2004 lnternatjonal Conference on Signal Processing & Communications (SPCOM)

IMAGE STEGANOGRAPHY FOR WIRELESS NETWORKS USING THE HADAMARD TRANSFORM

S. K. Pal', P. K. Saxena' & S. K. Muttoo'
I

Scientific Analysis Group, DRDO, Metcalfe House Complex, Delhi - 110 054 INDIA
{skptech@yahoo.com. saxenapk@hotmaii.conz]

'Department of Computer Science, University of Delhi, Delhi - 1 10 007 INDIA

{skmutIoo@ho tmoi1,com)

ABSTRACT
The Discrete Hadamard Transform (DHT) is a simple orthogonal transformation with a set of unique properties. Its 2D version has a separable kemel and can be implemented using fast algorithms. This paper exploits the power of DHT for carrying out steganognphy using images as containers of hiddcn information. Computational simplicity and scope for efficient and compact hardware realization makes the scheme suitable for mobile applications. By manipulating different sets of coefficients in the Hadamard transform-domain it is possible to practice steganography satisfying different criteria like transparency, capacity and survivability. It is also shown that this transform has an edge over many other popular transforms for data embedding in real-time ovcr resourcc constrained wirelcss networks.

any vital information travels through an insecure channel in the presence of adversaries. It offers a simple low-cost soIution for carrying out hidden and unobtrusive communication over insecure communication channels or public networks like the Internet. The problems of communicating visual data in real time are more serious for wireless networks [4] that are not very comfortable handling high bandwidth signals under the present day constraints. Different aspects like inefficient transmission, unreliable delivery, restricted bandwidth, dynamic topology and size and power restrictions of a mobile node can become bottlenecks for many applications. One such class of networks based on multi-hop and multi-path communication called the ad hoc networks [5] is gaining popularity and is likely to be marvel of communication technology of this decade. The network is interconnected using nodes (mostly mobile, handheld or wearable) that perform both as hosts as well as network routers and communicate using wireless links. It is designed to provide real time services in an environment without a fixed infrastructure and hence expected to work under different computational and hndwidth constraints. The mobile nodes have compact hardware, limited processing capability and battery power. Figure- I shows the dynamic communication setup in an ad hoc network over which hidden communication is desired. The sender node h' uses a data-embedding algorithm before transmitting a digital media over a channel prone to eavesdropping. The receiver node 'r' retrieves back the embedded data using an extraction algorithm. The data to be embedded in a media can be a text message, numerical data, image or an audio signal like human speech. A secret stego-key is often used to distribute the external data in the media and is avaiIable to the authorized receiver for data extraction. Higher levels of security can be introduced by encrypting the vital data prior to embedding using a secret encryption key. It is important for the system designer to ensure that the additional computational burden of encryption can be handled in real time for such an environment. Steganography for mobile applications or wireless networks with no fixed infrastructure and poor quality and reliability of radio links is not simple and demands careful system design [6].

1. INTRODUCTION
Frequent use of visual data has made the digital world more lively and interesting. Today it is difficult to visualize or design an interesting web page without images or animations. Operating computers and sophisticated electronic gadgets has also been simplified for the common person with the help of user-friendly multimedia technology [l]. Images and video clips are frequently exchanged from one part of the globe to the other using electronic mails and mobile phones equipped with digital cameras. From warfare to medical science and education to entertainment, the use of visual data in digital form has increased many folds during the last few years. Many serious applications demand communication of visual data in real-time. Maps, sketches, pictures, photographs and videos are transmitted and received by the military, police, law enforcement agencies, emergency response units, financial institutions, business houses, entertainment industry as well as thc man on the street. This offers scope for carrying out hidden communication instantly by exploiting the redundancy available in the media and embedding a secret message in the perceptually insignificant regions. Steganography 12, 31 is desirable whenever

0-7803-8674-4/04/$20.00 02004 IEEE .

