Vernam Conjugated Manipulation of Bit-Plane

Complexity Segmentation
Andysah Putera Utama Siahaan
Faculty of Computer Science
Universitas Pembangunan Panca Budi
Jl. Jend. Gatot Subroto Km. 4,5 Sei Sikambing, 20122, Medan, Sumatera Utara, Indonesia
andiesiahaan@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Bit-Plane Complexity Segmentation is one of the steganography technique is often performed to conceal data. But in BPCS
method, a used pattern is not a classified anymore. Conjugation of the informative bit-plane is to change the bit-plane to cipherform bit-plane that can keep the secret message. Changing the bit-plane pattern for each bit-plane is a technique for increasing
the security of the vessel image. Vernam can be used to modify the bit-plane with the predetermined blocks conjugation. Data
security would be increased by applying this method.
Keywords - BPCS, Steganography, Security, Cryptography.
I. INTRODUCTION

II. THEORIES

Steganography is often done to send a file with a high

comfort, thereby reducing suspicion of files that are sent or
vessel image. BPCS (Bit-Plane Complexity Segmentation) is
one technique that is used to store information in an image,
which is called the image of the vessel image. This technique
uses imagery division into segments which will be divided into
several bit-plane. However, the possibility that data can be
solved or attack so that data can be retrieved by the
irresponsible. The pattern used in the BPCS is to store data by
grouping bit corresponds to the index with the 8x8 pattern
forming where each sequence of eight characters will be
transformed into binary message blocks.

Eiji Kawaguchi and R. O. Eason introduce the BPCS

technique to be used in uncompressed color-images documents.
The image of the document is divided into several segments
with a size of 8x8 pixels of each segment. In the 8-bit image of
the document, each segment has eight bit-planes representing
the pixels of each of these bits. The process of division of
segment 8x8 pixels into eight bits is called the bit slicing plane.
Representation of bit-plane is PBC system (Pure Binary Code).
In BPCS, the insertion process is performed on a bit-plane
system with CGC (Canonical Gray Code) because the process
of slicing bits of CGC is better than in PBC. A bit plane with
PBC representation is converted into bit-plane with CGC
representation.

The BPCS weaknesses can be seen from the preparation of

the information in the 8x8 pattern. If complexity used is
determined, it is not impossible vessel information stored in the
image can be easily retrieved. Typically used complexity
revolves around the value of 0.3 and this value has become a
commonly used method of this BPCS. To anticipate unwanted
things, the binary value inserted into the vessel should be
further enhanced image security. If we know the value and the
data are retrieved from the vessel image, the Vernam Cipher
will play a role in protecting the arrangement of bits of data on
the bit-plane BPCS.
Vernam Cipher will make changes to the data bits to be
inserted in the vessel image. These bits will be given the
exclusive-or procedure so that the data stored in the image file
have been encrypted beforehand. This method is very
lightweight and faster to use than other methods that have to
use a lot of math calculations.

The process of inserting a message is carried on the segments

that have high complexity. This is called noise-like region. In
these segments, the insertion is not only performed on the least
significant bit, but on the whole noise-like bit-planes.
Therefore, the BPCS technique, data capacity can optimally
reach 50% of vessel image size.
For further explanation, we can see the process from the
original image to bit-plane slicing on Figure 1. The image at the
top-left is the original image which has converted to 8 bits gray
color. Each segment is divided into the 8x8 pixel, where each
pixel is converted to the 8-bit binary system. Every index on
the bits is concatenated in a single new piece of bit-plane. So
we have eight bits planes which are saving the information of
every bit.

III. IMPLEMENTATION
Let's look at the next example. The following table shows
the value of light intensity which converted to pure decimal
binary code.

0
127
31
23
9
54
117
170
200

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

1
27
52
29
14
44
91
181
198

PBC Pixel Segmen 1

2
3
4
5
29
39
49
65
12
1
7
0
24
28
37
44
20
35
32
44
63
47
59
85
121
169
186
185
193
209
208
213
179
184
198
187

6
67
1
41
34
60
203
216
199

7
69
10
21
1
74
190
235
247

Table 1 : 8x8 pixel of Image Light Intensity

Figure 1 : The Process of Bit-Plane

Conjugation is a technique to maintain bit-plane on BPCS to

keep them in noise-like region. Suppose a black and white
image sized 8x8 pixel P has a white background color and
foreground color black. W is a pattern with all pixels white.
Suppose a black and white image sized 8x8 pixel P has a white
background color and foreground color black. W is a pattern
with all pixels white and B is the pattern with all black pixels.
Wc and Bc are a chessboard pattern, with a pixel in the top left
of the white on black on the Wc and Bc. P * is the conjugate of
the image P shown in Figure 2.

