A Reversible Data Hiding Method in Encrypted Images for Controlling Trade-Off between Hiding Capacity and Compression...

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Information Security
• Image Processing

Background:

• Reversible data hiding in encrypted images (RDH-EI) is crucial for secure data transmission.
• Existing RDH-EI methods often face trade-offs between hiding capacity and compression efficiency.
• There is a need for flexible RDH-EI frameworks that balance these requirements.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel framework for RDH-EI with flexible control over hiding capacity and lossless compression efficiency.
• To enable decryption of marked encrypted images without prior data extraction.
• To achieve high hiding rates while maintaining compression performance.

Main Methods:

• The proposed framework divides an original image into two distinct regions.
• Two different RDH-EI methods are applied to each region.
• One region supports decryption without data extraction and lossless compression.
• The other region achieves a high hiding rate of approximately 1 bit per pixel (bpp).

Main Results:

• The framework successfully decrypts marked encrypted images without data extraction.
• One region allows for lossless compression using standard image coding techniques.
• The second region demonstrates a high data hiding rate.
• Experimental results validate the method's effectiveness in balancing capacity and compression.

Conclusions:

• The proposed RDH-EI framework offers a flexible and effective solution for secure image data embedding.
• It successfully addresses the trade-off between hiding capacity and lossless compression efficiency.
• The method provides dual benefits: secure data hiding and efficient image compression.