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Reversible Data Hiding(RDH) has been extensively investigated, recently, due to its numerous applications in the field of defence, medical, law enforcement and image authentication. However, most of RDH techniques suffer from low secret data hiding capacity and communication overhead. For this, multistage high-capacity reversible data hiding technique without overhead is proposed in this manuscript. Proposed reversible data hiding approach exploits histogram peaks for embedding the secret data along with overhead bits both in plain and encrypted domain. First, marked image is obtained by embedding secret data in the plain domain which is further processed using affine cipher maintaining correlation among the pixels. In second stage, overhead bits are embedded in the encrypted marked image. High embedding capacity is achieved through exploiting histogram peak for embedding multiple bits of secret data. Proposed approach is experimentally validated on different datasets and results are compared with the state-of-the-art techniques over different images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hiding secret data in digital images is one of the major research fields in information security. Recently, reversible data hiding in encrypted images has attracted extensive attention due to the emergence of cloud services. This paper proposes a novel reversible data hiding method in encrypted images based on an optimal multi-threshold block labeling technique (OMTBL-RDHEI). In our scheme, the content owner encrypts the cover image with block permutation, pixel permutation, and stream cipher, which preserve the in-block correlation of pixel values. After uploading to the cloud service, the data hider applies the prediction error rearrangement (PER), the optimal threshold selection (OTS), and the multithreshold labeling (MTL) methods to obtain a compressed version of the encrypted image and embed secret data into the vacated room. The receiver can extract the secret, restore the cover image, or do both according to his/her granted authority. The proposed MTL labels blocks of the encrypted image with a list of threshold values which is optimized with OTS based on the features of the current image. Experimental results show that labeling image blocks with the optimized threshold list can efficiently enlarge the amount of vacated room and thus improve the embedding capacity of an encrypted cover image. Security level of the proposed scheme is analyzed and the embedding capacity is compared with state-of-the-art schemes. Both are concluded with satisfactory performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reversible data hiding is an algorithm that has ability to extract the secret data and to restore the marked image to its original version after data extracting. However, some previous schemes offered the low image quality of marked images. To solve this shortcoming, a new reversible data hiding scheme based on pixel value ordering and edge detection mechanism is proposed. In our proposed scheme, the edge image is constructed to divide all pixels into the smooth regions and rough regions. Then, the pixels in the smooth regions are separated into non overlapping blocks. Then, by taking advantages of the high correlation of current pixels and their adjacent pixels in the smooth regions, PVO algorithm is applied for embedding secret data to maintain the minimum distortion. The experimental results showed that our proposed scheme obtained the larger embedding capacity. Moreover, the greater image quality of marked images are achieved by the proposed scheme than that other previous schemes while the high EC is embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an improvement in the preprocessing stage of the reversible data hiding method based on contrast enhancement applied to grayscale digital images. In conventional proposals, the preprocessing stage plays a fundamental role in the performance of the data hiding algorithm in terms of capacity and visual quality. Thus, this work presents two improvements to the preprocessing stage based on the analysis, merging, and shifting the image histogram, which, in conjunction with the data hiding stage, maximize the embedding capacity while keeping the visual distortion at a minimum. The proposed algorithm was implemented on two image datasets and compared with several related works previously reported in the scientific literature. The experimental results show that the visual quality can be preserved after data have been concealed when employing different embedding rates. Either of the preprocessing techniques presented in this paper can be adopted considering the application scenario and the priority of the requirements of the capacity and visual quality needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Balancing security and intra-block pixel correlation by adaptive pixel modulation. • A predictor based on block correlation is proposed to improve prediction accuracy. • More efficient high bit-plane code method is proposed to enhance the embedding rate. With the rapid development of telemedicine technology, electronic medical records (EMR) are facing security issues such as illegal access, leakage and malicious tampering during the transmission of electronic patient information (EPI). In view of this, a high-capacity RDHEI based on adaptive pixel modulation and high bit-plane based redundancy matrix coding (HBP-RMC) is proposed to effectively achieve patient privacy protection by embedding private data such as electronic medical records and authentication information into encrypted medical images. Specifically, the carrier image is encrypted using designed block-level disruption and adaptive pixel-modulation to preserve pixel-correlation. This method provides the basis for high embedding rates while ensuring the overall security of the image. Next, an accurate block-level pixel prediction is proposed to make full use of the high correlation to generate considerable redundancy and in balance with high prediction accuracy. Then the proposed HBP-RMC is used to maximally convert the redundant information into the embeddable space and effectively limit the size of the auxiliary information. At the decoding end, users can realize separable image restoration and information extraction according to their own keys. The maximum ERs of our scheme on the BOWS-2 and BOSSbase datasets can reach 2.9332 bpp and 3.0249 bpp, respectively. Extensive experiments prove that our algorithm outperforms some existing state-of-the-art schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reversible data hiding (RDH) algorithms have been extensively employed in the field of copyright protection and information dissemination. Among various RDH algorithms, the multiple histogram modification (MHM) algorithm has attracted significant attention because of its capability to generate high-quality marked images. In previous MHM methods, the prediction error histograms were mostly generated in