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Research Article
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Kubera Kolam: A Way for Random Image Steganography |
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Rengarajan Amirtharajan,
Krishnamourthy Karthikeyan,
Malligaraj Malleswaran
and
J.B.B. Rayappan
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ABSTRACT
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The developments in expertise and internet fruition have amplified dependence on systems and IT abided by the demand to secure the same. This intriguing effort in electronic world has unfolded a new boulevard called cyber defense. In this world of cyber hacking, information security plays a vital role. Primitive techniques though are old but are very helpful in giving a perfect outline of things away from human thoughts. One such technique is the Magic Square Method, wherein the brilliant orientation of the numbers leads to a perfect matrix useful for any mathematical developments. Block Segmentation in this study involves two kolams firstly the Kubera Kolam is the magic square that is employed and incorporated for introducing the randomization. Further is the Pulli Kolam, square for acting as the symmetric key for giving the precise bits to be hidden. Further on, modifiable pixel indicator gets slightly altered from the rudiments and is used to accomplish a much efficient and effective indicator liken the conventional one.
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Received: April 29, 2013;
Accepted: May 15, 2013;
Published: August 06, 2013
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INTRODUCTION
Communication being inevitable of daily routine has produced uprising right
from the Stone period. Technology germinates for our own good, thus becomes
better for our own best. Communicating technologies augments at each and every
pace, say as of sheer contact to digital communication and to video tête-à-tête
to even live discussion. This is all because of some brilliant brains. But this
brilliant piece of work is illegally destroyed and killed by many computer professionals
(as they call) but the hackers. These marvelous reforms in the technology are
expanding, but not exponentially increasing for the same reason. However, this
could be raised by only one means and that is information security (Cheddad
et al., 2010; Salem et al., 2011;
Schneier, 2007; Stefan and Fabin, 2000).
Any form of life needs security so does the data. Myriad methods since the past
decade are being discovered (Amirtharajan and Rayappan,
2012a-d; Amirtharajan et
al., 2012; Bender et al., 1996; Cheddad
et al., 2010; Janakiraman et al., 2012a,
b; Rajagopalan et al., 2012;
Thenmozhi et al., 2012) to save the data but
in vain every method, hackers find better means to crack into the data (Schneier,
2007; Qin et al., 2010).
The need for a fulltime settlement of security arose and cryptography emerged
as a powerful tool then, the algorithms created were almost the best, not de-cryptable
and was providing the feature of protection of intermediate changing means (Salem
et al., 2011; Schneier, 2007). Nevertheless,
the only drawback to it was the image or content that was encrypted might had
completely deformed, wherein one easily figures out that there is some manipulation
done on that piece of data (Schneier, 2007; Qin
et al., 2010; Zaidan et al., 2010).
Now, this was not advisable for the reason that any hacker could poach into
the data owing to the fact that something has changed.
This led to the rise of the super power technology of hiding data, Steganography
(Al-Azawi and Fadhil, 2010; Al-Frajat
et al., 2010; Xiang et al., 2011;
Zanganeh and Ibrahim, 2011; Zhao
and Luo, 2012; Zhu et al., 2011). Till date
flawless, every feature incorporated proved to be the best and many more to
be brought (Gutub, 2010; Luo et
al., 2011; Mohammad et al., 2011; Padmaa
et al., 2011; Thanikaiselvan et al., 2011;
Zhao and Luo, 2012). The concept is of the usage of
cover image to cover the secret data and create an illusion of nothing being
in it. This piece of algorithm in the initial stage was done minimal number
of randomizations in the image and data. But of late, several randomizations
are made introduced in every fortnight, which for any hacker to actually know
the piece of data after unveiling all the randomizations would at least a few
years time, by which the task would have been accomplished.
This addition to the security since the past few years has again brought back
the zeal for inventions of better communication technologies along with information
security, starting from Pranav mistrys sixth sense to thoughts of using
5G technology. Another classification in information security is watermarking
(Abdulfetah et al., 2010; Zeki
et al., 2011) its objective it to provide authorship through copyright
protection. Reviewing the existing literature suggest to implement random image
steganography with high capacity, good imperceptibility with additional complexity.
Hence, this study proposes a method to accommodate all the necessary requirements
of image steganography through kubera kolam.
PROPOSED METHODOLOGY The indicator channel for the initial process is RED channel. For the embedding procedure, the algorithm is designed for a 6x6 block of an image, as in the image is sub-classified into blocks of 6x6 each and the algorithm is made to work on the each individual block of it. The bare part of Steganography, randomization is incorporated and inculcated with the magic square called Kubera Kolam. The interesting part of Kubera Kolam is its wide usage in both puja room and may be in steganography algorithms. The magic square of Kubera Kolam is the sum of its any dimensional extension yields to 72 as shown in Fig. 1a. A subtraction of 19 from the Magic Square (Kubera Kolam) will interestingly lead to another magic square but with numbers from 1 extending to 9 and summing to 15 as shown in Fig. 1b. Extending the 3x3 to 6x6 leads to the square as in Fig. 2. Pixels of every 6x6 segment of the image is further rearranged and embedded in the same fashion with reference to the numbers formed in the above block, blinding the third party regarding the order of embedding.
