AUDIO STEGANOGRAPHY FOR COVERT DATA TRANSMISSION BY

IMPERCEPTIBLE TONE INSERTION

Kaliappan Gopalan1 and Stanley Wenndt2
1
Department of Engineering, Purdue University Calumet, Hammond, IN 46323
gopalan@calumet.purdue.edu
2
Multi-Sensor Exploitation Branch, AFRL/IFEC, Rome, NY 13441
Stanley.Wenndt @rl.af.mil

ABSTRACT
This paper presents the technique of embedding data in
an audio signal by inserting low power tones and its
robustness to noise and cropping of embedded speech
samples. Experiments on the embedding procedure applied
to cover audio utterances from noise-free TIMIT database
and a noisy database demonstrate the feasibility of the
technique in terms of imperceptible embedding, high data
rate and accurate data recovery. The low power levels
ensure that the tones are inaudible in the message-embedded
stego signal. Besides imperceptibility in hearing, the
spectrogram of the stego signal also conceals the existence
of embedded information. Both of these features render the
detection of embedding in the stego signal difficult to
accomplish. Oblivious detection of the stego signal, instead
of escrow detection, yields the embedded information
accurately. In addition, results of two cases of attacks on
the data-embedded stego audio, namely, additive noise and
random cropping, show the technique is robust for covert
communication and steganography.
Keywords: Audio Steganography, Imperceptible tone
insertion
Steganography, in general, relies on the imperfection of
the human auditory and visual systems. Audio
steganography takes advantage of the psychoacoustical
masking phenomenon of the human auditory system [HAS].
Psychoacoustical, or auditory masking property renders a
weak tone imperceptible in the presence of a strong tone in
its temporal or spectral neighborhood. This property arises
because of the low differential range of the HAS even
though the dynamic range covers 80 dB below ambient level
[1, 2]. Frequency masking occurs when human ear cannot
perceive frequencies at lower power level if these
frequencies are present in the vicinity of tone- or noise-like
frequencies at higher level. Additionally, a weak pure tone
is masked by wide-band noise if the tone occurs within a
critical band. This property of inaudibility of weaker
sounds is used in different ways for embedding information.
Embedding of data by inserting inaudible tones in cover
audio signal has been presented recently [3,4]. The
following sections describe the tone insertion technique and
its robustness in retrieving the embedded information in the
presence of noise and in cropped frames of received speech.
2. EMBEDDING BY TONE INSERTION

