Hiding secret data in images via predictive coding

This paper presents a prediction-based image-hiding scheme that embeds secret data into compression codes during image compression. This scheme employs a two-stage structure: a prediction stage and an entropy coding stage. The secret data is embedded into the difference values of a given image after the prediction stage is performed. According to the experimental results, the image quality is better than Jpeg-Jsteg and its improved scheme (Inform. Sci. 141 (1-2) (2002) 123). The average image quality of the stego-images in the proposed scheme is greater than 50dB when the hiding capacity is 1 bit per pixel, whereas those values in Jpeg-Jsteg and scheme in Chang et al. (Inform. Sci. 141 (1-2) (2002) 123) are 37.04 and 33.73 dB, respectively. The hiding capacity of the proposed scheme is 65,536 bits when the hiding capacity is I bit per pixel, whereas it is 53,248 bits in scheme (Inform. Sci. 141 (1-2) (2002) 123) and less than 3000 bits in Jpeg-Jsteg. (C) 2004 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.