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H,Hnr = d m = HSH" where I , is the identity matrix of order n. The number of sign changes along the rows of HIis 0,7,3,4,1,6,2 and 5. This is called sequency and the particular ordering is called the natural Hadamard ordering.
The 2D Hadamard transform representation of an image is given below. Let CJ and Y be the images in the spatial-domain and tnnsforn-domain respectively. The forward transform is given by

Figure-]. Steganognphy in a mobile ad-hoc network Monitoring of the channels becomes relatively easier for an adversary and the stego-media is subject to unintentional as well as intentional attacks with a higher probability. To achieve a balance between a set of conflicting requirements like transparency, survivability and capacity, a proper transformation domain is chosen for embedding the secret message. Some of the transforms popular for visual media are Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Karhunen-Loeve Transform (KLT). They represent a class of linear transforms 171and can be implemented using . algorithms with low computational complexity. As an example, the Discrete Fourier Transform has a popular and fast version called the FFT having computational complexity of 0(Nlog2N) for a signal of length N. For a NxN image, the complexity is Ow'log2N).The Discrete Hadamard Transform (DHT) is another. simple transform with many applications in image processing [SI and digital communications 191. Use of this transform for watermarking [lo] of digital images has also been reported. In the next section we explore the properties of the DHT together with some of their benefits and limitations. In Section-3 we present schemes for steganography in images using the Hadamard transform. In Section4 we show experimental results by using different sets of Hadamard transform coefficients. We conclude with comments regarding the suitability of the DHT for image steganography in resourceconstrained networks.

V=- H"Uff" (4) N where N=2" and H, is a NxN Hadamard matrix with binary H entries. From the property of Hadamard matrices, Hi' = N Therefore, the inverse transformation can be represented as U=- 1I"VH" (5)

Thc forward and reverse 2D transforms are identical and can be realized using the same module or circuitry. Due to the separability property, a 2D Hadamard transform can be performed using a ID transform on the rows and then on the columns of the matrix. Morcover, the ID transform has been implemented using only few operations (8 operations for a vector of length 8) and realized using low-cost, compact circuitry involving only shiR and additionhubtraction operations. A fast version called the Fast Hadamard Transform (FHT) is available and can be efficiently used to decompose a signal into its Hadamard components. Data compression is achieved by retaining only the significant Hadamard components and discarding those that do not directly affect the perceptibility of the media. The DHT,however, does not match the energy compaction performance o f the DCT or spectral analysis capabilities of the DFT or DWT. The moderate energy compaction offered by the DHT could be used as an advantage for designing survivable stego-systems as explained in the following sections.

2. THE DISCRETE HADAMARD

TRANSFORM
The Hadamard transform belongs to the class of linear, separable and orthogonal transformation. The transformation kernel can be generated from the core matrix '
HI
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=r:
L1

-11

"1

3. STEGANOGRAPHY IN THE HADAMARD DOMAIN

Steganographic schemes are designed by taking a suitable image as the container of hidden information. The hidden information can be a text message or an image whose dimensions are practicaIly much smaller than that of the container. The secret message is normally pre-processed before embedding it into the cover-image. A binary image is directly converted into bit-stream whereas a gray scale or a color image is first compressed using a

using a simple recursive relation

From the above equation, it is easy to construct 6 (given by (?)), which is an 8x8 matrix with elements as +1 and -1 only. The row and column vectors of H, are painvise orthogonal. Also,

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lossy scheme for dimensionality reduction and then quantized and encoded as a binary sequence. Similarly, a textual message is converted into a bit-stream using a specific coding technique. Options are standard schemes like ASCII or non-standard schemes designed for a specific type of application. Redundancy i s introduced by replicating the message more than once and embedding in different locations of the cover. Encryption helps to further improve the security of the message. However, it is important to ensure that the process of encryption does not introduce any recognizable pattems (like a PGP header) in the message bits. Finally, a strong error correction scheme increases the reliability of the hidden information. However, this results in a bit-stream much longer than the original coded message.
An image is normally partitioned into non-overlapping blocks and a suitable tmnsformation is applied to each bIock. A set of transform coeficients is obtained which can be grouped into regions of different perceptual significance, The DC and AC components for Hadamard transform operating on an 8x8 image block is shown in figure-2. It is important to note that unlike the Walsh transform where the rows are arranged in ascending order of sequency, the AC components here are arranged in the Hadamard order shown in the figure. We represent a coefficient in the ?'-row and jIh-columnof the matrix by cijor (i, j). The AC coefficients are grouped into low, mid and high frequency components and address different visual aspects of an image. After carefully manipulating a group of coefficients for data hiding, the block is inversetransformed and placed in the same location corrcsponding to the original image. A stego-image is created in this manner, which is perceptually similar to its original counterpart. The cover image is destroyed and the stegoimage is transmitted to the authorized receivers.