a fixed way. Recently, clustering algorithms automatically classify prediction errors into multiple classes, which enhances the similarity among prediction errors within the same class. However, the design of features and the determination of clustering numbers are crucial in clustering algorithms. Traditional algorithms utilize the same features and fix the number of clusters (e.g., empirically generate 16 classes), which may limit the performance due to the lack of adaptivity. To address these limitations, an adaptive initial feature selection scheme and a clustering number optimization scheme based on the Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering algorithm are proposed in this paper. The superiority of the proposed scheme over other state-of-the-art schemes is verified by experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privacy protection of electronic patient information (EPI) is a crucial concern in the telemedicine applications, especially when it comes to communication between patients and doctors. In this paper, we propose a high-capacity reversible data hiding (RDH) algorithm combined with secure multi-party computation for telemedicine applications. The pixel values within a 3 × 3-size image block are divided into embedded pixels (EPs) and sampled pixels (SPs), secret data is embedded into the prediction errors of EPs and SPs in two stages. In the first stage, two edge servers predict EPs using the four SPs in the block to obtain the prediction error of EPs. The secret data is embedded into EPs through addition operation and histogram shift method. In the second stage, the prediction error of SPs is calculated as the difference between EPs and SPs, and the embedding of secret data follows the same method as used in the first stage. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves a higher embedding rate compared to classical and state-of-the-art algorithms, with an average embedding rate of 0.47bpp on the UCID dataset. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm exhibits robustness against existing attacks. • We propose a multi party secure computing framework for telemedicine applications. • We propose a two-stage strategy for prediction error and embedding data. • The decrypted images obtained by our algorithm have high visual quality. • The proposed algorithm achieves a higher embedding rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to the inefficiency to hide large volume of secret data for the reversible data hiding (RDH) image steganography approaches, we propose two improved RDH based approaches, such as (1) improved dual image based least significant bit (LSB) matching with reversibility, and (2) n-rightmost bit replacement (n-RBR) and modified pixel value differencing (MPVD). The first approach extends the ability of LSB matching with reversibility using dual images. Whereas the second approach utilizes four identical cover images for secret data embedding using two phases, such as (1) n-rightmost bit replacement (n-RBR) and (2) modified pixel value differencing (MPVD). In the n-RBR phase, n bits of secret data are embedded in the pair of two neighboring pixels of the first two identical images, where 1 ≤ n ≤ 4. Correspondingly, the MPVD phase uses the third and fourth identical images for hiding the secret data. Experimental results with respect to peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), embedding capacity (EC), structural similarity index (SSIM), and the comparative analysis with recently proposed state-of-art approaches exhibit the superiority of the proposed approach. Besides reversibility, the proposed approach ensures high fidelity to salt and pepper (S&P) noise, RS analysis, and pixel difference histogram (PDH) analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, many scholars have investigated reversible data hiding (RDH) based on automatic contrast enhancement (ACE). For RDH based on ACE (ACERDH), various methods have been proposed on how to better improve image quality. Preserving brightness can prevent the image from being over-enhanced. However, some ACERDH methods that can preserve brightness well cannot sufficiently enhance low-light images. Although some ACERDH methods that cannot preserve brightness well can more sufficiently enhance low-light color images, they lack the consideration of the local region, which is not conducive to enhancing the contrast of the local region. Therefore, a novel RDH method based on global ACE and local ACE is proposed. The global contrast is first improved by equalizing the global histogram. Then the high complexity region is optimized by the proposed RDH method based on double-layer ACE to further enhance the local contrast. The low-light color image can be well enhanced by applying the proposed method to enhance the R, G, and B channels sequentially. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method is superior to some existing advanced methods in obtaining better image quality and hiding more secret data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new framework of reversible data hiding scheme for absolute moment truncation coding (AMBTC) compressed images. AMBTC-based RDH can be applied to optical remote sensing (ORS) image transmission, which achieves target region preservation and image compression simultaneously. Existing methods can be concluded as two types. In type I schemes, stego codes mimic the original AMBTC format where no file bloat occurs, yet the carried secret data is limited. Type II schemes utilize predication errors to recode quantity levels of AMBTC codes which achieves significant increase in embedding capacity. However, such recoding causes bloat inside stego format, which is not appropriate in mentioned ORS transmission. The proposed method is a novel type I RDH method which prevents bloat inside AMBTC stego codes with significant improvement in embedding capacity. The AMBTC compressed trios are grouped into two categories according to a given threshold. In smooth trio, the modified low quantity level is constructed by concatenating Huffman codes and secret bits. The reversible contrast mapping (RCM) is performed to complex trios for data embedment. Experiments show that the proposed scheme provides highest payload compared with existing type I methods. Meanwhile, no expansion inside stego codes is caused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reversible data hiding scheme in JPEG compressed bitstreams is proposed, which could avoid decoding failure and file expansion by means of removing of bitstreams corresponding to high frequency coefficients and embedding of secret data in file header as comment part. We decode original JPEG images to quantified 8x8 DCT blocks, and search for a high frequency as an optimal termination point, beyond which the coefficients are set to zero. These blocks are separated into two parts so that termination point in the latter part is slightly smaller to make the whole blocks available in substitution. Then spare space is reserved to insert secret