International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics

Volume 118 No. 20 2018, 3613-3620

ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)
url: http://www.ijpam.eu
Special Issue
ijpam.eu
MULTI-LEVEL REVERSIBLE DATA HIDING USING
LSB BASED STEGANOGRAPHY
G.Deva Preethi1 , C.Dharani2, K.Jaspin3
1,2
UG Student, Computer Science And Engineering Department,
St.Joseph’s Institute of Technology, OMR,Chennai-600 119 INDIA
1
(e-mail: g.devapreethi@gmail.com)
2
(e-mail: dharanichandrasekaran1997@gmail.com)
3
Assistant Professsor, Computer Science And Engineering Department,
St.Joseph’s Institute of Technology, OMR,Chennai-600 119 INDIA
(e-mail: jaspinsjit@gmail.com)

Abstract – Steganography means hiding the
fact that communication is taking place, by
hiding an information in another
information. Different applications have
different requirements of the steganography
technique used. Reversible Data Hiding
scheme is a data hiding technique that
allows embedding data inside an image and
later the hidden data can be retrieved and
the exact copy of host image is recovered.
Being lossless makes this technique suitable
for medical and military applications. In
this scheme,security is improved by hiding
the stego-image inside other image, which
results in increased securtiy with low
distortion.LSB technique is used to hide the
data into the image,thus as the result the
quality of stego- image retains as original.
In this proposed framework,we have used
multi-level embedding,the secret text is first
embedded into an image.Then this stego-
image is again hidden inside another image.
concept responsible for this is called
steganography[4].Steganography is a very old
art of embedding personal information into
other data by using some rules and techniques.
As a result, unauthorized users are not able to
see and recognize the embedded information.
Steganography is managing a secret path for
sending information invisibly. If both the
techniques: cryptography and steganography is
used then the communication becomes double
secured [7].The main difference between
Steganography and cryptography is that,
cryptography concentrates on keeping the
contents of a message secret while
steganography concentrates on keeping the
existence of a message secret [10]. Probably
most common cover media are multimedia
objects which are images, audio, and video.
Here, in this paper, we focus on images as
cover media. Two other technologies that are
closely related to steganography are
watermarking and fingerprinting [14].

Keywords – Cover image, Data hiding, LSB
method, Steganography,Stego-image.
I.INTRODUCTION
Security of information becomes one of the
most important factors of communication
because of the huge rise of the World Wide
Web. Cryptography was originated as a
technique for securing the confidentiality of
information. Unfortunately, it is sometimes not
enough to keep the contents of a message
secret, it may also be necessary to keep the
existence of the message secret and the
Steganographic technique finds its main
application in the field of secret
communication. It can be used by intelligence
agencies across the world to barter highly
confidential data in a secret media, e.g. a
secret agent can hide a map of a terrorist camp
in a photograph using image steganographic
software and post it on a forum. An officer
from the head office could download the
photograph from the forum and easily retrieve
the hidden map [19].
The outline of the paper is as follows. Section

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II discusses some aspects of reversible data interpretation scheme proposed by