thereby improving the survivability of the hidden message. A significant coefficient marked in black in Figure-3 is used for embedding a bit in the block. In order to resist steganalysis, it is important that the embedding operation does not substantially alter the statistics of.the modified coefficients. A few schemes used for message hiding in the Hadamard domain are: Replace the lesser significant coefficients with the secret data. The high-frequency AC components may be used for this purpose. Choose a set of coefficients, divide them by a pre-specified value, and embed bits in the coefficients greater than an offset. High and mid-frequency components are suitable. Choose a set of coefficients aid sort them in a prearranged fashion to represent a 0 or I . High and mid-frequency components are suitable. Study the statistical 'properties of perceptually significant coefficients. Quantize and modify one or more coefficients to represent a bit 0 or 1 . Exchange a pair of coefficient in accordance with the bit to be hidden. Middle and lower frequency components are useful. Enforce the modulo-2 sum of a set of DHT coefficients to represent a 0 or I . MiddIc and lower frequency components can be used.

AC components in
Hadamard order

Sequency

Figure-3. Coefficients used in the Hadamard transformed 8x8 image block Figure-2. Hadamard components in its nahIra1 order

4. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Experiments were conducted for studying the above steganography schemes and analysing their effect on visual and statistical transparency as well as survivability to different attacks. The 256x256 Lena image (cover) was partitioned into 8x8 non-overlapping blocks. Each block was Hadamard transformed using a fast DHT algorithm. The 8x8 matrix H3was used for this purpose. Statistical analysis (mean, dynamic range, probability density function, relative magnitudes etc.) of different groups of coefficients was done and effect of embedding external bits was studied. Firstly, scheme (d) was used for hiding a single bit of information in a block by studying

For normal steganognphic applications, the high and midfrequency AC coefficients are replaced or modified by using one of the schemes (a)-(c) mentioned below. The coefficients marked with a light shade of gray as shown in Figure-3 are able to address some of the high as well as mid-frequency components due to the natural Hadamard ordering. These schemes can promise perceptual transparency as well as high capacity steganography but may not always offer the levels of survivability required for mobile or wireless ad-hoc networks. It is also possible to carefully hide lesser amount of data in the low frequency components of the transform as mentioned in (d)-(f),

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the coefficient frequency histogram of c11 (shown as a black cell in Figure-3) and quantizing it using a uniform quantizer having 64, 128 and 256 levels. The actual coefficients in a block (for 100 blocks) represented by . and their quantized counterparts represented by 0are depicted in Figure-4 for 128 leveIs. Odd codebook indices were used to represent the bit I and the even ones for D, The coefficient was quantized to the nearest value representing the secret bit and the block was inverse transformed. Slight amount of randomness was introduced in the coefficient values as it makes statistical steganalysis [ I I ] more dificult. It was observed that bigger the step size, higher was the message survivability at the cost of visual transparency. The choice of a uniform quantizer was made, as it is fast and no additional information has to be transmitted to cater to the variability in different cover-images.

In a similar eiperiment, scheme (e) was used for hiding a bit ~ in a block. Statistical analysis of coefficients czz and C J . (shown as dark gray cells in Figure-3) was done and a bit was embedded according to the logic shown in Table-1.