data after comment marker so that data extraction is independent of recovery in receiver. Marked images can be displayed normally such that it is difficult to distinguish deviation by human eyes. Termination point is adaptive for variation in secret size. A secret size below 500 bits produces a negligible distortion and a PSNR of approximately 50 dB, while PSNR is also mostly larger than 30 dB for a secret size up to 25000 bits. The experimental results show that the proposed technique exhibits significant advantages in computational complexity and preservation of file size for small hiding capacity, compared to previous methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interpolation technique (IT) is a fundamental tool for image processing and is commonly utilized. Various IT-based reversible data hiding (RDH) schemes for encrypted medical images have been proposed in recent years. However, these schemes have encountered issues such as simplistic encryption, low embedding rate, or incomplete separation. A high-capacity IT-based separable RDH scheme for medical images is proposed to address these issues. First, the original Logistic map is modified by adding extra parameters to increase the complexity of the key. Additionally, an encryption method via bit reorganization and diffusion is presented to encrypt the original image. Second, an improved interpolation method based on the neighbor pixel mean is proposed to interpolate the encrypted (ciphertext) image to generate a cover (interpolated) image for embedding the data. Finally, a new data embedding method is developed using the modulo-operation congruence theorem. Experimental results showed that the modified Logistic map exhibits excellent chaotic characteristics, the metrics of the proposed encryption method are close to the theoretical values, and the proposed data hiding method acquires high embedding capacity and image quality. Furthermore, the proposed scheme is a fully reversible and separable technique that achieves superior performance in comparison to various IT-based encrypted RDH schemes. • A modified Logistic map is presented to enhance the complexity of the key by incorporating two extra parameters. • A new encryption method via bit reorganization and diffusion is proposed to promote the security of encrypted images. • An improved interpolation method based on neighbor pixel mean is proposed to increase the quality of the interpolated image. • A new data embedding method is proposed to minimize the embedding distortion using the modulo operation congruence theorem. • The proposed scheme is a separable RDH technique where the receivers can extract their respective data accurately depending on the keys owned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Redundant space transfer (RST) encryption can effectively enhance the security and embedding capacity of reversible data hiding in encrypted images. To demonstrate the security risks of RST encryption in the cloud environment, according to the known plaintext image and marked encrypted image(MEI) pairs, this paper proposes a known plaintext attack (KPA) based on hamming-weight of bit block. The proposed KPA method includes two stages. The first stage is to find the correct ciphertext image. For possible block sizes, all possible ciphertext images of MEI are reconstructed by deleting the embedded secret data. The Hamming weight image (HWI) of plaintext and all possible ciphertext images is calculated in m × 8 n domain (m , n is the image size). When the histogram distance between the plaintext HWI and a possible ciphertext HWI is the minimum, the correct ciphertext image is found. The second stage is to estimate the permutation keys. The bit block characteristic matrix (BBCM) is defined by using that the bit values of plaintext and ciphertext remain unchanged in the process of RST encryption. Based on the intersection of BBCM's index set, the block permutation key is directly estimated. Then, the bit plane permutation key in each image block is further estimated. Experimental results show that for RST encryption, when the block size is not less than 3 × 3, the block permutation and bit plane permutation key can be estimated in less than 3 min by using one pair of plain–ciphertext. The estimation accuracy of block permutation key is more than 50%, and the estimation accuracy of bit plane permutation key is 10% for Qin's RST algorithm, most of the content information of the ciphertext image is leaked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Novel block sorting method. In this paper, the smoothness of the block is evaluated by using the number of zeros in the EOB and the sum of squares of the differences between the DC (Direct current, DC) coefficients of the block and the four neighborhoods of the context. • Segmented data embedding. The sequence of blocks is divided into three segments. The first and second segments expand peak points (−1, 1) and (−1, 0) to embed data, respectively. The blocks in the third segment are kept unchanged. • Dynamic allocation solution method. The approximate optimal segmentation of the DCT block sequence can be quickly solved by the dynamic allocation solution method. This method reduces the solution space by setting the dynamic allocation step size. Existing JPEG image reversible data hiding (RDH) schemes based on quantized DCT (Discrete cosine transform) modification usually use non-zero or zero AC (Alternating current) coefficients as peak points for data embedding. However, this approach tends to limit the embedding capacity or result in significant file size growth. This paper proposed an RDH scheme for JPEG images based on DCT block sorting and segmented embedding. This scheme can take into account the dual advantages of having a non-zero or zero AC coefficient as the peak point, so it has both high embedding capacity and low file growth, and good visual quality. Firstly, a new DCT block sorting method is designed, the smoothness of the block is estimated by the number of zero coefficients in the EOB (End of Block) and the fluctuation of the DC coefficient in the block, and the zero coefficients in the EOB in the block have not embedded data. Then, the sorted DCT block sequence is divided into three segments, the peak points of the front two segments are (−1, 1) and (−1, 0) respectively, and the third segment may be empty but it always remains unchanged. Finally, the dynamic allocation method is used to quickly solve the optimal segmentation point to achieve the optimal embedding performance. The experimental results show that the overall performance of this scheme is better than the existing state-of-the-art algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing histogram based reversible data hiding schemes use only absolute difference values between the neighboring pixels of a cover image. In these schemes, maxima and minima points at maximum distance are selected in all the blocks of the image which causes shifting of the large number of pixels to embed the secret data. This shifting produces