Research and implementation of information hiding based on RSA and HVS

Tan Fei
College of Computer Science andTechnology Xian University of Science and Technology XianChina E-mailtanfei03405@163.com
Abstract: To better protect the security of information, this paper proposed an information transmission scheme which combined the cryptosystem and information hiding. The scheme pretreated the information firstly by making use of the RSA arithmetic which belongs to the public key cryptosystem, and then took advantage of the improved LSB which based on the Human Visual System to make the cryptograph hid in the 24 bits BMP image and transmitted it. The embedding and extracting process of secret information in the scheme were discussed in detail. Also, the result of information hiding achieved by this scheme was given. The principle of the scheme is simple, and it is easy to implement. The experimental result suggests that the scheme is efficient and has good practical value. key words: RSA arithmetic; information hiding improved LSB;
INTRODUCTION

Liao Shaojun
College of Computer Science andTechnology Xian University of Science and Technology XianChina E-maillsj@xust.edu.cn In this paper, we designed and realized a information hiding scheme which based on RSA encryption algorithm and the HVS characteristics of 24 bits BMP image. The paper is organized as follows. Section briefly describes the information hiding technology based on digital image. In Section , the RSA encryption algorithm is introduced. In Section , we describe the specific steps and application effect of the scheme which combined the cryptosystem and information hiding technology. Conclusion will follow. II. A. INFORMATION HIDING TECHNOLOGY BASED ON
IMAGE

BMP image;

I.

With the advent of the Internet age and the rise of the network economy which represented by e-commerce, network information security issues are also increasingly prominent. The classical information encryption technology based on the cryptography is the main means of information security in the past [1]. But it is not the only feasible method just by increasing the keys to enhance safety, along with the rapid development of computer hardware and the maturity of decryption technology with parallel computing capability. Hence, the information hiding technology is spring up. Using information hiding technology to strengthen information security is the hotspot in recent years. The information hiding technology avoids the shortage of encryption technology which is easy to let person recognize there is secret information. Information hiding technology[2] let the secret information hide in the digital media which take advantage of the redundancy of the carrier information then through public information transmission to realize the transmission of secret information. The carrier of hidden information can be text, images, sound or video files. The biggest difference between information hiding technology and encryption is the carrier of information hiding technology in appearance is the same as common carrier that won't expose the exist of important information and won't cause the attention of attacker that can ensure the safety of secret information. Combining the cryptosystem and information hiding technology to realize the stealth communication can better safeguard the safety of information.

Main algorithms of digital image information hiding The method of digital image information hiding mainly refers to the secret information embedding process, and extraction algorithm is often considered to be the inverse transformation of embedding algorithm. The typical embedding algorithm is mainly divided into transform domain (frequency-domain) algorithm and spatial domain algorithm. 1) Transform domain algorithm of information hiding. The main steps of such algorithm are firstly to do some image transformation using such as DCT(discrete cosine transform), DFT(discrete Fourier transform), DWT(discrete wavelet transform) etc, then modify the certain frequency coefficients of the carrier image to embedded data, at last through the inverse transformation renew the image to spatial domain. Considering the change on regional coefficients of low-frequency that might affect the perception of image and high-frequency coefficients which are easy to be destroyed, therefore, the general selection signal frequency coefficients for information hiding are on the regional of intermediatefrequency. Extraction and detection are all in the transform domain. This algorithm has good robustness[3] and anti-attack ability, but the operation for hide and extract information is complex and the capacity for hidden information is less. 2) Spatial domain algorithm of information hiding. This kind of algorithm is making use of visual error then embedded information in the spatial domain that can ensure the embedded information is not visible. The typical algorithm is