1. INTRODUCTION The tone insertion method relies on the inaudibility of

Covert communication by embedding a message or data
file in a cover medium has been increasingly gaining
importance in the all-encompassing field of information
technology. Audio steganography is concerned with
embedding information in an innocuous cover speech in a
secure and robust manner. Communication and
transmission security and robustness are essential for
transmitting vital information to intended sources while
denying access to unauthorized persons. By hiding the
information using a cover or host audio as a wrapper, the
existence of the information is concealed during
transmission. This is critical in applications such as
battlefield communications and bank transactions, for
example.
low power tones in the presence of significantly higher
spectral components – an indirect exploitation of the
psychoacoustic masking phenomenon in the spectral
domain. Experiments were conducted using utterances from
(a) the TIMIT database, and (b) the Greenflag database
consisting of noisy recordings of air traffic controllers, as
host or cover audio samples.
In the first experiment, two tones at frequencies f0 and f1
are generated for embedding bit 0 and bit 1 respectively. As
seen in Fig. 1, the host audio is divided into non-
overlapping segments of 16 ms in duration. For the host
utterances used, f0 is set at 1875 Hz and f1 at 2625 Hz
arbitrarily. For every frame of host audio, the frame power
fe, is computed and only one bit of data is embedded into the
host audio frame. If the bit to be embedded is a 0, then
the power of f0 is set at 0.25 percent of fe and the power of
f1 is set at 0.001 of that of f0. To embed a bit of 1, the
power of f1 is set at 0.25 percent of fe and the power of f0
is set at 0.001 of the power of f1. The simultaneous
setting of significant and extremely low powers to the
tones facilitates concealed embedding and correct
detection of data. The low and relatively high power
ratios avoid one or both of the
Host Audio
Segment to 16 ms
frames
Compute frame
power, fe
Information
N Power of f1 → 0.25% of fe
to embed Embed 0 Power of f0 → 0.001 of f1
Y
Power of f0 → 0.25% of fe
Power of f1 → 0.001 of f0
Quantize
to 16 bits
Transmit
Frame
Fig. 1 Tone insertion algorithm
tones being detected in hearing or spectrogram – if only
one of the tones is set to a fixed power ratio relative to the
frame power, the other tone may be noticeable in cases
where the host frame inherently has a substantial
component at the tone frequency. The second advantage
is that a known high/low ratio of power between the tones
facilitates the detection of the embedded bit even when
the embedded amplitudes are scaled or quantized. The
frames with their spectral components at the tone
frequencies set in accordance with the data bits
constituted the stego signal. For transmission, the
embedded-frame is quantized to 16 bits, which is the
same as the original host audio sample size.
For recovering the covert information from every
received frame of audio, the frame power fe is computed
along with the power p0 and p1 at f0 and f1. If the ratio,
(fe/p0) > (fe/p1), then the covert bit is declared a 0.
Otherwise, the covert bit embedded in the frame is
considered a 1. It must be noted that the power at each of
the two frequency indices is computed with zero
bandwidth. While this can be done effectively in offline
processing by software, notch filters are required for
hardware implementation.
Embedding Two Bits Per Audio Frame
The second experiment extended the technique to
double the payload capacity by using four tones. For this
experiment, one tone out of a selection of four tones,
namely, 750 Hz, 1250 Hz, 1875 Hz, and 2625 Hz,
was set to 0.25 percent of the average power of each
frame while the other tones were set to negligible values.
For detection, the ratio of frame power to power at each
tone was used. This ratio, clearly, is a minimum for the
tone that was set at 0.25 percent of the frame power.
To add further security in transmission, a 4-bit key for
each frame was used at the transmitter to determine which
one of the four tones would be set at high power relative
to the other three tones. Embedded two-bit combination
from each frame was recovered by using the same key at
the receiver and detecting the relative power ratio of each
tone and the frame. The results of these experiments with
noise and cropping are presented in the next section.
3. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
In the first experiment using the TIMIT utterance,
“She had your dark suit in greasy wash water all year,”
which is available as 16 bit samples at the rate of 16,000
per second, nonoverlapped frames of 256 samples were
used to embed one bit in each. With 208 frames, a
random data of 208 bits were embedded by inserting
tones at 1875 Hz and 2625 Hz with appropriate powers,
and the tone-inserted stego signal was quantized to 16 bits
for transmission. From the stego, all 208 bits were
successfully recovered from the ratios of frame power to
power at the tone frequencies. From informal listening
tests and from the spectrograms, the stego signal was
found indistinguishable from the unembedded host audio
signal.
In the second experiment, four tones were used to
embed two bits in each frame. In addition, successive
frames for embedding were overlapped with 50 percent to
further increase the payload capacity. After verifying the
imperceptibility of and the data recovery from the stego
signal, the technique was extended for use in covert
battlefield communication in which the hidden
information can be another utterance. For initial studies,