more degradation in the visual quality of the marked image. In this work, the cover image is segmented into blocks, which are classified further into complex and smooth blocks using a threshold value. This threshold value is optimized using firefly algorithm. Simple difference values between the neighboring pixels of complex blocks have been utilized to embed the secret data bits. The closest maxima and minima points in the histogram of the difference blocks are selected so that number of shifted pixels get reduced, which further reduces the distortion in the marked image. Experimental results prove that the proposed scheme has better performance as compared to the existing schemes. The scheme shows minimum distortion and large embedding capacity. Novelty of work is the usage of negative difference values of complex blocks for secret data embedding with the minimal number of pixel shifting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reversible data hiding in encrypted images (RDHEI) provides some real-time cloud applications; i.e. the cloud, acting as a data-hider, automatically embeds timestamp in the encrypted image uploaded by a content owner. Many existing methods of RDHEI only satisfy user privacy in which the data-hider does not know the original image, but leaks owner privacy in which the receiver can obtains the original image by decryption and extraction. In the literature, the method of Zhang et al. is the one providing weak content-owner privacy in which the content-owner and data-hider have to share a data-hiding key. In this paper, we take care of the stronger notion, called strong content-owner privacy, and achieve it by presenting a new reversible data hiding in encrypted images. In the proposed method, image decryption and message extraction are separately controlled by different types of keys, and thus such functionalities are decoupled to solve the privacy problem. At the technique level, the original image is segmented along a Hilbert filling curve. To keep image privacy, segments are transformed into an encrypted image by using random permutation. The encrypted image does not reveal significant information about the original one. Data embedment can be realized by using pixel histogram-style hiding, since this property, can be preserved before or after encryption. The proposed method is a modular method to compile some specific reversible data hiding to those in encrypted image with content owner privacy. Finally, our experimental results show that the image quality is 50.85dB when the averaged payload is 0.12bpp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Consider the effect of peak pair selection on image quality. • Select the optimal peak pair from the candidates dynamically. • Design a weighting sum function with the metric score of each peak pair as input. • Design an optimizer for the weight vector of the weighting sum function. Reversible data hiding with contrast enhancement (RDH-CE) enables contrast enhancement of the image and lossless recovery of host image after embedded data extraction. Although the current RDH-CE methods are effective in enhancing carrier images and ensuring reversibility, image quality control is still lacking, which may lead to poor image visualization. In more serious situations, the image detail information may be lost. The peak pair selection mechanism plays an extremely crucial role in image quality enhancement; however, existing work often neglects this. In this paper, we propose an RDH-CE algorithm that pursues high image quality maintenance, aiming to maintain image quality by guiding and controlling the selection of peaks and the direction of histogram shift through quality metrics. Specifically, instead of simply selecting only one pair of peaks at each peak selection stage, our algorithm selects several pairs of peaks that meet the requirements as candidate peak pairs. It then first performs simulated histogram equalization on these candidate peaks, followed by analyzing the situation of the quality metrics generated by each pair of peaks accordingly, and then selects the optimal peaks for the current iteration based on the performance of each pair of candidate peaks to be used in the equalization process. Our selection mechanism also dynamically changes the peak selection strategy based on before-and-after changes in the actual metrics, which can better ensure image quality stability over the iterations. Under the evaluations of a series of image quality metrics, the proposed method can still maintain high quality and visual effect under high iteration and has strong stability for image quality control, thus demonstrating the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reversible data hiding (RDH) has been generally utilized in copyright protection and content integrity authentication for multimedia. In general, many typical RDH schemes are based on grayscale images. Considering that color images are widely employed in daily life, color image based RDH should be significantly concerned. Recently, color image based RDH is rare and those schemes are mostly empirically designed, which means that embedding capacity is manually allocated between different channels (such as RGB channels). In addition, most existing algorithms only focus on designing effective prediction methods to utilize the correlation in each channel, which means that the correlation between different channels is insufficiently employed and thus the algorithm performance is limited. Therefore, in this paper, the correlation between those different channels is sufficiently considered and an adaptive capacity allocation framework is proposed instead of empirical schemes. Moreover, the construction of a new synchronous histogram associated with the above-mentioned capacity allocation algorithm is proposed to further improve its performance. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed scheme compared with other state-of-the-art ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, preserving the integrity of medical record, especially image medical record is important. One method for preserving the integrity is reversible data hiding (RDH) proposed by Huang et al. Reversible data hiding algorithm can recover the original image from marked image. In this paper, we implement reversible data hiding (RDH) on medical image because the correlation between the neighboring pixel can be preserved in encrypted image. In RDH, plain image is encrypted using specific encryption algorithm that consists of two processes (stream encryption algorithm and block permutation). However, since RDH used fixed block permutation, the security is weak against known plain text attack. To overcome this problem, dynamic permutation was proposed, such that the permutation would be specific for one session. In other session, different permutation would be used. Based on the experiment’s result, it is shown that the security of the proposed method against known plain text attack is stronger than the previous method’s