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A novel quantum color image steganography algorithm based on turtle shell and LSB

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Abstract

Quantum image steganography has attracted considerable attention in recent years. The majority of existing algorithms do not simultaneously have excellent imperceptibility, high embedding capacity, and good security. Therefore, a novel quantum color image steganography scheme is researched based on turtle shell and least significant bit (LSB) replacement. Human vision system (HVS) model and check codes are introduced into the proposed scheme to improve visual quality and security. According to the theory that HVS has different sensitivities to various colors, two channels are randomly selected with different probabilities to hide secret information from the red (R), green (G), and blue (B) channels of each color carrier pixel. Grayscale values of the two chosen channels correspond to a point in the turtle shell-based reference matrix. Depending on whether the point is at the boundary of the reference matrix or not, the LSB substitution method or turtle shell algorithm is utilized to embed the secret information. Dedicated quantum circuits are presented to better describe the procedure of the novel scheme. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is feasible and has superior performance in imperceptibility, embedding capacity, and security.

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Availability of data and materials

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (Project No. 18YJAZH110), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62171264) and Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundations (No. ZR202102220198), China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computer Science and Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266590, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Meng-Xi Wang, Hong-Mei Yang, Jeng-Shyang Pan & Tao Liu

  2. College of Mathematics and Systems Science, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266590, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Dong-Huan Jiang

  3. College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266590, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Bin Yan

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  1. Meng-Xi Wang
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Correspondence to Hong-Mei Yang.

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Wang, MX., Yang, HM., Jiang, DH. et al. A novel quantum color image steganography algorithm based on turtle shell and LSB. Quantum Inf Process 21, 148 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11128-022-03494-w

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