A secure covert communication model based on video steganography

Abstract

This paper presents a steganographic model which utilizes cover video files to conceal the presence of other sensitive data regardless of its format. The model presented is based on pixel-wise manipulation of colored raw video files to embed the secret data. The secret message is segmented into blocks prior to being embedded in the cover video. These blocks are then embedded in pseudo random locations. The locations are derived from a re-orderings of a mutually agreed upon secret key. Furthermore, the re-ordering is dynamically changed with each video frame to reduce the possibility of statistically identifying the locations of the secret message blocks, even if the original cover video is made available to the interceptor. The paper also presents a quantitative evaluation of the model using four types of secret data. The model is evaluated in terms of both the average reduction in Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) compared to the original cover video; as well as the Mean Square Error (MSE) measured between the original and steganographic files averaged over all video frames. Results show minimal degradation of the steganographic video file for all types of data, and for various sizes of the secret messages. Finally, an estimate of the embedding capacity of a video file is presented based on file format and size. ©2008 IEEE.