one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reversible data hiding (RDH) is a recent research field of information security for secured digital data transmission. The advancements in communication technology and the invention of new medical robotics are very much useful in telemedicine applications. The transmission of medical image and electronic patient records (EPR) is a common process in telemedicine. The images captured by robots may need to be authenticated, the RDH schemes can be used to authenticate data and/or the owner of the data. In addition, the RDH techniques provide a way to embed EPR data into medical images before transmission. The EPR data extraction and recovery of the original image can be carried out by the receiver. This manuscript proposes a new RDH scheme to embed EPR data during image encryption process. A block-wise image encryption technique has been used in the proposed scheme to obtain the encrypted image with hidden EPR data bits. The novelty of the proposed scheme is that a support vector machine (SVM) based classification scheme has been used for data extraction and image recovery process from the encrypted image. Experimental study of the proposed scheme on standard medical images from OsriX dataset shows that the proposed scheme performs better than the existing schemes in terms of embedding rate and bit error rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secret image sharing (SIS) technology has received wide attention from researchers due to its multi-party management of secret information. Traditional SIS algorithms usually convert secret information into the shares of noise-like images, which may attract the attention of hackers and cannot be effectively managed. Moreover, for communication scenario with multiple user participation, participants hope to embed additional data in their shares, while the secret image and the embedded additional information to be reversibly recovered. However, the embedding capacity, security, and authentication capability are limited in the existing SIS algorithms. Therefore, this paper proposes a dual reversible secret image sharing mechanism, called DR-SISM, which includes reversible hiding stage and reversible sharing stage. This proposed DR-SISM can simultaneously achieve the reversible recovery of secret image and additional data embedded. In the first stage, a reversible data hiding method is constructed that leverages the predictive technique of median edge detection to obtain the layered label map for capturing a higher embedding load and utilizes the bit-plane replacement technique to embed additional information. In the second stage, a novel (k , n) threshold reversible SIS strategy is presented by employing the Chinese remainder theorem (CRT), which can generate visually meaningful shares. The authentication bits produced by employing the hash function are embedded into the share, which are utilized to compare with the authentication bits owned by users for verifying the identities of the participants before the secret image reconstruction. Through the comparison of advanced SIS algorithms, our proposed DR-SISM in this article is preferred over the recent algorithms in respect of embedding capacity, security, and authentication capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper discusses a new data hiding technique. • It hides the secret data in the encrypted domain. • It uses the Paillier cryptosystem to encrypt the cover image while hiding the secret data and to decrypt the stegoimage. • It can recover the secret data as well as the cover image in their original forms. • It performs better than some of the state-of-the-art techniques. In this paper, we propose a data hiding technique that helps the receiver to extract the secret data and recover the original image. The receiver first creates a pair of keys using Paillier cryptosystem and shares public key with sender. The sender enlarges cover image of size M × N to (2M − 1) × (2N − 1) by inserting one row (column) between two rows (columns), and then divides it into 3 × 3 blocks such that two boundary blocks have a row or a column in common, and two interior blocks have one row and one column in common. The block's corner pixels, called as seed pixels, belong cover image and others, called as non-seed pixels, are initialized as 1 that are updated while embedding secret data in seed pixels. The block's central pixels hide a secret bit using the parity and seed pixels are processed clockwise to hide two secret bits in each using separate procedures for even and odd pixels. The seed's next pixel is multiplied by a fixed number that helps receiver to determine how it was processed at sender side. All pixels are encrypted using Paillier public key, giving a stegoimage, that is transmitted to the receiver. The receiver decrypts the stegoimage using Paillier private key, extracts the secret data and cover image by performing the data extraction process. The embedding rate of proposed method is 2.24 bits per pixel, which is 12 %, 16 %, 89 %, 83 %, 114 %, better than the Bhardwaj, Wang et al., Chen-Chang, Chi et al., Liu et al., respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel method of reversible data hiding in JPEG images. After analyzing the JPEG features, we provide a new algorithm of selecting appropriate blocks and coefficients to carry secret messages. Instead of embedding data into the histogram of all coefficients, we propose a strategy of ordered embedding to hide data by histogram shifts in several rounds. On the recipient end, secret messages can be exactly extracted, and the original JPEG image can be losslessly recovered. Experimental results show that high embedding rate can be achieved with limited distortions. Most importantly, the marked JPEG file generated by the proposed method requires less storage size than state-of-the-art works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Performing data hiding in videos is very popular now. Video data hiding has large number of applications as it is more secure and also video has high frequency over the internet. When the amount of data to be embedded into the video increases it can adversely affect the quality of the video making it unsuitable for many applications in the area of defence, military, medical, satellite field etc. The important concerns in the area of data hiding in videos are its high visual quality, size of the video stream, the delay that occurs during the network transmission. In the case of MPEG or H.264 videos which are of great visual quality have their size high, so transmission of these videos can be a difficult task even though they are superior in visual quality. Due to the transmission delay, there arise practical problems in using these high quality videos. Among those the most serious issue that the area of data hiding in video face are its poor illumination. Our new method proposes a novel concept where data hiding and the high quality for poor illumination videos are given equal importance. In the proposed method, we are performing contrast