Abstract
In recent decades, visual privacy of digital data has gained much attention from the researchers, especially in cloud-based services. The efficacy of Reversible Data Hiding in Encrypted Images (RDHEI) cannot be ignored as it meets the requirements of visual privacy and data security. Generally, it comprises three different stakeholders namely content owner, data hider, and receiver. The original image is encrypted, by the content owner, using encryption function. After encryption, there is still a possibility for the data hider/cloud-owner to embed the additional data in it. At the receiver end, the embedded data and the original image are recovered losslessly. In our proposed RDHEI scheme, the room is reserved for the data hider before image encryption, by the content owner. Firstly, the image is preprocessed using the prediction-error estimation method to create spare space. Next, the location map is created to capture the information whether a particular location can be used for embedding or not. After this, image encryption is done through standard stream cipher and the compressed location map is embedded. Furthermore, the data hider (without having any knowledge of the original image and the encryption key) embeds the additional data into the Most Significant Bits (MSBs) of the assigned locations using the data hiding key. Finally, at the receiver’s side, the additional data is recovered flawlessly using the data hiding key and the location map. And the original image is reconstructed with the help of the decryption key and the location map. Besides, the approximate image is recovered using the decryption key without the use of location map. Experimental results validate that our proposed scheme outperforms most of the existing schemes in terms of embedding capacity and reconstructed image quality. Additionally, the quality of recovered image without using data hiding key, that is the image recovered prior to losslessly recovered image, is relatively better than most of the methods used in recent works.
Similar content being viewed by others
Change history
25 January 2020
In the original publication, figure 2 has some incorrect notations and Table 1 has inappropriate alignment. The original article has been corrected.
References
Barni M, Bartolini F, Cox IJ et al (2001) Digital watermarking for copyright protection: a communications perspective. IEEE Commun Mag 39(8):90–91
Barton J (1997) Method and apparatus for embedding authentication information within digital data. US Patent 5:646,997
Bas P, Filler T, Pevný T (2011) “Break our steganographic system”: the ins and outs of organizing BOSS. In: lecture notes in computer science (including subseries lecture notes in artificial intelligence and lecture notes in bioinformatics). Pp 59–70
Cao X, Du L, Wei X et al (2016) High capacity reversible data hiding in encrypted images by patch-level sparse representation. IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics 46(5):1132–1143
Di F, Huang F, Zhang M et al (2018) Reversible data hiding in encrypted images with high capacity by bitplane operations and adaptive embedding. Multimed Tools Appl 77(16):20917–20935
Fridrich J, Goljan M, Du R (2001) Invertible authentication. In: Security and Watermarking of Multimedia contents III. pp 197–209
Hong W, Chen T-STS WHYH-Y (2012) An improved reversible data hiding in encrypted images using side match. IEEE Signal Processing Letters 19(4):199–202
Hua Z, Jin F, Xu B, Huang H (2018) 2D logistic-sine-coupling map for image encryption. Signal Process 149:148–161
Jiang-Yi L, Yu C, Chin-Chen C, Yu-Chen H (2019) Reversible data hiding in encrypted images based on bit-plane block embedding. Journal of Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing 10(2):408–421
Li Q, Yan B, Li H, Chen N (2018) Separable reversible data hiding in encrypted images with improved security and capacity. Multimed Tools Appl 77(23):30749–30768
Ma K, Zhang W, Zhao X et al (2013) Reversible data hiding in encrypted images by reserving room before encryption. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security 8(3):553–562
Malik A, Wang H, Wu H, Abdullahi SM (2019) Reversible data hiding with multiple data for multiple users in an encrypted image. International Journal of Digital Crime and Forensics (IJDCF) 11(1):46–61
Miscellaneous Gray Level Images: http://decsai.ugr.es/cvg/dbimagenes/g512.php
Ni Z, Shi Y-Q, Ansari N, Su W (2006) Reversible data hiding. IEEE Transactions on circuits and systems for video technology 16(3):354–362
Puech W, Chaumont M, Strauss O (2008) A reversible data hiding method for encrypted images. In: Security, Forensics, Steganography, and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents X 6819:68191E