The data above is cut from image light intensity. Each

segment consists of 64 pixels. The light intensity is measured
from 0-255 as a binary system. The PBC form must
be converted to CGC to remap the bit planes in order to perform
the message insertion. Table 2 and table 3 show the comparison
of both forms.

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

PBC (Pure Binary Code)

2
3
4

01111111

00011011

00011101

00100111

00110001

01000001

01000011

01000101

00011111

00110100

00001100

00000001

00000111

00000000

00000001

00001010

00010111

00011101

00011000

00011100

00100101

00101100

00101001

00010101

00001001

00001110

00010100

00100011

00100000

00101100

00100010

00000001

00110110

00101100

00111111

00101111

00111011

01010101

00111100

01001010

01110101

01011011

01111001

10101001

10111010

10111001

11001011

10111110

10101010

10110101

11000001

11010001

11010000

11010101

11011000

11101011

11001000

11000110

10110011

10111000

11000110

10111011

11000111

11110111

Table 2 : Pure Binary Code Segment

Figure 2 : Conjugation Block

Vernam Cipher is a crypto technique by combining each

character of plaintext with repeated key characters from a key
stream. The key can be from a random key or regular key by
inserting decided characters. If a random key stream is used,
the ciphertext will be random too. By combining Vernam and
BPCS will make the concealment perfectly. The attacker will
be fooled by a set of bits obtained at the time of interception.
This makes the combination of two methods work together.
Basic Vernam formula is shown by this following equation.
= BitPlane

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

CGC (Canonical Gray Code)

2
3
4
5

01000000

00010110

00010011

00110100

00101001

01100001

01100010

01100111

00010000

00101110

00001010

00000001

00000100

00000000

00000001

00001111

00011100

00010011

00010100

00010010

00110111

00111010

00111101

00011111

00001101

00001001

00011110

00110010

00110000

00111010

00110011

00000001

00101101

00111010

00100000

00111000

00100110

01111111

00100010

01101111

01001111

01110110

01000101

11111101

11100111

11100101

10101110

11100001

11111111

11101111

10100001

10111001

10111000

10111111

10110100

10011110

10101100

10100101

11101010

11100100

10100101

11100110

10100100

10001100

(1)
Table 3 : Canonical Gray Code Segment

Where:
CT BitPlane :
PT BItPlane :
Key BitPlane :

Set of bits of aftercode message

Set of bits of original message
Set of bits of password

Figure 3 : Pure Binary Code and Canonical Gray Code Images

Figure 3 shows the difference of PBC image and CGC

image. The CGC turns the pixel by seeing the next bit of light
intensity. After the CGC values are obtained, we divide the
segment into eight bit-planes and categorize the same index of
bit position into the same bit-plane. Table 4 shows the result of
divided-bit-planes.

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1

Bit Plane 1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1

2
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1

3
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1

9
4
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1

5
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1

0,080357143
6
7
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
1

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

0
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
0

Bit Plane 2
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0

2
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1

3
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1

33
4
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0

5
1
0
0
0
1
1
0
1

0,294642857
6
7
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
0
0
0

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
1

Bit Plane 3
1
0
1
0
0
1
1
1
1

2
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
1

3
1
0
0
1
1
1
1
1

34
4
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
1

5
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
1

0,303571429
6
7
1
1
0
0
1
0
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
0

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

0
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
0

Bit Plane 4
1
1
0
1
0
1
1
0
0

2
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
0

3
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
0

48
4
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
0

5
0
0
1
1
1
0
1
0

0,428571429
6
7
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
0

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
1

Bit Plane 5
1
0
1
0
1
1
0
1
0

2
0
1
0
1
0
0
0
1

3
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
0

61
4
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0

5
0
0
1
1
1
0
1
0

0,544642857
6
7
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
1

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
1

Bit Plane 6
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
1

2
0
0
1
1
0
1
0
0

3
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
1

52
4
0
1
1
0
1
1
0
1

5
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1

0,464285714
6
7
0
1
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
0
1
1
1
1