enhancement, improving visual quality in the video streams. The noted point is that we are strictly preserving the video file size even after performing contrast enhancement in the videos. The result should always be of better visual quality then only it becomes practically useful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every Organization uses data encryption for securing their communication. It provides data integrity, confidentiality and authentication. The primary goal of this paper is to combine the reversible data hiding and encryption to get maximum security. There are some areas like military, medical, forensic, bank, etc. which cannot compromise with any security issue. In the above areas both data and image are highly confidential, so no permanent distortion is acceptable. The paper proposes the algorithm reversible data hiding with a novel lightweight software oriented symmetric stream cipher namely A-S algorithm. The reversible data hiding algorithm used here produces maximum data capacity and contrast improved cover image. When applying the A-S encryption algorithm on the reversible data hiding process results a very good amount of security level. This new combined algorithm tested with two different datasets and the result shows a maximum data capacity and enhanced contrast of the cover image. The paper also measures another important metric of performance which results an extra ordinary result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reversible data hiding is a technique that embeds additional information into some distortion-unacceptable cover media, such as military images, in a reversible manner so that the original cover image can be restored after extraction of the hidden information. This work extends a recently proposed reversible data hiding (RDH) scheme of Qu et al. which is based on pixel-based pixel- value-ordering(PPVO) and prediction-error expansion. In Qu et al.’s method, each pixel is predicted using its sorted context pixels. In this work, the pixel neighborhood of each pixel is expanded to optimize the embedding performance in terms of capacity- distortion behavior. This can better exploit image redundancy; achieve superior embedding performance and low distortion. Thus, the proposed method is able to embed adequate data into a cover image with limited distortion. The superiority of this predictor is verified through extensive experimental results. The proposed method outperforms prior works in terms of PSNR. The PSNR of a modified image versus its original one is guaranteed to be above 57.0 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Block compressed sensing (BCS) is widely used in image sampling and is an efficient, effective technique. Through the use of BCS, an image can be simultaneously compressed and encrypted. In this paper, a novel reversible data hiding (RDH) method is proposed to embed additional data into BCS images. The proposed method is the first RDH method of its kind for BCS images. Results demonstrate that our approach performs better compared with other state-of-the-art RDH methods on encrypted images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper presents an overlapping pattern substitution (PS) method. The original overlapping PS method as a reversible data hiding scheme works well with only four pattern pairs among fifteen possible such pairs. This paper generalizes the original PS method so that it will work well with an optimal pair from among the fifteen possible pattern pairs. To implement such an overlapping PS method, changeable and embeddable patterns are first defined. A class map is virtually constructed to identify the changeable and embeddable pairs. The run-lengths between consecutive least probable patterns are recorded. Experiments show that an implementation of our overlapping PS method works well with any possible type of pairs. Comparison results show that the proposed method achieves more embedding capacity, a higher PSNR value, and less human visual distortion for a given embedding payload. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a reversible data hiding method for encrypted images that guarantees reversibility, i.e., the exact recovery of secret data and cover image by the receiver. This work is based on Zhang's reversible data hiding in encrypted images. Spatial correlation of pixels in the cover image is exploited for data hiding. In the proposed method, the sender proactively chooses suitable blocks in the cover image to hide secret data. The stego image is then encrypted so that privacy of cover image as well as secret data is protected. Zhang's method attains reversibility only with sufficiently large block size, thereby sacrificing payload capacity. The proposed method achieves reversibility at all block sizes, while significantly improving the embedding capacity over many of the state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using reversible data hiding (RDH) we can hide our secret data into a cover image and the receiver can restore both the secret data and the original image. It has wide application in medical imagery, military imagery where no distortion of original cover is allowed. Hong and Chen proposed a RDH scheme based on interpolation and histogram shifting. In their scheme reference pixels are not used for data embedding which leads to low capacity. Huang et al. modified this scheme and proposed a high capacity RDH scheme in which prediction errors are used for data embedding. In this paper we propose a further modification to the scheme of Huang et al. based on directional interpolation. Directional interpolation yields a better approximation to the original pixel which improves the capacity of embedding. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is tested using standard test images and the proposed scheme gives better results in terms of embedding capacity and visual quality compared to Huang et al. scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reversible data hiding scheme based on double image encryptions and spatial correlation comparisons is proposed, which improves the performance of two previous methods when dealing with flat cover images. A grayscale cover image is first encrypted. The four LSBs of each block pixel in the resulting encrypted image are encrypted once more to embed a message bit, thereby solving the problem of being unable to handle flat images encountered by the previous methods which flip three LSBs of each involved pixel at this stage. Data extraction and image recovery are achieved by a scheme of checking gray-value differences between blocks, which utilizes spatial correlations existing in nature images. Moreover, a side-match scheme that makes use of the spatial correlations of both recovered and unrecovered blocks is proposed to decrease the bit extraction error rate, in contrast with the two previous methods that consider only recovered blocks. Experimental results showing the feasibility of the proposed method are also included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Three