F5

A STEGANOGRAPHIC ALGORITHM
- ANDREAS WESTFELD

Professor: Dr. YUN QING

SHI
Presentation by: KARTHIK RAGHAVENDRA

TOPICS DISCUSSED

STEGANOGRAPHY OVERVIEW
JPEG FILE INTERCHANGE FORMAT
JSTEG ALGORITHM
F3 ALGORITHM
F4 ALGORITHM
F5 ALGORITHM AND ITS ADVANTAGES
OVER OTHER ALGORITHMS
F5 ALGORITHM DEMO

STEGANOGRAPHY
OVERVIEW

SECRET
MESSAGE

Steganographyis the art and science of writing hidden messages in a

carrier medium in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and
intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form ofsecurity
through obscurity.
Many different carrier file formats can be used, but Digital Images are the
most popular because of their frequency on the internet.
SECRET
IMAGE
MESSAGE
STEGANOGRAM
Steganograph
y
Encryption
algorithm

Steganograph
y
Decryption
algorithm

CARRIER

No visible changes in
image steganogram
Must resist Visual
and Statistical
Attacks
High Capacity for

Secret Message

CARRIER

JPEG FILE INTERCHANGE FORMAT

Fig 1: Flow of information in the JPEG compressor

JPEG compressor cuts the

uncompressed image into parts of 8
x 8 pixels.
Discrete Cosine Transformation
transfers the 8 x 8 brightness values
into 8 x 8 frequency coefficients
Quantization suitably rounds
frequency coefficients to integers in
range -2048..2047. (Lossy step)
Histogram in Fig 2 shows discrete
distribution of coefficients frequency
of occurrence.
Quantization followed by Huffman
coding which ensures redundancy
free coding of quantized coefficients.
Distribution in Fig 2 shows 2
characteristic properties:

Fig 2: Histogram of JPEG coefficients after quantization

Coefficients frequency of occurrence

decreases with increasing absolute
value.
Difference between 2 bars of histogram
in middle is larger than on margin.

JSTEG ALGORITHM (1)

Fig 3a: Histogram of JPEG coefficients after

quantization

Fig 3b: JSTEG equalises pairs of coefficients

JSTEG ALGORITHM (2)

After quantization, JSTEG replaces the least significant bits of the frequency coefficients by the
secret message. The embedding mechanism skips all coefficients with the values 0 or 1 as
observed in Figure 3b.
Resistant against visual attacks and offers a good capacity of about 12.8% of the staganograms
size, but the secret message can be easily detected by statistical attacks.
Fig 4 shows the statistical attack on JSTEG steganogram (with 50% of the capacity used, i.e.
7680 bytes). The diagram presents the probability of embedding: as a function of an increasing
sample: Initially, the sample comprises the first 1% of the JPEG coefficients, then the first 2%,
3%, . . . The probability is 1.00 up to 54% and 0.45 at 56%; A sample of 59% and more contains
enough unchanged coefficients to let the p-value drop to 0.00.

Fig 4: Probability of embedding in a JSTEG

steganogram
(50 % of capacity used)

F3 Steganographic Algorithm
(1)

Fig 5a: Histogram of JPEG coefficients after

quantization

Fig 5b: F3 produces a superior number of even

coefficients

F3 Steganographic Algorithm
(2)

Does not overwrite bits like JSTEG, instead it decrements the coefficients absolute values in case
their LSB does not match except coefficients with the value zero, where we cannot decrement
the absolute value. Hence zero coefficient is not used in this method. The LSB of nonzero
coefficients match the secret message after embedding, but the LSB is not overwritten as
overwritten bits can be detected by statistical methods (Chi-Square method).
Some embedded bits fall victim to shrinkage. Shrinkage occurs every time F3 decrements the
absolute value of 1 and -1 producing a 0. The receiver cannot distinguish a 0 coefficient that is
stegonagraphically unused from a 0 produced by shrinkage. It skips all zero coefficients. Hence
repetitive embedding is necessary.
Figure 5b shows the histogram of frequence of occurance versus JPE G coefficients for after
applying F3 algorithm. The histogram shows more even coefficients than odd coefficients. This is
due to repeated embedding after shrinkage. Shrinkage occurs only if we embed a 0 bit. The
repetition of these 0 bits shifts the ratio of steganographic values in favour of the steganographic
zeros. This is undesirable and can be detected by statistical means.

F3 WEAKNESSES:

Due to exclusive shrinkage of steganographic zeros. F3 embeds more zeros than ones, and
produces statistically detectable peculiarities in the in the histogram.
The histogram of Figure 2 contains more odd than even coefficients (except 0). Therefore, an
unchanged carrier media contain more steganographic ones than zeros.

