New Image Steganographic Method Using RLC & Modular Arithmetic

Using advantages of previous algorithms along with a novel point, a new low destructive image steganographic method is proposed. The host image is segmented into blocks of pairs of successive pixels. The secret data are hidden in these two-pixel blocks. The secret data is considered as a stream of bits and is coded using run length coding. Here 0 and 1 s are run values and the number of run values in each run is run count. There are two novel points in this paper, as the first the RLC coded secret bit stream is rearranged so that there is no need to embed run values, and only run counts are embedded. This point reduces the volume of embedded data considerably. As the second point, the run counts greater than a predefined value are embedded in more than one block, limiting local destruction. The embedding process incorporates the modular arithmetic. Using different experiments under various conditions, the proposed algorithm was compared to the last published method. In all experiments, for the same size of embedded data the proposed algorithm has 4 to 12 db lower destruction than the last algorithm.