures and
reducing it to the size of a large period Piece of paper) were introduced and
embraced as great Steganographic techniques.
With the boost of computer power, the internet and with the development
of Digital Signal Processing (DSP), Information Theory and Coding Theory,
Steganography went “Digital”. In the realm of this digital world Steganography has
created an atmosphere of corporate vigilance that has spawned various interesting
applications of the science. Contemporary information hiding was first discussed in
the article “The prisoners’ Problem and the Subliminal Channel” [The prisoner’s
problem]. More recently Kurak and McHugh carried out work which resembled
embedding into the 4LSBs (Least Significant Bits). They discussed image
downgrading and contamination which is now known as Steganography. Cyber-
terrorism, as coined recently, is believed to benefit from this digital revolution.
Figure 1: The prisoner’s problem
Figure 1 elaborates the idea of steganography messages by depicting a scenario
where two prison inmates Bob and Alice try to communicate via the warden
Wendy. Inspired by the notion that Steganography can be embedded as part of the
normal printing process, Japanese firm Fujitsu is pushing technology to encode data
into a printed picture that is invisible to the human eye (i.e., data) but can be
decoded by a mobile phone with a camera.
III. IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY
Given the proliferation of digital images, especially on the Internet, and given
the large amount of redundant bits present in the digital representation of an image,
images are the most popular cover objects for steganography. In the domain of
digital images, many different image file formats exist, most of them for specific
applications. For these different image file formats, different steganographic
algorithms exist.
A. Image and Transform Domain
Image steganography techniques can be divided into two groups: those in the
Image Domain and those in the Transform Domain. Image – also known as spatial –
domain techniques embed messages in the intensity of the pixels directly, while for
transform – also known as frequency – domain, images are first transformed and
then the message is embedded in the image. Image domain techniques encompass
bit-wise methods that apply bit insertion and noise manipulation and are sometimes
characterized as “simple systems”. The image formats that are most suitable for
image domain steganography are lossless and the techniques are typically dependent
on the image format. Steganography in the transform domain involves the
manipulation of algorithms and image transforms. These methods hide messages in
more significant areas of the cover image, making it more robust. Many transform
Sunita Barve et al, International Journal of Computer Science & Communication Networks,Vol 1(1),September-October 2011
Available online @ www.ijcscn.com 96
ISSN:2249-5789
domain methods are independent of the image format and the embedded message
may survive conversion between lossy and lossless compression. In the next
sections steganographic algorithms will be explained in categories according to
image file formats and the domain in which they are performed.
IV. SKIN DETECTION
Skin color has proven to be a useful and robust cue for face detection,
localization and tracking. Image content filtering, content aware video compression
and image color balancing applications can also benefit from automatic detection of
skin in images. Face detection and tracking has been the topic of an extensive
research for several decades. Many heuristic and pattern recognition based
strategies have been proposed for achieving robust and accurate solution. Among
feature-based face detection methods, the ones using skin color as a detection cue
have gained strong popularity. Color allows fast processing and is highly robust to
geometric variations of the face pattern. Also, the experience suggests that human
skin has a characteristic color, which is easily recognized by humans. When
building a system, that uses skin color as a feature for face detection, the researcher
usually faces three main problems. First, what color space to choose, second, how
exactly the skin color distribution should be modeled, and finally, what will be the
way of processing of color segmentation results for face detection.
V. COLOUR SPACES Colorimetry, computer graphics and video signal transmission standards have
given birth to many color spaces with different properties. A wide variety of them
have been applied to the problem of skin color modeling.
A. RGB RGB is a color space originated from CRT (or similar) display applications,
when it was convenient to describe color as a combination of three colored rays
(red, green and blue). It is one of the most widely used color spaces for processing
and storing of digital image data. However, high correlation between channels,
significant perceptual non-uniformity, mixing of chrominance and luminance data
makes RGB not a very favorable choice for color analysis and color based
recognition algorithms.
B. YCbCr YCbCr is an encoded nonlinear RGB signal, commonly used by European
television studios and for image compression work. Color is represented by luma
(which is luminance, computed from nonlinear RGB), constructed as a weighted
sum of the RGB values, and two color difference values Cr(Chrominance red) and
Cb(Chrominance blue) that are formed by subtracting luma from RGB red & blue
components. The transformation simplicity and explicit separation of Luminance
and chrominance components make this color space attractive for skin color
modeling.
