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Adaptive JPEG steganography with new distortion function

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Abstract

This paper presents an adaptive steganographic scheme in JPEG images by designing a novel distortion function. While some previous works employed distortion functions based on coefficient difference, we point out that the data embedding on coefficients with larger absolute values may cause less steganalytic detectability. In the proposed scheme, the distortion function is derived from both the coefficient residual and coefficient value, which measures the risks of detection due to the modification on cover data. With an exhaustive searching method, the parameters of the proposed distortion function are optimized. Then, we may employ syndrome trellis coding to embed the secret data into JPEG images when keeping a low risk. This way, the modifications are forced into high textured areas in JPEG images, and experimental results demonstrate that the steganographic security is improved by the designed distortion function.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grants 61073190 and 61103181, the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China under grant 20113108110010, and the Program for Professor of Special Appointment (Eastern Scholar) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning, and Shanghai Pujiang Program under grant 13PJ1403200.

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  1. School of Communication and Information Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, People’s Republic of China

    Fengyong Li, Xinpeng Zhang, Jiang Yu & Wenfeng Shen

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  1. Fengyong Li
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  2. Xinpeng Zhang
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Correspondence to Fengyong Li.

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Li, F., Zhang, X., Yu, J. et al. Adaptive JPEG steganography with new distortion function. Ann. Telecommun. 69, 431–440 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12243-013-0415-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12243-013-0415-2

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