the utterance, “seven one” spoken by a male speaker, was
used as the covert message. This utterance was
represented in the Global System for Mobile
communication half-rate (GSM 06.20) coding scheme
resulting in a compact form of 2800 bits. Two TIMIT
utterances – “Thus technical efficiency is achieved at the
expense of actual experience” and “His captain was thin
and haggard and his beautiful boots were worn and
shabby” – each with 16 bit samples and 16,000 samples/s)
were concatenated to accommodate the large covert
information size. With two bits inserted in each host
frame of 256 samples, only the first 1400 overlapped
frames out of a total of 1542 were used for embedding all
the covert message bits. This gives an embedding
capacity of 2800 bits in 11.208 s , or 249.82 bits/s.
Tones for insertion were selected at frequencies of
687.5 Hz, 1187.5 Hz, 1812.5 Hz, and 2562.5 Hz. These
frequencies were either absent or weak in the host frames.
With four tones, however, an additional step was
necessitated to prevent the detection of embedding.
Presence of a continuous stream of 0’s or 1’s in the covert
data, for instance, results in the same tone being set at
0.25 percent of the corresponding frame power. Although
a listener may not be able to perceive the tone because of
its low power, the spectrogram is likely to show
continuous spectral nulls or ‘holes’ at the remaining three
tone frequencies. To a malicious attacker, these artifacts
are indicative of host manipulation even without the
knowledge of host spectrogram. Use of a 4-bit key that
sets the order of the tones for each frame by frequency
hopping avoids such an obvious detection of embedding
[3].
Figs. 2 and 3 show the host and the stego signals and
their spectrograms using the frequency-hopped four-tone
insertion for embedding the covert message. No
perceptual or otherwise detectible difference was noticed
between the host and the stego signals and all the
embedded data were correctly recovered from the stego
signal.
x 10
4 Host - TIMIT
4
2
0
-2
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
4 Stego - 2 bits/frame
10
x 10
5 and to about 80 for 10 sample replacement. Still, as noted
0
-5
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Sample index
Fig. 2 Host (top) and stego with 2800 bits embedded
(bottom)
To study the effect of noise on the recovery of
embedded information, Gaussian noise with zero mean
and average power proportional to the frame power of
embedded stego was added to each frame. Random noise
at low power is unlikely to increase the power of any of
the three tones to a level that exceeds the power level of
the significant tone. Hence, the pair of the embedded bits
from each of the noise-added stego frames was
successfully recovered up to noise power set to 25 percent
of frame power. Bit errors started showing up at higher
noise power levels. However, speech decoded from
GSM-coded speech with up to 10 percent bit errors results
in sufficient quality to convey the message albeit with
noise. Hence, noise power levels as high as 5 percent of
frame power, which resulted in only 70 to 80 bits in error
out of a total of 2800 bits, or at a bit error rate (BER) of
about 2.9 percent can be used to transmit covert messages
in encoded form with the tone embedding technique.
Host - TIMIT
8000
6000
Frequency
4000
2000
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Stego - 2 bits/frame
Time
8000
6000
Frequency
4000
2000
0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Time
12
Fig. 3 Spectrograms of host (top) and stego with 2800 bits
embedded (bottom)
A more serious attack on the stego during transmission
than additive noise is the random deletion of a few
samples. Since removal of up to one in 50 samples has
been shown to cause no perceptible difference [5], we
studied its effect on data recovery. With the removal of
five samples from each stego frame of 256 samples and
replacing them with zeros, bit errors of 4 to 10 out of
2800, or a BER of 0.14 to 0.36 percent, were observed.
When 10 samples in each stego frame were replaced
1.4 1.6 1.8 2
5 zeros, the bit error increased to 52 to 62. When the
x 10
removed samples were replaced by their neighbors, the
error increased to about 30 for five sample replacement
previously, a malicious attack on the stego may render the
host message noisy while still carrying the coded covert
audio message in a perceivable form.
1.4 1.6 1.8 2
5
x 10 In addition to the clean host from the TIMIT database,
the frequency-hopped tone insertion was also used in an
experiment with a noisy host from the Greenflag
database. Obtained as 16-bit PCM data at a rate of 8000
samples per second, the Greenflag database consists of
utterances from the cockpit of fighter aircraft. Because of
the high level of noise inherent in the host, externally
introduced tone or noise arising from embedding is
generally not noticeable. Figs. 4 and 5 show the result of 625 Hz, 750 Hz, 875 Hz and 1062.5 Hz, with as much as
embedding the GSM-coded covert speech, ‘seven one’ on 25 percent of frame power in the dominant tone did not
a host consisting of two utterances from the Greenflag result in any noticeable difference in speech quality or
database. Using 128 samples per frame the host of 80128 spectrogram; the inserted tones, randomized because of
samples has 1251 frames which can embed only 2502 bits the hopping key, were clearly masked by the already
out of the 2800 bits of the coded covert speech. This significant spectral components in the host. Fig. 5 shows
gives an embedding capacity of 249.8 bits/s. the spectrograms of the host and stego for comparison.