For encoding a bit mbk in the Hadamard transformed matrix itbhk of the sub-block ubk selected from an image U,the following steps were involved. From the transform matrix uhhk, two significant coefficients c2?and c33were selected after performing statistical analysis. The relation $222 > d (offset) was enforced to improve survivability and the encoding logic for data embedding was used from Table-I. Finally, the inverse a s obtained. The process was repeated transformed matrix vbk w for each selected block k till the message bits were exhausted. The inverse transformed blocks were placed together to obtain the stego-image V. Decoding of the message bit tiom a subblock was done by checking the condition on the two coefficients from Table-1. The maximum message capacity was I024 bits for a 256x256 image partitioned into 8x8 nonoverlapping blocks and processed using the above scheme. The capacity increased 4 times if a 512x512 image was used as a cover. The message carrying capacity further increases if a 24-bit image was used or more than one bit were embedded in a block.

I 1
i t

1 message I (condition) I (action) 1

c2z>c33

Ycs(0)

I 1
swap

Yes(0)

No(1) No ( I )

No(l) Yes(0)

Yes(0)

No(])

Table- 1. Encoding logic for data embedding

200 150

Hadamard coefficient (1 , I ]
Figure-4. Effect of quantization on a coefficient selected for steganography
Figure-5. Steganography using the DHT (a) Original image (b) Hadamard coefficients in 8x8 blocks (c) Stego-image

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Figure-5 shows the original image, the Hadamard transformed image and the stego-image obtained by using this scheme. Message retrieval was done using the same logic in Table- 1. The scheme could survive signal processing operations like noise addition, low-pass and median filtering. Similar experiments were conducted for increasing the data hiding capacity. The bottom-right region marked in gray as shown in Figure-3 involved 15 Hadamard coefficients consisting of mid and high frequency AC components. These coefficients were used to embed one to three bits resulting in a higher embedding rate. The same set of coefficients in the case of Discrete Cosine or Walsh Transform (using a zigzag scan) represent only the high frequency components. The DHT based scheme showed superior performance regarding message survivability compared to a similar DCT scheme based on manipulation of these 15 coefficients. Direct replacement schemes were not used due to their poor performance rcgarding survivability and detectability.

[3]

S. Katzenbeizzer & F.A.P. Petitcolas (eds.). Information Hiding Techniques for Steganography and Digital Watermarking, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Artech House Books, 2000.
S, Tabbane, Handbook of Mobile Radio Networks, Artech House, 2000.

[4]

[5]

C. E. Perkins, Ad Hoc Networking, Addison Wesley Professional, 2001.

S. K. Pal, Stegosystem Design Issues, Proceedings of the International Conference on Number Theory for Secure Communications, Thanjavur, India, December 2003,

.
[6]

[7]

5. CONCLUSIONS
The Hadamard transform was studied to find its suitability for steganographic applications in wireless networks. Due to a number of attractive properties, it could be implemented as a fast transform capable of addressing real-time applications under various resource constraints. The low and mid-frequency Hadamard components offered scope for high quality information embedding in images with better immunity to channcl noise and higher levels of resistance to many attacks compared to some of the popular transforms. In addition, high throughput, compact and low-cost hardwarc realization offered by this transform makes it an attractive option for steganography using handheld, wearable and miniature devices.
[8]

S. K. Pal, Orthogonal Transformations in Steganography, in the National Conference on Mathematical Modeling & Applications, Bhopal, India, May 2004.
A, K. Jain, Fundamentals of Digital Image Processing, Prentice HaII, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 19x9.

[9] C. C . Gumas, A Century Old, The Fast Hadatnard Transform Proves Useful in Digital Communication,
Personal Engineering & Instrumentation News, November 1997, pp. 57-63.

[IO] A. T. S . Ho, J. Shen and S. H. Tan, A Robust Digital Image-in-Image Watcrmarking Algorithm Using the Fast Hadamard Transform, Proceedings of SPIE, Vol. 4793,
2003.

REFERENCES
[I]
J. R. Ohm, Multimedia Communication Technology: Represenration, Transmission & Identification of Multimedia Signals, Springer Verlag, 2004.

[l I]

S.K. Pal, P. K. Saxena and S . K. Muttoo, Smart Wardens,

Smarter Steganography, Proceedings of the Pacific Rim Workshop on Digital Steganography, STEG03, Kitakyushu, Japan, July 2003.

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N. Provos 8 P. Honeyman, Hide and Seek: An Introduction to Steganography, lEEE Security & Privacy, May/June 2003.

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