types of rectangular predictors are designed for different kinds of interpolated pixels. • Rectangular predictor based on classification method protects edges and textures of original image well. • Optimal base-T selection for base-T notational system achieves a higher payload maintaining better image quality. • Minimum error optimal strategy is adopted to reduce the distortion of the stego image. The quality and efficiency of telemedicine make progress successfully due to the launch of Electronic Medical Record (EMR). However, EMR suffers information security problems such as unauthorized access, data disclosure, and tampering in telemedicine transmission. To ensure security for sensitive EMR during telemedicine transmission, a novel high-capacity and reversible data hiding scheme is proposed to conceal EMR into the medical images using rectangular predictors and optimal strategy. The clinic original image is interpolated into the cover image in which interpolated pixels are predicted by rectangular predictor to facilitate reversibility and high payload for data hiding scheme. Based on the classification idea, the proposed rectangular predictor calculates the weighted factor via local correlation to protect edges and textures reducing the appearance of common interpolation defects like blurring, jaggies, and zippers. The binary secret message is converted into a series of secret symbols in base-T notational system to balance image quality and embedding capacity, in which optimal base-T is selected adaptively by the content length of the EMR. The EMR is embedded into the cover image via finding the optimal pixel modification value in liner area for lower distortion. In addition, a fragile watermark, as a discriminator of whether medical information has been tampered during transmission, is also hidden in the cover image. Abundant experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is superior over state-of-the-art techniques in terms of payload and image quality. High payload of 2.25 bpp for PSNR 42 dB is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jung and Yoo proposed the first image interpolation-based reversible data hiding algorithm. Although their algorithm achieved superior interpolation results, the embedding capacity was insufficient. Lee and Huang proposed an improved algorithm to enhance the embedding capacity and the interpolation results. However, these algorithms present limitations to magnify the original image to any resolution and pixels in the boundary region of the magnified image are poorly manipulated. Furthermore, the capacity and the image quality can be improved further. This study modifies the pixel mapping scheme and adopts a bilinear interpolation to solve boundary artifacts. The modified reference pixel determination and an optimal pixel adjustment process can effectively enhance the embedding capacity and the image quality. The experimental results show our proposed algorithm achieves a higher embedding capacity under acceptable visual distortions, and can be applied to a magnified image at any resolution. Our proposed technique is feasible in reversible data hiding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A modified version of Zhang's reversible data hiding method in encrypted images is proposed in this letter. To make full use of spatial correlation in natural images, the former idea of block division is thoroughly abandoned, whereas the random diffusion strategy is used. Additionally, the fluctuation measurement of pixels containing embedded data is improved by accurate prediction. The experiment results reveal that our proposed method is superior to both Zhang's method and the later improved version proposed by Hong and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a novel reversible data hiding scheme in the index tables of the vector quantization (VQ) compressed images based on index set construction strategy. On the sender side, three index sets are constructed, in which the first set and the second set include the indices with greater and less occurrence numbers in the given VQ index table, respectively. The index values in the index table belonging to the second set are added with prefixes from the third set to eliminate the collision with the two derived mapping sets of the first set, and this operation of adding prefixes has data hiding capability additionally. The main data embedding procedure can be achieved easily by mapping the index values in the first set to the corresponding values in the two derived mapping sets. The same three index sets reconstructed on the receiver side ensure the correctness of secret data extraction and the lossless recovery of index table. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper proposes improvements to the reversible hiding technique proposed in by Hong et al. in 2012. The proposed technique is based on the characteristics of the human visual on neighboring pixel values to obtain the average for calculating the minimum value of just noticeable difference (JND). The JND is then used to determine the suitable embedding level to decrease image distortion. Hong et al.’s method will first shift pixels that caused overflow and underflow after finding the suitable embedding level. The values of the shifted pixel will be recorded in a location map the size of an image. The binary location map was JBIG2 compressed and embedded with the secret information. In the location map, pixels not shifted were recorded as 0. Therefore, many pixels were recorded. These resulted in the compressed length to be longer which affects the payload size. Experimental results showed that our proposed method decreases the size of the location map, payload is increased but the image quality is maintained similar to Hong et al.’s method. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Reversible data hiding enables the embedding of messages in a host image without any loss of host content, which is proposed for image authentication that if the watermarked image is deemed authentic, we can revert it to the exact copy of the original image before the embedding occurred. In this paper, we present an improved histogram-based reversible data hiding scheme based on prediction and sorting. A rhombus prediction is employed to explore the prediction for histogram-based embedding. Sorting the prediction has a good influence on increasing the embedding capacity. Characteristics of the pixel difference are used to achieve large hiding capacity while keeping low distortion. The proposed scheme exploits a two-stage embedding strategy to solve the problem about communicating peak points. We also present a histogram shifting technique to prevent overflow and underflow. Performance comparisons with other existing reversible data hiding schemes are provided to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a reversible data hiding scheme based on histogram shifting of host image blocks is presented. This method attempts to use full available capacity for data embedding by