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Journal of Information Security and Applications

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On the use of the Stirling Transform in image steganography

S.K. Ghosal a, J.K. Mandal b,∗
a
Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Future Institute of Technology, Boral 700154, India
b
Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, Nadia 741235, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Stirling Transform (ST) is primarily used in combinatorial mathematics to convert a polynomial sequence
Available online xxx of n non-negative integers into another integer sequence. The source sequence can also be re-generated
from the target sequence based on the principle of inverse Stirling Transform (IST). This property is con-
Keywords:
Steganography sidered as an interesting study and has been exploited for steganography in digital images. In this paper,
Stirling transform the cover image is decomposed into the pair (n = 2) of neighboring pixel components in row major order.
Inverse stirling transform Stirling Transform (ST) converts the pair of pixel components into the pair of transformed components
Payload corresponding to red, green and blue channels. The obtained transformed components are always non-
One time password negative, which fabricates varying sizes of the secret image based on the specified payload in the range
MD5 of 0.5 to 3 bpB (bits per Byte). To address the security issue, the secret image is scrambled through a
simple scrambling process prior to embedding. The pixel adjustment process ensures the non-occurrence
of overflow/underflow during embedding. Inverse Stirling Transform (IST) re-computes the pair of pixel
components from the embedded pair of transformed components. This process is repeated till the secret
information is concealed and the stego-image is produced. At the recipient end, the reverse procedure
is applied to extract the concealed information from the stego-image based on the following parame-
ters: shared PIN, system time and the one time password (OTP). Message digest obtained through MD5
algorithm is used to verify the authenticity. Simulation results ensures that the proposed scheme out-
performs Chang et al.’s [17], Xia et al.’s [18], 3-LSB [2] and hybrid GEMD [7] schemes in terms of image
quality with respect to increasing payloads.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Steganography is a technique of fabricating useful digital in-
formation into the cover media (images, audios and videos etc.)
in an imperceptible manner. The main motivation of steganogra-
phy is to hide a large amount of secret data (often referred to
as payload) with acceptable quality distortion in the stego-image.
The major applications of steganography include secret communi-
cation, copy-right protection, integrity verification and authentica-
tion. Since, the volume of payload is usually very high, any sort of
alteration made to the stego-image is easily detectable. As a conse-
quence, steganography is considered as an excellent authenticating
tool to restrain the problem of digital piracy. The authentication
process is operated either by incorporating a cryptographic ap-
proach such as Hashing (MD5, SHA-1), Digital Signatures etc. [1] or
by setting up a threshold value for embedding secret bits.
Steganographic techniques are available both in spatial and
transform domain. Several spatial domain techniques have been
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jkm.cse@gmail.com (J.K. Mandal).
proposed so far of which the simplest is the Least Significant Bit
(LSB) [2]. The technique is implemented by fabricating the secret
bits at the least significant bit position of each pixel component. To
embed k number of bits in each pixel component, the LSB scheme
is renamed as k-LSB. It offers high fidelity but suffers from lack
of security and payload. In 2003, Wu et al. [3] proposed a novel
approach based on Pixel Value Differencing (PVD) where the dif-
ference of each pair of pixels is computed. The difference belongs
to a predefined range where larger difference ensures more num-
bers of bit embedding and smaller difference results less numbers
of bit embedding. In 2006, Zhang and Wang [4] proposed Exploit-
ing Modification Direction (EMD) based data hiding scheme where
secret data is fabricated in the range of 0 to 2n by modifying only
one of n pixels. That means to fabricate n bits only one pixel is
increased or decreased by 1 among n pixels. The method has good
image fidelity but the capacity is only 1.161 bits per Byte (bpB). In
2007, Lee et al. [5] proposed a technique which enhanced the pay-
load capacity from 1.161 bpB to 1.51 bpB by considering two neigh-
bouring pixels at a time. In 2009, Chao et al. [6] proposed the di-
amond encoding scheme to fabricate secret information into each
pair of cover pixels based on the (2n2 + 2n + 1)-ary notational sys-

