The Progressive Multilevel Embedding Method for Audio Steganography

Abstract

Audio steganography refers to hiding a secret message inside a cover audio file. The existing methods follow almost a sequential embedding which leads to poor utilization of the cover. The proposed method aims to achieve the maximum feasible capacity of the audio file without lowering the quality. The proposed method is based on seven levels of thresholds and six LSB layers, while the embedding is carried out progressively. The method allocates the message bits over the cover signal horizontally to ensure fair payload distribution over the signal. Hence, the selected samples might be visited multiple times till the message is totally embedded. The experimental results show that the method is able to reach a hiding capacity of 40% of the file size or 266.6 kbps while maintaining an SNR and PSNR values of 40 and 58 dB respectively. It is concluded that the proposed progressive method is highly adaptive to the message size and capable of providing high-quality stego even when big payloads are used. The comparative study shows that the progressive method provides the best message distribution based on the nature of the cover.

Enhancing LSB Using Binary Message Size Encoding for High Capacity, Transparent and Secure Audio Steganography–An Innovative Approach

“…The concept is to use a minimum number of bits to encode the data that happens more frequently [35]. The lossless compression of the Huffman encoding improves the capacity of the overall method [36].…”

Message Security Enhanced By Bit Cycling Encryption and Bi-LSB Technique

“…(2021) 29) The method may raise the level of the embedding layer without reducing signal transparency, according to the results of the tests. [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] The maximum number of bits that may be used in LSB audio steganography without having a noticeable influence on the host audio stream is 4 LSBs. Experiments demonstrate that employing this novel data embedding approach with 7 LSBs instead of the LSB standard algorithm with 4 LSBs increases carrier audio data concealing capacity by 35 to 55 percent.…”

“…Furthermore, the random selection offers higher security than sequential selection. 25,26) demonstrates a novel method for embedding the secret message in audio files using M16MA and M4M.…”

“…Altinbaş (2021) 17) implemented and proposed a Bit reduction technique with less distortion in the audio file. Alsabhany (2020) 26) proposed an efficient technique to improve the capacity of hiding by 70%. MohammedJ(2020) 5) )proposed a model for hiding data in mp3 files.…”

A New Method to Estimate Peak Signal to Noise Ratio for Least Significant Bit Modification Audio Steganography

“…For any audio steganography method to be successfully implemented, it is important to consider three features: capacity, imperceptibility and robustness (Alsabhany et al, 2020;Amirtharajan & Rayappan, 2013;Hameed, 2018;Zumchak, 2016). First, capacity refers to the amount of secret data embedded inside a cover file (Somani & Madhu, 2015;Srivastava & Rafiq, 2012).…”