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Fig. 1(a-b): |
(a) The magic square of Kubera Kolam and (b) New magic square
with a subtraction of 19 from 1a |
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Fig. 2: |
Extension of magic square from 3x3 to 6x6 |
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Fig. 3: |
Digital image of Pulli kolam |
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Fig. 4: |
Embedding capacity offered by the pixels in Pulli kolam |
The Kolam design shown below in Fig. 3 is the Pulli Kolam which acts the symmetric key for the embedding of the users message. The number of curves or line on every dot is taken into account and a matrix is formed. For example, the top right dot has just one curve and the adjacent ones consist two each and so on.
Specifically, this dot in the Kolam gives the pixels for embedding as in Fig.
4 and gives the amount of bits for embedding in all pixels. After reading
the senders message, Kubera Kolam matrix is now referred for the embedding
order number and the equivalent position in the Pulli Kolam matrix is matched
and the number in that position decides the number of bits to be read from the
bit stream and embedded into appropriate place in the formed 6x6 block.
The further randomization is done with the conventional pixel indicator but with some slight modifications. Here, the 5th bit of the data channels (Blue and green) in that pixel is used to decide the reference bits in the indicator channel considered initially. As in, the 5th bits of both the channels turn out to be 0 and 0 then, last 2 bits of indicator channel will be acting as reference bits and if the bits are 0 and 1 then the 2nd and 3rd LSBs are taken as reference bits and if its 1 and 0, the 3rd and 4th LSBs are taken and finally if its 1 and 1 then 4th and 5th LSBs are taken as reference. Now based on the reference bits the mode of embedding is decided i.e., 0 0 implies no embedding and 0 1 means embedding in blue channel and 1 0 in green channel and 1 1 in both. Further methods have also been introduced for the dynamicity of the encryption. Method 2: Deals with indicator channel being decided by the sender at run time by accepting a value (1, 2 and 3). Method 3: Proves considerably more efficient than the previous two as the indicator channel for that block is decided by the Mod 3 of the ixj value of the present block under embedding. The MOD result of 0 implies RED, 1 Green and 2 Blue planes. The algorithm for this scheme is clarified below and the flowchart is given in Fig. 5.
Method 1:
Embedding algorithm
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Fig. 5: |
Flow chart for proposed method |
Recovery algorithm
Method 2:
Embedding algorithm
Recovery algorithm
Method 3:
Embedding algorithm
Recovery algorithm
ERROR METRICS The quality of the stego image is calculated through two universal parameters viz., mean square error and the peak signal to noise ratio.
The MSE is calculated by the equation:
Where, M is pixels in horizontal dimension and N is pixels in the vertical dimension in Xi and Yj where i, j constitutes pixels of original and stego images, respectively.
The peak signal to noise ratio is given by the equation:
where, I2 max is every pixels intensity value. High PSNR values indicate high visual quality.
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Fig. 6(a-d): |
Cover images (a) Lena, (b) Baboon, (c) Mahatma Gandhi and
(d) Temple |
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Fig. 7(a-d): |
Stego images for 3 methods, (a) Lena, (b) Baboon, (c) Mahatma
Gandhi and (d) Temple |
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this script Lena, Gandhi, Baboon and Temple of 300x300 color images are
taken the covers as given below in Fig. 6a-d
and tested for full embedding capacity. The operation of the intended routine
is rationalized via MSE and PSNR for the four covers in RGB planes through three
different procedures and the results are given in the table.
The stego images that were obtained in the various methods are given in Fig. 7 and histograms for Lena image for all three methods are depicted in Fig. 8.
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Fig. 8: |
Histograms for Lena image, Red: Method 1, Green: Method 2
and Blue: Method 3 |
Method 1 uses Red as indicator channel and results are given in Table 1.The drawback of the first method is overcome in the second method by giving the user the liberalization to choose the indicator channel, whose results are given in Table 2. The third method changes the indicator channel for each pixel which gives no clue to the intruder about the indicator channel. The results of the third method are given in the Table 3. The corresponding tables are as follows.
Table 1: |
Experimental values of image metrics obtained for method
1 |
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Table 2: |
Experimental values of image metrics obtained for method
2 |
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Table 3: |
Experimental values of image metrics obtained for method
3 |
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CONCLUSION
Kolam is a mincing floor painting symbolizing exquisiteness as well as welcoming
environs. To put it technically, it is a unique form of image incorporating
diverse patterns and moreover they have various names based on such patterns.
Each mention has its own distinct feature and devout values. Using Kolas as
gizmos in image steganography is veritably thought provoking. Undoubtedly, it
is an unparalleled choice to render this paper as a unique work. In this paper
the Kubera kolam and the Pulli kolam are utilized for randomizing the pixel
and finding the volume of bits for embedding in each and every pixel. Pixel
indicator method is adopted for embedding the secret bits which is a universally
agreed efficient mode for Steganography. This paper is a blend of cryptography
and steganography thus assuring security and complexity in its own right. MSE
and PSNR values confirm this wrap up which also stands for enhanced imperceptibility.
Thus the proposed methods increase the complexity of the secret data embedding
and are determined to be beneficial.
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