A Method for Hiding Information in JPEG Images

Information technologies

Abstract

Steganography methods, according to which the container is the image stored in JPEG, are poorly understood and not often used. The reason is that the JPEG image is subjected to compression and restoration of image distortions. These distortions cannot be seen with the naked eye, but it affects the hidden information whose extraction from the container is not possible. Because of this, the JPEG often hides information in a table of coefficients, which leads to strong limitation of hidden information. This paper proposes a method - the concealed information is recorded in audio format, and then hidden in the image. In this case, the audio information is also distorted. But unlike the text, in which the loss of the symbols completely distorts the phrase, sound distortions do not affect the speech content, and it may be possible to fully understand the meaning of the hidden information. The developed software package at tests showed that at 20% compression of JPEG distortions are barely heard, and at 80% compression, the distortion cannot be understood. When compressed to 60%, the security of the hidden information can be guaranteed.