embedding and techniques used so far for Vleeschouwer. Although this type of data
embedding data into media file. Section III hiding schemes provides a higher quality of the
describes about the LSB technique which is embedded image, the embedding capacity is
used for embedding and its strategies used in lower. A different category of data hiding
this technique to store data in it. Section IV schemes involves methods that losslessly
briefly reviews the existing reversible data- compress a set of selected features from an
embedding technique as described by image and embed the payload in the space
Huang[20]. Section V, we present a method saved due to the compression. This type results
that greatly improves the performance. We in higher embedding capacity than the
performed some experiments with
previously mentioned types. Another scheme
implementations of our techniques and of of this type is the generalized Least Significant
various existing-embedding techniques to Bit (LSB) embedding algorithm proposed by
compare their capacity-distortion behavior and Celik, which is based on grouping the pixels
their ability to control the capacity. The results
and embedding data bits into the state of each
of these experiments can be found in Section group. A very different scheme was proposed
VI. Section VII concludes with a discussion of by Tian based on modifying the difference
the presented techniques and some ideas on between a pair of pixel values while keeping
future research. the average of them unchanged. His method
divides the image into pairs of pixels, then
II. REVERSIBLE DATA HIDING embeds one bit of information into each pair.
Of course, not all pairs can be used for data
Reversible data hiding scheme is the
hiding. The pairs that are only expandable and
technique that allows embedding data inside an
do not cause overflow or underflow errors are
image and later the hidden data can be
expanded.
retrieved as required and the exact copy of the
original host image is recovered. Some of the
traditional reversible data hiding schemes are III. LSB TECHNIQUE
based on modulo-arithmetic additive and This concept uses only the least
spread-spectrum techniques . An example of significant bit of the alpha part of a pixel.
these schemes is the one proposed by This example does not modify any colour
Honsinger which is based on addition of value. Before embedding the message, the
modulo 256 as an invertible operation . length of the message should be written into
Although some of these schemes are robust, the image. It extracts bit number 0 from the
the modulo-arithmetic-based reversible data- first 32 pixels, the bits should be neatly
hiding algorithms have the disadvantage of arranged inside an integer variable to know the
salt-and-pepper visual artifacts and hinder length of message embedded into the image.
watermark retrieval. In order to enhance the Pixels following the 32nd pixel store the bits
robustness of the reversible watermarking and needed for reconstructing the byte value
reduce the salt-and- pepper visual artifact of needed to create the original string.Hence, an
the schemes, histogram shifting techniques image with 1 million pixels (or 1 Mega Pixel)
were proposed. In this scheme, the embedding might be able to store a message containing a
target is replaced by the histogram of a block maximum of 1,24,996 characters. ((1,000,000-
of the image. 32)/8 = 1,24,996). Although 1 Mega Pixel
A good example of the scheme is the circular

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image is considered a low resolution image, it
could store a lot of characters in the form of a
text message. Maximum size of message that
could be embedded in an image at the rate of 1
bit from each pixel can be calculated using the
relation n=(P-32)/8. If we increase the storage
locations for message to the least significant
bit of all the four components of ARGB
system (pixel numbers 0, 8, 16 and 24), the
storage capacity increases to n=(4P-8)/8. Here,
n is the maximum length of message and P is
the number of pixels.
Initially at the sender side, the secret
data is embedded into the original image using
LSB replacement technique. Thus it creates a
Stego-image. Now an another different cover
image is chosen to hide the Stego-image. Thus
multiple encryption is performed here inorder
to increase the security.At the receiver side,the
image which is received from the sender is
first decrypted to get the Stego-image.The
stego image is decrypted to get the original
secret message.System design of this proposed
framework is shown in Fig 1.
Fig. 1. System Design
For embedding the n-bit secret
message M into the rightmost LSBs of the
cover-image C, the secret message M is
rearranged to form a conceptually k-bit virtual
image In the extraction process, given the
stego-image S, the embedded messages can be
directly extracted.
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Algorithm to embed text message:-
Step 1: Read the cover image and text message
which is to be hidden in the cover image.
Step 2: Calculate the length of the text
message.
Step 3: Convert the length in binary and
embed it into the cover image.
Step 4: Convert text message in binary into 8-
bits.
Step 5: Following the length bits, start
embedding the message bits.
Step 6: Replace LSB of cover image with each
bit of secret message one by one.
Step 7: Get stego image
Algorithm to retrieve text message:-
Step 1: Read the stego image.
Step 2: Retrieve the length of the message.
Step 3: Calculate LSB of each pixels of stego
image.
Step 4: Retrieve bits and convert each 8 bit
into character.
Step 5: Get the secret message.
IV. PROCESS FLOW
4.1 Embedding a message
It describes about embedding the
message with an image. Here we use LSB
technique for embedding the image.Type the
text which has to be embedded into the image.
In the 'Embedding message' dialog box, paste
a text already present on the clipboard or type
the text that has to be embedded.Finally, in
this module the text will be embedded into the
image and the Stego-image will be
generated.Hiding the secret text inside an
image will generate a Stego-Image.This Stego
image is used as input to the next module.
4.2 Embedding image into an image
It describes about embedding the
output of above module with an image.Inorder
to hide an image inside another image,user
needs to click Open source image button.To
embed, user needs to give password of length
International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Special Issue