Figure 2:- RGB to YCbCr Transformation
C. HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) Hue-saturation based colorspaces were introduced when there was a need for the
user to specify color properties numerically. They describe color with intuitive
values, based on the artist’s idea of tint, saturation and tone. Hue defines the
dominant color (such as red, green, purple and yellow) of an area; saturation
measures the colorfulness of an area in proportion to its brightness. The “intensity”,
“lightness” or “value” is related to the color luminance. The intuitiveness of the
color space components and explicit discrimination between luminance and
chrominance properties made these colorspaces popular in the works on skin color
segmentation. However, several undesirable features of these colorspaces can be
pointed out.
Figure 3:- RGB to YCbCr Transformation
D. Skin Modelling:- The final goal of skin color detection is to build a decision rule that will
discriminate between skin and non-skin pixels. This is usually accomplished by
introducing a metric, which measures distance (in general sense) of the pixel color
to skin tone. The type of this metric is defined by the skin color modeling method.
One method to build a skin classifier is to define explicitly (through a number of
rules) the boundaries skin cluster in some color space. For example:-
The simplicity of this method has attracted (and still does) many researchers.
The obvious advantage of this method is simplicity of skin detection rules that leads
to construction of a very rapid classifier. The main difficulty achieving high
recognition rates with this method is the need to find both good color space and
adequate decision rules empirically. Recently, there have been proposed a method
that uses machine learning algorithms to find both suitable color space and a simple
decision rule that achieve high recognition rates. The authors start with a
normalized RGB space and then apply a constructive induction algorithm to create a
number of new sets of three attributes being a superposition of r, g, b and a constant
1/3, constructed by basic arithmetic operations. A decision rule, which achieves the
best possible recognition, is estimated for each set of attributes. The authors prohibit
construction of too complex rules, which helps avoiding data over-fitting that is
possible in case of lack of training set representativeness. They have achieved
results that outperform Bayes skin probability map classifier in RGB space for their
dataset.
E. Masking and filtering:- Masking and filtering techniques usually restricted to 24 bits or grayscale
images for hiding a message. These methods are similar to paper watermarks,
creating markings in an image. This is achieved for example by modifying the
luminance of parts of the image. While masking changes the visible properties of an
image, it can be done in such a way that the human eye will not notice the
anomalies. Generally masking uses visible aspects of the image; also it is more
robust than LSB modification with respect to compression, cropping and different
kinds of image processing. Although the information is not hidden at the ”noise”
level , rather than it is inside the visible part of the image, which makes it more
suitable than LSB modifications in case a lossy compression algorithm like JPEG is
being used. In skin detection algorithms masking basically means covering the non
skin region with a black mask. Filtering is replacing the white region (representing
the skin portion in the binary image) with the original skin portion in the cover
image. The masking and filtering operation is shown in Fig 2 below:-
Figure 4:- Masking & Filtering Operation
Sunita Barve et al, International Journal of Computer Science & Communication Networks,Vol 1(1),September-October 2011
Available online @ www.ijcscn.com 97
ISSN:2249-5789
VI. 2D HAAR DWT The frequency domain transform we applied in this research is Haar-DWT, the
simplest DWT. A 2-dimensional Haar- DWT consists of two operations: One is the
horizontal operation and the other is the vertical one. Detailed procedures of a 2-D
Haar-DWT are described as follows:
Step 1: At first, scan the pixels from left to right in horizontal direction. Then,
perform the addition and subtraction operations on neighboring pixels. Store the
sum on the left and the difference on the right as illustrated in Figure 4. Repeat this
operation until all the rows are processed. The pixel sums represent the low
frequency part (denoted as symbol L) while the pixel differences represent the high
frequency part of the original image (denoted as symbol H).
Figure 5:- Horizontal Operation on the first row
Step 2: Secondly, scan the pixels from top to bottom in vertical direction. Perform
the addition and subtraction operations on neighboring pixels and then store the sum
on the top and the difference on the bottom as illustrated in Figure 5. Repeat this
operation until all the columns are processed. Finally we will obtain 4 sub-bands
denoted as LL, HL, LH, and HH respectively. The LL sub-band is the low
frequency portion and hence looks very similar to the original image.
Figure 6:- Vertical Operation
The whole procedure which has been described above is called the first-order 2-D
Haar-DWT. The first-order 2-D Haar- DWT applied on the image “Lena” is
illustrated in Figure 6.
