TY - JOUR
T1 - Nonparametric steganalysis of QIM steganography using approximate entropy
AU - Malik, Hafiz
AU - Subbalakshmi, K. P.
AU - Chandramouli, R.
PY - 2012/4
Y1 - 2012/4
N2 - This paper proposes an active steganalysis method for quantization index modulation (QIM)-based steganography. The proposed nonparametric steganalysis method uses irregularity (or randomness) in the test image to distinguish between the cover image and the stego image. We have shown that plain quantization (quantization without message embedding) induces regularity in the resulting quantized object, whereas message embedding using QIM increases irregularity in the resulting QIM-stego. Approximate entropy, an algorithmic entropy measure, is used to quantify irregularity in the test image. The QIM-stego image is then analyzed to estimate secret message length. To this end, the QIM codebook is estimated from the QIM-stego image using first-order statistics of the image coefficients in the embedding domain. The estimated codebook is then used to estimate secret message. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can successfully estimate the hidden message from the QIM-stego with very low decoding error probability. For a given cover object the decoding error probability depends on embedding rate and decreases monotonically, approaching zero as the embedding rate approaches one.
AB - This paper proposes an active steganalysis method for quantization index modulation (QIM)-based steganography. The proposed nonparametric steganalysis method uses irregularity (or randomness) in the test image to distinguish between the cover image and the stego image. We have shown that plain quantization (quantization without message embedding) induces regularity in the resulting quantized object, whereas message embedding using QIM increases irregularity in the resulting QIM-stego. Approximate entropy, an algorithmic entropy measure, is used to quantify irregularity in the test image. The QIM-stego image is then analyzed to estimate secret message length. To this end, the QIM codebook is estimated from the QIM-stego image using first-order statistics of the image coefficients in the embedding domain. The estimated codebook is then used to estimate secret message. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can successfully estimate the hidden message from the QIM-stego with very low decoding error probability. For a given cover object the decoding error probability depends on embedding rate and decreases monotonically, approaching zero as the embedding rate approaches one.
KW - Algorithmic entropy
KW - approximate entropy
KW - complexity
KW - dither modulation
KW - embedding rate
KW - entropy
KW - message recovery
KW - quantization index modulation
KW - steganalysis
KW - steganography
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84858405614&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84858405614&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TIFS.2011.2169058
DO - 10.1109/TIFS.2011.2169058
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84858405614
SN - 1556-6013
VL - 7
SP - 418
EP - 431
JO - IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security
JF - IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security
IS - 2
M1 - 6025286
ER -