dividing the image into non-overlapping blocks. Applying histogram shifting to each block requires that extra information to be saved as overhead data for each block. This extra information (overhead or bookkeeping information) is used in order to extract payload and recover the block to its original state. A method to eliminate the need for this extra information is also introduced. This method uses maximum gap that exists between histogram bins for finding the value of pixels that was used for embedding in sender side. Experimental results show that the proposed method provides higher embedding capacity than the original reversible data hiding based on histogram shifting method and its improved versions in the current literature while it maintains the quality of marked image at an acceptable level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reversible data hiding embeds information in a host media in a visually plausible way such that both the embedded message and the original host media can be exactly recovered. In this paper we present a new reversible data hiding framework based on prediction error histogram modification. This framework is general and flexible that includes some of the state-of-the-art methods as special cases. In addition, we propose a new adaptive prediction method using the autoregression model. In this method, a threshold is adjusted for each image to divide all pixels into two regions: the smooth region and the texture region. Then the proposed method optimally estimates the coefficients of the autoregression model for pixel value prediction through least-squares minimization. Experimental results show that the proposed reversible data hiding framework and the adaptive prediction algorithm offer valuable advantages over state-of-the-art methods in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a multilevel reversible data hiding method based on histogram shifting which can recover the original image losslessly after the hidden data has been extracted from the stego-image. The method of prediction is adopted in our proposed scheme and prediction errors are produced to explore the similarity of neighboring pixels. In this article, we propose two different predictors to generate the prediction errors, where the prediction is carried out using the center prediction method and the JPEG-LS median edge predictor (MED) to exploit the correlation among the neighboring pixels. Instead of the original image, these prediction errors are used to hide the secret information. Moreover, we also present an improved method to search for peak and zero pairs and also talk about the analogy of the same to improve the histogram shifting method for huge embedding capacity and high peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). In the one-level hiding, our method keeps image qualities larger than 53 dB and the ratio of embedding capacity has 0.43 bpp (bit per pixel). Besides, the concept with multiple layer embedding procedure is applied for obtaining high capacity, and the performance is demonstrated in the experimental results. From our experimental results and analytical reasoning, it shows that the proposed scheme has higher PSNR and high data embedding capacity than that of other reversible data hiding methods presented in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Steganography is an art that involves communication of secret data in an appropriate carrier, e.g., image, audio, video or TCP/IP header file. Steganography's goal is to hide the very existence of embedded data so as not to arouse an eavesdropper's suspicion. For hiding secret data in digital images, large varieties of steganographic techniques are available, some are more complex than others, and all of them have their respective pros and cons. Steganography has various useful applications and the technique employed depends on the requirements of the application to be designed for. For instance. applications may require absolute invisibility of the secret data, larger secret data to be hidden or high degree of robustness of the carrier. This paper intends to give thorough understanding and evolution of different existing digital image steganography techniques of data hiding in spatial, transform and compression domains. It covers and integrates recent research work without going in to much detail of steganalysis, which is the art and science of defeating steganography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes reversible data hiding using minimum/maximum preserved overflow/underflow avoidance (MMPOUA). The proposed MMPOUA algorithm consists of three main steps. These steps include the minimum (or maximum) pixel fixing, pixel squeezing, and pixel isolation. The aims of pixel fixing are to keep the minimum (or maximum) pixel of a host block unchanged and prevent the occurrence of overflow/underflow. Both the pixel squeezing and pixel isolation supply hiding storage while keeping the amount of distortion low. The proposed method can avoid (or significantly reduce) the overhead bits used to overcome overflow/underflow issues. At an embedding rate of 0.15 bpp, the proposed algorithm can achieve a PSNR value of 48.52 dB, which outperforms several existing reversible data hiding schemes. Furthermore, the algorithm performed well in a variety of images, including those in which other algorithms had difficulty obtaining good hiding storage with high perceived quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feasibility of future developments in computing technologies strongly relies on the existence of key technologies and their deployments. One of the areas where they are being deployed is telemedicine, it requires communication of patient report to a specialized doctor in a real time scenario. Therefore, any harm to patient medical data can lead to a faulty diagnosis that can be lethal for the patient. To ensure safe and secure communication in E-healthcare framework, a high capacity reversible data hiding algorithm in the encrypted domain has been proposed in this paper. The proposed algorithm gives a higher embedding rate by embedding n binary bits of patient data in b a s e k numeral framework at every pixel of the cover image without any occurrence of underflow and overflow problem. In addition to electronic patient information (EPI), a fragile watermark has been embedded for observing any tamper to the patient data during transmission phase. The experimental study reveals that for all types of test images, proposed method has an embedding rate nearly twice larger than the compared methods, precisely recover EPI with a PSNR value of ∞ dB between the cover image and reconstructed image successfully. • Average pixel repetition (APR) method is used for interpolation to avoid underflow and overflow problem during data embedding in scaled-up image. • The EPI is embedded in b a s e k numeral framework to improve the embedding capacity. • Fragile watermark is used for content authentication at the receiver end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]