Figure 7:- (a) Original image-Lena, (b) Result after the first-order 2-D Haar-
DWT
VII. PROPOSED METHOD FOR DIGITAL IMAGE
STEGNOGRAPHY We are proposing a Digital Image Steganography technique which explores the
Biometric feature of Skin tone region in images. This system should be capable of
embedding secret images using the Discrete Wavelet Transform. The primary goal
driving us is building a robust and secure Steganography system with additional
security features as compared to the existing systems. Proposed method creating
high quality stego image their by increasing security.
The detailed algorithm for the encoder is discussed below:-
1. Select the message to be embedded, preprocess it.
2. Select the cover image, with optimum number of skin pixels
3. Segment out the skin pixels.
4. Select the particular region of skin, where to embed the message.
(Hereafter referred as Skin ROI)
5. Take 2D wavelet transform of the skin ROI.
Figure 8:- Proposed Encoder
6. Select the particular sub band to be used for embedding.
7. Perform the payload check.
8. Embed the preprocessed data in particular sub band.
9. Perform Inverse DWT
10. We obtain the stego image.
Fig 9. Region of Interest
The decoder end has been purposefully not been kept exactly inverse of the
encoder. Keeping in mind the general tendency of assuming the decoder to be the
inverse of encoder, we have implemented the IDWT on the encoder end and no
inverse transform on the decoder end. This acts as a very important security feature
and increases the robustness of our algorithm.
The following are the steps to be implemented while decoding the stego-image.
1. Apply key 1 to the stego image
2. Perform DWT on the selected sub band
3. Carry out LSB extraction to get a distorted image
4. Reduce noise components in the image
5. Result is the hidden image
VIII. ADDITIONAL FEATURE Whenever security enhancements have been proposed till date, the first
question that arises in the mind of a third person is to try breaking it. History is
witness to this fact, and hence as an outcome we have ever advancing fields of
Sunita Barve et al, International Journal of Computer Science & Communication Networks,Vol 1(1),September-October 2011
Available online @ www.ijcscn.com 98
ISSN:2249-5789
Cryptography, Steganography and so forth. Our proposed framework already
encompasses three-tier robustness with the existence of two keys and IDWT on the
encoder end. We know that there is no bound to the thoughts of a negative mind.
Yet considering a scenario in which a Hacker manages to obtain the stego image
along with the two keys. In such a case too he shall be unsuccessful in decoding the
message. As mentioned earlier, our proposed decoder is not the exact inverse of the
encoder. Thus if the Hacker tries to reverse the encoder upon the stego image and if
he tries to fiddle with the bits, all he obtains is a completely distorted image. This
challenge is a proof to the robustness in steganography that we’re proposing.
6.
Figure 10:- Proposed Decoder
IX. ANALYSIS To establish an objective criterion for digital image quality, a parameter named
PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) is defined as follows:
MSE (Mean Square Error) stands for the mean-squared difference between the
cover-image and the stego-image. The mathematical definition for MSE is:
Where aij means the pixel value at position (i, j) in the cover image and bij
means the pixel value at the same position in the corresponding stego-image. The
calculated PSNR usually adopts dB value for quality judgment. The larger PSNR is,
the higher the image quality is (which means there is only little difference between
the cover-image and the stego-image). On the contrary, a small dB value of PSNR
means there is great distortion between the cover-image and the stego-image. For
color images, the reconstruction of all three color spaces must be considered in the
PSNR calculation. The MSE is calculated for the reconstruction of each color space.
The average of these three MSEs is used to generate the PSNR of the reconstructed
RGB image (as compared to the original 24-bit RGB image). The color PSNR
equations are as follows:-
MSE red (or green or blue) is similar to the main MSE equation for each color
space.
Fig 11. Comparison of Cover and Stego Image
X. CONCLUSION Digital Steganography is a fascinating scientific area which falls under the
umbrella of security systems. Proposed framework is based on steganography that
uses Biometric feature i.e. skin tone region. Skin tone detection plays a very
important role in Biometrics and can be considered as secure location for data
hiding. Secret data embedding is performed in DWT domain than the DCT as DWT
outperforms than DCT. Using Biometrics resulting stego image is more tolerant to
attacks and more robust than existing methods.
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Sunita Barve et al, International Journal of Computer Science & Communication Networks,Vol 1(1),September-October 2011
Available online @ www.ijcscn.com 99
ISSN:2249-5789