Puteaux P, Puech W (2018) An efficient MSB prediction-based method for high-capacity reversible data hiding in encrypted images. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security 13(7):1670–1681
Qian Z, Zhang X (2016) Reversible data hiding in encrypted images with distributed source encoding. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology 26(4):636–646
Qin C, Zhang X (2015) Effective reversible data hiding in encrypted image with privacy protection for image content. J Vis Commun Image Represent 31:154–164
Rubinstein R, Peleg T, Elad M (2013) Analysis K-SVD: a dictionary-learning algorithm for the analysis sparse model. IEEE Trans Signal Process 61(3):661–677
Shi Y-QYQ, Li X, Zhang X et al (2016) Reversible data hiding: advances in the past two decades. IEEE Access 4:3210–3237
Tang Z, Xu S, Yao H et al (2019) Reversible data hiding with differential compression in encrypted image. Multimed Tools Appl 78(8):9691–9715
Tang Z, Xu S, Ye D et al (2019) Real-time reversible data hiding with shifting block histogram of pixel differences in encrypted image. J Real-Time Image Proc 16(3):709–724
Tian J (2003) Reversible data embedding using a difference expansion. IEEE Transactions on circuits and systems for video technology 13(8):890–896
Tian H, Zhao Y, Ni R, Qin L, Li X (2013) LDFT-based watermarking resilient to local desynchronization attacks. IEEE Transactions on cybernetics 43(6):2190–2201
Wang Z, Bovik AC, Sheikh HR, Simoncelli EP (2004) Image quality assessment: from error visibility to structural similarity. IEEE Trans Image Process 13(4):600–612
Wang J, Ni J, Zhang X, Shi YQ (2017) Rate and distortion optimization for reversible data hiding using multiple histogram shifting. IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics 47(2):315–326
Wu X, Sun W (2014) High-capacity reversible data hiding in encrypted images by prediction error. Signal Process 104:387–400
Wu Y, Noonan J, Agaian S (2011) NPCR and UACI randomness tests for image encryption. Journal of Selected Areas in Telecommunications (JSAT) 1(2):31–38
Wu H, Li F, Qin C, Wei W (2019) Separable reversible data hiding in encrypted images based on scalable blocks. Multimed Tools Appl 78:25349–25372. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-019-07769-w
Xu D, Wang R (2016) Separable and error-free reversible data hiding in encrypted images. Signal Process 123:9–12
Yao H, Liu X, Tang Z et al (2018) An improved image camouflage technique using color Difference Channel transformation and optimal prediction-error expansion. IEEE Access 6:40569–40584
Yi S, Zhou Y (2017) Improved reversible data hiding in encrypted images using histogram modification. In: 2016 IEEE international conference on systems, man, and cybernetics (SMC) Budapest, pp. 004819-004823
Yin Z, Luo B, Hong W (2014) Separable and error-free reversible data hiding in encrypted image with high payload. Sci World J 2014:604876
Yin Z, Abel A, Tang J et al (2017) Reversible data hiding in encrypted images based on multi-level encryption and block histogram modification. Multimed Tools Appl 76(3):3899–3920
Zhang X (2011) Reversible data hiding in encrypted image. IEEE Signal processing letters 18(4):255–258
Zhang X (2012) Separable reversible data hiding in encrypted image. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security 7(2):826–832
Zhang W, Ma K, Yu N (2014) Reversibility improved data hiding in encrypted images. Signal Process 94:118–127
Zhang S, Gao T, Sheng G (2014) A joint encryption and reversible data hiding scheme based on integer-DWT and Arnold map permutation. J Appl Math 2014:861782
Zhang W, Kong P, Yao H et al (2019) Real-time reversible data hiding in encrypted images based on hybrid embedding mechanism. J Real-Time Image Proc 16(3):697–708
Zhenxing Q, Xiyu H, Xinpeng Z, et al (2013) Separable reversible data hiding in encrypted images by n-nary histogram modification. In: International conference on multimedia technology (ICMT 2013), Guangzhou. Atlantis Press, pp 869–876
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under grant No. 61972269 and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under the grant No. YJ201881.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
The original version of this article was revised: Figure 2 has some incorrect notations and Table 1 has inappropriate alignment.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Malik, A., Wang, HX., Chen, Y. et al. A reversible data hiding in encrypted image based on prediction-error estimation and location map. Multimed Tools Appl 79, 11591–11614 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-019-08460-w
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-019-08460-w