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0

Bit Plane 7
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
0

2
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
1

3
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0

57
4
0
0
1
0
1
1
0
0

5
0
0
1
1
1
0
1
1

0,508928571
6
7
1
1
0
1
0
1
1
0
1
1
1
0
0
1
0
0

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
0

Bit Plane 8
1
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
1

2
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
0

3
0
1
0
0
0
1
1
0

56
4
1
0
1
0
0
1
0
1

5
1
0
0
0
1
1
1
0

Table 4 : Bit-Planes

0,5
6
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
0

7
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
0

Each bit-plane is calculated to obtain the value of

complexity. The complexity is counted by how many times the
bit change from 0 to 1 and from 1 to 0. The maximal bit change
value of 8x8 block is 112. The formula to calculate the
complexity is shown in equation 2.
=

(2)

Where:

k
n

:
:
:

Complexity
Total bit change
Maximum change of 8x8 bit-plane

Table 5 shows the complexity of all bit-planes. We have to

set the limitation between informative and noise-like region.
The limit is called threshold. Basically, the standard value of
the threshold is 0.3 but we can modify as needed. The
modification is often performed to avoid the informative area
or to add the noise-like area. The n value is set to the maximum
that is 112.
Bit-Plane
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Bit Change
9
33
34
48
61
52
57
56

Complexity
0,080357142857
0,294642857143
0,303571428571
0,428571428571
0,544642857143
0,464285714286
0,508928571429
0,500000000000

Table 5 : The Complexity of Bit-Planes

From table 5, bit-plane number 1 and 2 are the informative

regions. These bit-planes cannot be inserted by message
because the value of complexity is below the threshold. So the
insertion is skipped to the next bit-plane.
Assume we want to hide the word ANDYSAH!. The word
consists of eight characters. It has eight bit-planes. Table 6 and
7 shows the original message and the bit-plane.
Char
A
N
D
Y
S
A
H
!

Dec.
65
78
68
89
83
65
72
33

Biner
1000001
1001110
1000100
1011001
1010011
1000001
1001000
100001

Table 6 : The Original Message

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0

Bit Plane Message

2
3
4
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
0

5
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0

6
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
0

7
1
0
0
1
1
1
0
1

Table 7 : The Bit-Plane of Message

The Vernam algorithm needs the repeated key to making the

cipher text. Now we can see an example of the key. The key is
SDM21. The word is repeated until the length of bit-plane is
covered.
Char
S
D
M
2
1
S
D
M

Dec.
83
68
77
50
49
83
68
77

Biner
01010011
01000100
01001101
00110010
00110001
01010011
01000100
01001101

Table 8 : The Repeated Key

The key itself is converted to bit-plane model as showed in

table 9. The bit-plane of the key is called conjugation block.
BPCS uses conjugation block to convert informative region to
noise-like region. But now we replace the conjugation block
with our own block which can be set as we wish.

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

1
1
1
1
0
0
1
1
1

Bit Plane Message

2
3
4
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
1

5
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
1

6
1
0
0
1
0
1
0
0

7
1
0
1
0
1
1
0
1

Table 9 : The Bit-Plane of Key

The bit-plane of message and key must be transformed by

performing the exclusive-or (xor). The result from both bitplanes will be the cipher bit-plane. After all the bit-planes is
encrypted, the bit-planes are restored to its original position and
re-converted to pure binary code before finally rewritten to the
new image.

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

Cipher Bit-Plane
2
3
4
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
1
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
1
0
1

1
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
1

5
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1

6
1
1
0
1
1
1
0
0

7
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0

Table 10 : The Bit-Plane of Cipher

Table 10 shows the bit-plane after encrypted and table 11

shows the bit-plane after conversion. We can see that the
message is turned into the encrypted message.
Char

k
b

Dec.
18
10
9
107
98
18
12
108

Biner
00010010
00001010
00001001
01101011
01100010
00010010
00001100
01101100

Table 11 : The Cipher Message

V. CONCLUSION
BPCS Steganography can be combined with encryption.
Vernam is more suitable to reconstruct the bit-planes because
this encryption method is very light but powerful. The
calculation does not have to use difficult a mathematical
operation. The way is just only to remap the bit-plane by
applying the Vernam method in them. All we have to do is to
find the correct key to produce the noise-like region.
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