Steganalysis of YASS

Abstract

A promising steganographic methodYet Another Steganography Scheme (YASS)was designed to resist blind steganalysis via embedding data in randomized locations. In addition to a concrete realization which is named the YASS algorithm in this paper, a few strategies were proposed to work with the YASS algorithm in order to enhance the data embedding rate and security. In this work, the YASS algorithm and these strategies, together referred to as YASS, have been analyzed from a warden's perspective. It is observed that the embedding locations chosen by YASS are not randomized enough and the YASS embedding scheme causes detectable artifacts. We present a steganalytic method to attack the YASS algorithm, which is facilitated by a specifically selected steganalytic observation domain (SO-domain), a term to define the domain from which steganalytic features are extracted. The proposed SO-domain is not exactly, but partially accesses, the domain where the YASS algorithm embeds data. Statistical features generated from the SO-domain have demonstrated high effectiveness in detecting the YASS algorithm and identifying some embedding parameters. In addition, we discuss how to defeat the above-mentioned strategies of YASS and demonstrate a countermeasure to a new case in which the randomness of the embedding locations is enhanced. The success of detecting YASS by the proposed method indicates a properly selected SO-domain is beneficial for steganalysis and confirms that the embedding locations are of great importance in designing a secure steganographic scheme. © 2006 IEEE.