Covert Communication through Robust Fragment Hiding in a Large Number of Images
For covert communication in lossy channels, it is necessary to consider that the carrier of the hidden watermark will undergo multiple image-processing attacks. In order to ensure that secret information can be extracted without distortion from the watermarked images that have undergone attacks, in...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Sensors |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/24/2/627 |
| _version_ | 1797339325003726848 |
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| author | Pengfei Wang Hua Zhong Yapei Feng Liangbiao Gong Yuxiang Tang Zhe-Ming Lu Lixin Wang |
| author_facet | Pengfei Wang Hua Zhong Yapei Feng Liangbiao Gong Yuxiang Tang Zhe-Ming Lu Lixin Wang |
| author_sort | Pengfei Wang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | For covert communication in lossy channels, it is necessary to consider that the carrier of the hidden watermark will undergo multiple image-processing attacks. In order to ensure that secret information can be extracted without distortion from the watermarked images that have undergone attacks, in this paper, we design a novel fragmented secure communication system. The sender will fragment the secret data to be transmitted and redundantly hide it in a large number of multimodal carriers of messenger accounts on multiple social platforms. The receiver receives enough covert carriers, extracts each fragment, and concatenates the transmitted secret data. This article uses the image carrier as an example to fragment the text file intended for transmission and embeds it into a large number of images, with each fragment being redundant and embedded into multiple images. In this way, at the receiving end, only enough stego images need to be received to extract the information in each image, and then concatenate the final secret file. In order to resist various possible attacks during image transmission, we propose a strong robust image watermarking method. This method adopts a watermark layer based on DFT, which has high embedding and detection efficiency and good invisibility. Secondly, a watermark layer based on DCT is adopted, which can resist translation attacks, JPEG attacks, and other common attacks. Experiments have shown that our watermarking method is very fast; both the embedding time and the extraction time are less than 0.15 s for images not larger than <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>2000</mn><mo>×</mo><mn>2000</mn></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>. Our watermarking method has very good invisibility with 41 dB PSNR on average. And our watermarking method is more robust than existing schemes and robust to nearly all kinds of attacks. Based on this strong robust image watermarking method, the scheme of fragmenting and hiding redundant transmission content into a large number of images is effective and practical. Our scheme can 100% restore the secret file completely under different RST or hybrid attacks, such as rotation by 1 degree and 5 degrees, scaling by 1.25 and 0.8, and cropping by 10% and 25%. Our scheme can successfully restore the secret file completely even if 30% of received images are lost. When 80% of received images are lost, our scheme can still restore 61.1% of the secret file. If all stego images can be obtained, the original text file can be completely restored. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T09:46:20Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-22d6e98a009242f88c64cbf48be90e2a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1424-8220 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T09:46:20Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Sensors |
| spelling | doaj.art-22d6e98a009242f88c64cbf48be90e2a2024-01-29T14:17:25ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202024-01-0124262710.3390/s24020627Covert Communication through Robust Fragment Hiding in a Large Number of ImagesPengfei Wang0Hua Zhong1Yapei Feng2Liangbiao Gong3Yuxiang Tang4Zhe-Ming Lu5Lixin Wang6School of Communication Engineering, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, ChinaSchool of Cyberspace, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, ChinaSchool of Cyberspace, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, ChinaSchool of Cyberspace, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, ChinaSchool of Cyberspace, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, ChinaSchool of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, ChinaSchool of Communication Engineering, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, ChinaFor covert communication in lossy channels, it is necessary to consider that the carrier of the hidden watermark will undergo multiple image-processing attacks. In order to ensure that secret information can be extracted without distortion from the watermarked images that have undergone attacks, in this paper, we design a novel fragmented secure communication system. The sender will fragment the secret data to be transmitted and redundantly hide it in a large number of multimodal carriers of messenger accounts on multiple social platforms. The receiver receives enough covert carriers, extracts each fragment, and concatenates the transmitted secret data. This article uses the image carrier as an example to fragment the text file intended for transmission and embeds it into a large number of images, with each fragment being redundant and embedded into multiple images. In this way, at the receiving end, only enough stego images need to be received to extract the information in each image, and then concatenate the final secret file. In order to resist various possible attacks during image transmission, we propose a strong robust image watermarking method. This method adopts a watermark layer based on DFT, which has high embedding and detection efficiency and good invisibility. Secondly, a watermark layer based on DCT is adopted, which can resist translation attacks, JPEG attacks, and other common attacks. Experiments have shown that our watermarking method is very fast; both the embedding time and the extraction time are less than 0.15 s for images not larger than <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>2000</mn><mo>×</mo><mn>2000</mn></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>. Our watermarking method has very good invisibility with 41 dB PSNR on average. And our watermarking method is more robust than existing schemes and robust to nearly all kinds of attacks. Based on this strong robust image watermarking method, the scheme of fragmenting and hiding redundant transmission content into a large number of images is effective and practical. Our scheme can 100% restore the secret file completely under different RST or hybrid attacks, such as rotation by 1 degree and 5 degrees, scaling by 1.25 and 0.8, and cropping by 10% and 25%. Our scheme can successfully restore the secret file completely even if 30% of received images are lost. When 80% of received images are lost, our scheme can still restore 61.1% of the secret file. If all stego images can be obtained, the original text file can be completely restored.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/24/2/627robust image watermarkingcovert communicationredundant fragment hidingsteganography |
| spellingShingle | Pengfei Wang Hua Zhong Yapei Feng Liangbiao Gong Yuxiang Tang Zhe-Ming Lu Lixin Wang Covert Communication through Robust Fragment Hiding in a Large Number of Images Sensors robust image watermarking covert communication redundant fragment hiding steganography |
| title | Covert Communication through Robust Fragment Hiding in a Large Number of Images |
| title_full | Covert Communication through Robust Fragment Hiding in a Large Number of Images |
| title_fullStr | Covert Communication through Robust Fragment Hiding in a Large Number of Images |
| title_full_unstemmed | Covert Communication through Robust Fragment Hiding in a Large Number of Images |
| title_short | Covert Communication through Robust Fragment Hiding in a Large Number of Images |
| title_sort | covert communication through robust fragment hiding in a large number of images |
| topic | robust image watermarking covert communication redundant fragment hiding steganography |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/24/2/627 |
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