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A secure and robust video steganography scheme for covert communication in H.264/AVC

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Abstract

The proposed scheme utilized H.264/AVC video format for steganography which is the most common video standard at present. The scheme employed Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) on the Region of Interest (ROI) based on multiple moving objects tracking. After tracking multiple objects, each object is embedded with different secret images to improve the capacity. Multiple object tracking helps in achieving robustness and security; in addition, secret data is encrypted before embedding to provide a high level of security. The proposed scheme is tested on numerous video sequences by evaluating both subjective and objective metrics. Different metrics employed for objective evaluation involves Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Mean Square Error (MSE), Structural Similarity (SSIM) Index, Normalized Cross Correlation (NCC) and Bit Error Rate (BER). However, subjective evaluation is carried out by visual inspection. Additionally, the proposed scheme has been tested against noise, compression, frame rate change and scaling attacks to ensure robustness. Further, the security performance has been analysed by testing against three existing steganalysis techniques and histogram analysis. The main aim of the paper is to focus on robustness and security without compromising hiding capacity and imperceptibility. The reckoning result proves not only high robustness and security but also improves imperceptibility and capacity.

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Acknowledgments

This research work is supported by Technical Education Quality Improvement Project III (TEQIP III) of MHRD, Government of India assisted by World Bank under Grant Number P154523 and sanctioned to UIET, Panjab University, Chandigarh (India).

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  1. UIET Panjab University, Chandigarh, India

    Mukesh Dalal & Mamta Juneja

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  1. Mukesh Dalal
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  2. Mamta Juneja
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Correspondence to Mamta Juneja.

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Dalal, M., Juneja, M. A secure and robust video steganography scheme for covert communication in H.264/AVC. Multimed Tools Appl 80, 14383–14407 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-020-10364-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-020-10364-z

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