Because of the high level of intrinsic noise in the host,
the dominant tone power was raised to more than 10
percent. Although the stego signal did not show any
perceptual difference from the host, the higher tone power
started showing up in the spectrogram. To mask the
dominant tone in the spectrogram, the tones were set to
frequencies in the range where the host has significant
energy. In the 400 Hz to 1000 Hz range, for example, the
host has relatively high spectral energy over almost the
entire duration. Hence, inserting tones at frequencies of
With additive noise raised up to each stego frame
power, all 2502 bits were correctly recovered. At higher
noise levels of up to 2.5 times the frame power, the bit
error was below 80, or a BER of 2.86 percent.
Cropping by zeroing or replacing from 3 to 50 samples
in each stego frame caused no bit error due to relatively
higher power of the inserted tones. At higher number of
destroyed samples, stego became highly noisy; still, the
bit error was negligible.

4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

4 Host - GF
x 10
4

2 A method of embedding covert data in a cover audio

signal by insertion of low power tones has been presented.
0 The results of the present experiments demonstrate the
feasibility of the proposed technique for audio
-2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 steganography with imperceptibility, payload and data
x 10
4 Stego - 2 bits/frame
4
x 10 recovery with zero BER.
10

5
At the embedding rate of approximately 250 bits/s, the
technique has a high payload capacity. Any attempt to
0 increase the capacity further must use more than four
tones. However, use of eight tones for embedding 3
-5 bits/frame, for example, may lead to audible and/or
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Sample index 4
x 10
visible artifacts unless the selected tones are absent in the
host audio. Also, noise – intentional or unintentional –
Fig. 4 Greenflag utterance host (top) and GSM-coded bits may cause high bit errors at high capacity. Noisy host
embedded stego signals, on the other hand, can have larger payload and
use higher power without significant loss of data. In
Host - GF
general, tones selected from high energy regions of the
4000 host can be masked in hearing and spectrogram by their
3000
low power levels.
Frequency

2000
Malicious attacks involving replacement of embedded
1000 samples with zeros or neighboring values appear to cause
0
less loss of data at smaller number of samples. Cropping
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 of a large number of samples destroys the cover audio,
Time
4000
Stego - 2 bits/frame however.

3000 For further imperceptibility at more than two

Frequency

2000 bits/frame of embedding, which increases the number of

tones, the inserted tones may be selected from a set of
1000
psychoacoustically masked spectral points. While it is
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
preferable to use the same set of tone frequencies in all
Time the frames, it may not be possible to do so for a general
cover utterance. Instead, a set of tones from the most
Fig. 5 Spectrograms of Greenflag host (top) and stego commonly occurring masked frequencies may be chosen
with 2502 bits (bottom) for embedding. Alternatively, each frame may have its
own tone set selected from the perceptually masked set of
the frame. The collection of the frame tone frequencies
may then form an additional key for covert data
embedding and recovery. An issue that may arise with
the use of the masked frequency set is that coding and
compression of the embedded (stego) audio may alter the
signal waveform in the masked regions (and hence the
power at the inserted tone frequencies). The extent of
loss of embedded data due to MPEG and other such
coding schemes needs to be studied.
The proposed technique shows promise as a robust
method for audio steganography under noisy and cropped
conditions.
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