F4 Steganographic Algorithm
(1)

Fig 6a: Histogram of JPEG coefficients after

quantization

Fig 6b: Histogram of JPEG coefficients with F4

interpretation of Steganographic values

F4 Steganographic Algorithm
(2)

F4 eliminates the 2 weakness mentioned in F3 algorithm by mapping negative

coefficients to the inverted steganographic value: even negative coefficients
represent a steganographic one, odd negative a zero; even positive represents a
zero, odd positive and even negative a one, as shown in Figure 6b.
In Figure 6b, each 2 bars of the same height represent coefficients with inverse
steganographic value (steganographic zeros are black, steganographic ones white).

F4 WEAKNESSES:

Embeds secret message data continuously resulting in changes to

concentrate on the start of the file, and unused rest resides on the end.
This phenomenon is called Continuous embedding.

For a very short secret message comprising of 217 byes (1736 bits), F4
changes 1157 places. This is shows that the number of bits changed is
significantly more which is not a good feature for attack proof
steganographic algorithm. A new mechanism is required to decrease the
number of bit changes.

F5 Steganographic Algorithm
(1)

Overall algorithm is same as F4

algorithm.
F5 is enhanced version of F4 algorithm
with respect to 2 main features stated
below which help in preventing statistical
attacks and improving embedding
efficiency:
PERMUTATIVE STRADDLING
MATRIX ENCODING

F5 Steganographic Algorithm
(2)
CONTINUOUS EMBEDDING PROBLEM:
In most of the cases, an embedded message does not require full capacity. Hence a
part of the file
remains unused. Figure 7 shows this concept of continuous embedding used by
algorithm like F4.
Figure 7 shows that the changes (x) concentrate on the start of the file, and unused
rest resides on
the end. To prevent attacks, the embedding function should use the carrier medium as
regularly as
possible. The embedding density must be same everywhere.

Fig 7: Continuous Embedding concentrates

changes (x)

F5 Steganographic Algorithm
(3)
PERMUTATIVE STRADDLING:

To prevent the Continuous Embedding problem discussed before, F5 algorithm

uses a technique called Permutative Straddling for scattering the secret message
over the whole carrier medium as shown in Figure 8 (Treat each pixel as JPEG
coefficient).
The straddling mechanism used in F5 shuffles all coefficients using a permutation
first. Then, F5 embeds into the permuted sequence. The shrinkage does not
change the number of coefficients (only their values) .
The permutation depends on key derived from a password.
F5 delivers the steganographically changed coefficients in its original sequence to
the Huffman coder.
With correct key, ,receiver will be able to repeat the permutation.

Fig 8: Permutative Straddling scatters the

changes (x)

F5 Steganographic Algorithm
(4)
MATRIX ENCODING BY RON CRANDALL:

New and efficient technique to improve embedding efficiency by

reducing number of changes when embedding secret message.

EXAMPLE:

F4

1157
1157bits
bits
changed
changed

Message
Messagewith
with
1736
1736bits
bits

F5

459
459bits
bitschanged
changed

F5 Steganographic Algorithm
(5)
MATRIX ENCODING IMPLEMENTATION:

Suppose we want to embed 2 bits x1,x2 in three modifiable bit places

a1,a2 ,a3 changing one place at most. We have following 4 cases:

In all 4 cases, we do not change more than one bit.

General case: If we have a code word a with n modifiable bit places for
k secret message bits x, Matrix encoding technique embeds k secret
message bits by changing one of n= 2^k-1 places.

F5 Steganographic Algorithm
(6)
PRESERVING CHARACTERSITIC PROPERTIES:

F5 Steganographic Algorithm
(7)
F5 IMPLEMENTATION:

Fig: Block Diagram of F5 Implementation

Password driven Permutation.

Pseudo one time pad for uniformly distributed message.
Matrix Encoding with minimal embedding rate.
Core embedding operation like F4.

F5 Steganographic Algorithm
(8)
F5 Implementation Steps:

Start JPEG compression. Stop after the quantisation of

coefficients.
Initialise a cryptographically strong random number generator
with the key derived from the password.
Instantiate a permutation (two parameters: random generator
and number of coefficients).
Determine the parameter k from the capacity of the carrier
medium, and the length of the secret message.
Calculate the code word length n = 2^k 1.
Embed the secret message with (1, n, k) matrix encoding (Hash
based embedding).
Implement inverse permutation.
Continue JPEG compression (Huffman coding etc.)

F5 ADVANTAGES

F5 has high embedding capacity (>13%)

but can be pushed even further.
F5 has high embedding efficiency.
Resistance against both visual and
statistical attacks.
Uses a common image format and carrier
medium (JPEG).

F5 DEMO USING VSL

SOFTWARE

ANY QUESTIONS?

REFERENCES

F5A Steganographic Algorithm High Capacity Despite Better

Steganalysis Andreas Westfeld
Ron Crandall: Some Notes on Steganography. Posted on
Steganography
Mailing List, 1998. http://os.inf.tudresden.de/westfeld/crandall.pdf
Derek Upham: Jsteg, 1997, e. g.
http://www.tiac.net/users/korejwa/jsteg.htm
Andreas Westfeld: The Steganographic Algorithm F5, 1999.
http://wwwrn.inf.tu-dresden.de/westfeld/f5.html
www.Wikipedia.org