8 characters which is also hided in that
image.The path of the particular file will be
displayed in a text field.You have to give the
path for storing encoded image.For
embedding, user should click on Make
Stegano-Image.
This result analysis reprensents the
experimental results for different image
formats.Different images are taken for
embedding and the performance of the
proposed system is analysed.

4.3 Retrieving the image file

It is about decoding the Stego-Image
which contains the original message.To open
the image with secret data, click open button
and go to the same path where the encoded
image is stored.A text box will show the
complete path about the embedded
image.Receiver should enter the same
password given by the sender for decoding the Fig. 5.1. Cover image
stego-image.On clicking the decoding
button,decoding starts our stego –image and
cover image will be seperated.The retrieved
cover image will be saved in the user preferred SECRET DATA TO BE
directory. HIDDEN INTO THE
IMAGE
4.4 Retrieving the secret data
It describes about extracting the secret
Fig. 5.2. Text to hide
message from the image that is extracted from
the previous module.Here,we use LSB
replacement algorithm to extract the secret
message from the Stego-Image.This Stego-
Image contains the original secret
message.Click Open button and follow the
same path where decoded Stego-image is
stored. Complete path will displayed in text
box which is in front of Destination File
button.Click on Decode button. The message
Fig. 5.2. Image to hide the secret data.
will be retrieved and the retrieved message
will be displayed in the Text Area. Thus, as a
The result of embedding secret
result the secret message is successfully
message in cover image.This result is obtain
encrypted and decrypted using multilevel
by taking same cover image of different
encryption.Security is enhanced using this
format For this we have calculated PSNR,
multiple encryption techniques and data is
MSE .The PSNR and MSE is then calculated
hidden inside the image using LSB
as follows
replacement algorithm.
MAX 2
V. RESULT ANALYSIS PSNR = 10 log10
MSE
Where

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1 𝑀−1 𝑁−1
MSE = 𝑀𝑁 𝑖=0 𝑗 =0 (αij – βij )
Here, αij is the pixel of the cover image where
the coordinates (i, j), and βij is the pixel of the
stego-image where the coordinate is (i, j).The
size of the image is represented using M and
N. A larger PSNR value indicates that the
difference between cover image and the stego-
image is more invisible to the human eye.
(a) (b) (c)
(d) (e)
Fig 6.5 The test images. (a)Baboon
(b)Barbara(c)Sailboat (d)Lena (e)Peppers
Table1.Comparison of different images.
Different Test Images have been taken
to test the efficiency of our proposed system.
If PSNR value of an output image is high then
that image is having low distortion .MSE
value is a reciprocal of PSNR.If MSE value
of an image is low then that image is having
low distortion. By comparing the PSNR and
MSE values of our Least Significant Bit and
Difference Histogram Shifing technique,
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proposed technique is very efficient than the
DES technique.
VI. CONCLUSION
From this project, we conclude that
proposed system is flexible and has a
consistent flow for easy understanding. This is
to ensure that enhancements can easily
accommodate, without having to make major
changes to the application. Additional modules
can be easily added when necessary. The
software is developed with modular approach.
All the modules were tested seperately and
these modules have been put together to form
the complete system.Then the system is tested
with all types of image formats and it worked
successfully.In this proposed framework,we
have used multilevel encryption to increase
security and LSB technique to to embed data
into the image.Additional modules can be
added in the future to increase the embedding
capacity even more higher.
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