978-1-4244-8694-6/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

embedded information into the LSB (least significant bits) of the image. LSB algorithm is simple and has big capacity for hidden information, also, can meet the requirement of concealment. But due to using the least significant bits of the image, the robustness of the algorithm is weak[3] and the secret information is easy to be destroyed by the operation of filter, image compression, geometric distortion and so on. The improved LSB based on the human visual system The robustness of spatial domain algorithm for information hiding is not better than transform domain method. But with its big hidden data capacity and the advantages of simple, the spatial domain algorithm becomes the mainstream technology in stealth communication. In addition, the ability to set position accurately for tamper the image of spatial domain algorithm also surpass the transform domain algorithm. Therefore, the spatial domain algorithm still have very wide application room. Research on spatial domain has two goals[4]: one is to further improve its capacity and another is to increase its safety and the capacity of anti-detection. The traditional LSB algorithm can realize the inforamtion hiding under the condition of low degree of image distortion and has the characteristic of simple operation, but security is not very ideal. Selecting pixels in order, when the secret information bits are less than the carrier image hiding capacity, there will exist the pixels in the carrier image has not been modified after the embedding, moreover, the parts of already embedded information and the unmodified one have different statistical characteristics obviously which will let attacker find hiding laws easily then crack the information, so the anti-attack ability is poor. The approach for solving the problem is to embed the secret information scattered in the image that will not form a boundary in a local domain, namely using random sequence to determine the information embed pixels. Since image is just a kind of medium for transmit visual information, the terminal receiver for image is human eyes. The understanding of image information is decided by the human visual system. To measure the changes that brought by the transformation of image compression, noise, etc how much impact on image must see how much it influenced for human eyes, which means we must take HVS(human visual system) into the research. In the traditional LSB algorithm, the efficiency of the hidden is 1/8 since in each byte of image information just the lowest bit replaced by secret information. In order to enhance the hidden information efficiency of 24 bits BMP image that can not be simply replaced the minimum several bits of the three bytes RGB luminance component for each pixel by the ciphertext since in this way human eyes can perceive the subtle change of external characters when browsing the image. Hence, considering the human eyes have different sense to the color of red, green and blue and according to the brightness formula I = 0.3 R +0.59G + 0.11 B, also the theory of human eyes cones sensitivity for color, we know that the eye is most sensitive to red, next is green, and is not sensitive to blue[5]. Therefore, we can use the ciphertext to replace different minimum bits for RGB luminance component of each pixel. Experiments have proved that even the red component changes the minimum 2 bits, the green component B.

changes the minimum 1 bit and blue component change with a minimum of 3 bits will not make images generate changes which is easy to be detected in the eye. In this way, we can hide 6 bits information for each 24 bits. The efficiency of information hiding get greatly improved and reached to 1/4. Therefore, the steps of the improved LSB algorithm is firstly using the random sequence to choose the pixels which will embed the secret informtion and then make corresponding replacement in the choosed pixels according to the brightness formulas. In addition, we embedded the ASCII value of hidden information symbol "#" and the size of the ciphertext message into the first 14 pixels of the carrier image in the embedding process. The random sequence that will be used in the embedding and extraction process is a group of random value of which the number is equal to the size of ciphertext information and the position is started from the 15th pixel of the carrier image. III. RSA PUBLIC-KEY ENCRYPTION ALGORITHM A. Public-key cryptosystem In public key cryptosystem, decryption and encryption can be separated and communication parties neednt prior exchanged keys can establish a secure communications since the key for decryption and encryption are different. This is a good solution to the traditional cryptography system in network communication. The features of public-key cryptosystem as follows. For every user produces a pair of keys (public key and private key) and public key is public while private key is confidential. It is very difficult from public key to conclude private key. When A and B communicate, A can obtain Bs public key in any way then use the key to encrypt information.The encrypted messages can be sent through any unsafe way. After receiving the cryptograph, B can use his own private key to decrypt the cryptograph and recover the communication information expressly. RSA algorithm[6] is currently accepted as the most mature and complete public key cryptosystem in both the theory and application and is the first one can be used for both data encryption and digital signature, also, is the representative of public key cryptosystem. This paper applied the RSA algorithm in the preprocessing phase of information hiding to ensure the security of information. B. RSA algorithm RSA algorithm is based on the theory of a special kind of reversible arithmetic for modular and exponent. The steps for RSA algorithm is as follows[7](1)find two large primes p, q; (2)n = p * q, z = (p - 1) * (q-1); (3)select a number e which is less than n and prime to z, so that e and z have no common factors; (4)select another number d, where (e*d - 1) is divisible by z; (5)the public key is (n, e) and the private key is (n, d); (6)for a message m, if the ciphertext is c, decryption and encryption process as follows.encryption: c = m ^ e mod n decryption: m = c ^ d mod n.

IV. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF INFORMATION

HIDING

A. 1)

System frame and main steps System framework as shown in Fig. 1.

plaintext plaintext Decrypt with private key of RSA ciphertext

c) The receiver get the encrypted information which was encrypted by RSA according to the extracted information in the choosed pixels in turn. d) The receiver use his own private key to decrypt the ciphertext and get the original confidential information. The effect of the image information hiding scheme Using the proposed scheme to embedding and extracting secret information in 24 bits BMP image. The carrier image is 24 bits BMP of 256h256 pixel image just as Fig.2 shows and the secret information is a TXT files as shown in Fig.4. Fig.5 is the encrypted TXT file by public key (5767,781). With the improved LSB to embedded and extract the information, the effect of the image with embedded information as shown in Fig.3 and the extract result as shown in Fig.6. In Fig.7, it shows the extracted TXT information file that was decrypted by the private key (5767,1093).
B.

Encrypt with public key of RSA ciphertext Embed with Improverd lsb algorithm

Recover algorithm

Image with embedded information Figure 1. Overall diagram for image information hiding scheme based on the RSA algorithms and HVS

2) The specific steps of embedding the confidential information procedure as belows. a) The receiver choose the two big primes and according to the RSA algorithm create the public and private key. b) The receiver keep the private key and send the public key to the sender. Both parties can appoint the seed number for random sequence which will be used to decide the information hiding pixels at the same time. c) The sender encrypt the plaintext using the public key then get the ciphertext. d) The sender create the random sequence according to the size of the ciphertext and the random seed number to determine the pixels which will be used to hide information. e) The sender use the binary sequences which includes the symbol for hidden information "#" and the size of the plaintext message replace the least significant 40 bit of first 14 pixels in BMP image. f) The sender use the binary stream of ciphertext information to replace the lowest 2 bits of red component, the lowest 1 bit of green component and the lowest 3 bits of blue component in turn in the selected pixels and finally get the new 24 bits BMP image in which hidden the information. 3) The specific steps of extracting the confidential information procedure as belows. a) When received the image, the receiver firstly read the least significant 40 bit of first 14 pixels in BMP image and get the 40 bits binary sequences , if the first eight binary sequences is different from the values of the ASCII value for character "#" hint that there is no informtion hidden in the image, otherwise calculate the size of the plaintext according to the rest 32 bits. b) The receiver create the random sequence according to the size of the ciphertext which was calculated in the last step and the random seed number to determine the pixels which has been used to hide information.

Figure 2.

Carrier image

Figure 3. Image with embedded information

Figure 4. Secret information text

Figure 5. Encrypted text

Figure 6. Extracted text

Figure 7. Decrypted text

From the Fig.2 and Fig.3, we know that there is no difference in the visual effect between the original carrier

image and the image which embedded the information and the invisibility is good. Fig.5 and Fig.6 show that the scheme realized the correct embedding and extracting since the secret information of original and by extracting are the same. And the tests demonstrate that is impossible to get the original information when input the wrong key which provides the protection to the hidden information. V.
CONCLUSION

The proposed scheme has the following characteristics. First of all, this scheme realized the combination of confidentiality and safety for file transfer process. The transmission of image is invisible compared with ciphertext in the network, even if the image is intercepted and the information is extracted, the information is still the ciphertext which is encrypted by RSA algorithm and has higher safety. The security of RSA based on the difficulty of large number decomposition which is recognized math problems. The difficulty of recover plaintext from a public key and the ciphertext is equivalent to decompose the product of two primes since the public and private keys are a couple of large primes function. Another important characteristics of this scheme is the hidden information capacity is increased in improved LSB algorithm since the carrier is 24 bits BMP image. Considering the anti-detect and HVS characteristic, we put forward the method that firstly select the pixels with random sequence and then embed information in the corresponding bits of the choosed pixels. The combination of the two in this scheme make it has higher security and the experimental results show that the scheme is feasible and has very good application value.

REFERENCES
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