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2018.04.003
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Please cite this article as: S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal, On the use of the Stirling Transform in image steganography, Journal of Information
Security and Applications (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2018.04.003
JID: JISA
ARTICLE IN PRESS
2 S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal / Journal of Information Security and Applications 000 (2018) 1–11
tem. The diamond characteristics value can alleviate the degrada-
tion and elevate the payload drastically. In 2010, Kim et al. [7] pro-
posed the 2-EMD and the EMD-2 schemes which can alter the LSB
values of two pixels at most. The EMD-2 is superior over the orig-
inal EMD and 2-EMD with similar quality degradation under the
identical conditions. In the same year, Chen et al. [8] proposed the
flexible EMD-based technique which takes the overflow problem
into the consideration. To address the overflow issue, the danger
pixel components which may result in overflow problem are iden-
tified and are altered to safe area. In 2011, Kieu and Chang [9] ex-
ploited eight modification directions instead of four directions for
embedding secret digits into two neighbouring gray-level pixels
of the cover image. This scheme provides improved payload over
Zhang et al.’s EMD scheme [4] with acceptable visual impercep-
tibility. In 2013, Kuo and Wang [10] proposed a generalized ex-
ploiting modification direction method which is superior over all
EMD based methods in terms of payload capacity. In this scheme,
the embedding secret data based from (2n + 1) to 2n+1 and hidden
data capacity to (n + 1) binary bits embedded into n adjacent pix-
els. In 2014, Kuo et al. [11] proposed a hybrid GEMD data hiding
method which is improved in terms of data hiding capacity. The
scheme changed the variable code into fixed that eliminated ad-
ditional communication and the number of projection vectors has
been minimized.
In contrast to spatial domain schemes discussed so far, trans-
form domain techniques works by partitioning the cover images
into m × n blocks in a sliding window manner. Each block is con-
verted into transform domain followed by embedding of secret in-
formation. Inverse transform on the identical block yields the gen-
eration of the stego-image. It is apparent from the above litera-
ture that the exploiting modification direction (EMD) based spatial
domain techniques such as EMD, FEMD, GEMD and hybrid GEMD
[12] etc. are superior over the traditional bit-replacement policies
(including LSB, PVD etc.) in terms of payload and stego-image qual-
ity. In 2013–2014, Ghosal and Mandal [12,15] proposed two novel
embedding techniques based on Stirling Transform (ST) and Bino-
mial Transform (BT) to verify the authenticity of color images. The
limitation of both techniques is the inability of supporting variable
payload since it is applicable only for 2 bpB.
In this study, the advantages of exploiting modification direc-
tion (EMD) and Stirling Transform (ST) are taken into account to
propose a novel steganographic technique. Hence, the concept of
designing and implementing the proposed technique is considered
as the novel idea. The technique summarizes the following bene-
fits:
• Embedding of secret bits is done on varying proportion into
the pair of transformed components as the proposed scheme
offers payload in the range of 0.5 to 3 bpB. In contrast, three
well known EMD based schemes such as Zhang et al.’s [4], Lee
et al.’s [5] and Kim et al. [7] methods offered fixed payloads of
1.161, 1.51 and 2 bpB, respectively.
• There is a provision of embedding only one bit in each pair of
components unlike the hybrid GEMD [11] method. One bit of
insertion into each component ensured only 0.5 bpB of payload;
however, as far as the image quality is concerned, the stego-
image is least degraded.
• Overflow and underflow are considered as two serious prob-
lems in steganography. Since the secret information is con-
cealed into the transformed components in Stirling Transform
(ST) domain, there is a possibility of overflow/underflow. To ad-
dress the issue, a pixel adjustment process has been applied on
the pre-embedded pixel components to retain the values in the
range of 0 to 255 followed by embedding.
• The secret image is fabricated into the transformed compo-
nents for the purpose of information security. However, an ex-
Please cite this article as: S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal, On the use of the Stirling Transform in image steganography, Journal of Information
Security and Applications (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2018.04.003
[m5G;April 21, 2018;14:46]
tra level of security is incorporated into the proposed technique
by scrambling the secret image.
• Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) is usually applied over 8 × 8
blocks of the cover image. Transformed coefficients are usu-
ally fractional and hence, the computational complexity of
the embedding process is significantly affected. On the other
hand, Stirling Transform (ST) produces non-negative trans-
formed components as output. These components are positive
integer values that lead to the generation of non-fractional co-
efficients on embedding. In addition, the integer calculation im-
proves the performance of the embedding process in terms of
execution efficiency.
• The complex nature of Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) sup-
ports fabrication of secret information either in phase or in
the magnitude of the coefficients. A serious drawback of both
phase and magnitude properties of DFT is the reconstruction
of the real image subsequent to IDFT since the complex conju-
gate symmetries of the DFT coefficients must be preserved. In
contrast, the Stirling Transform (ST) generates real transformed
coefficients instead of complex coefficients.
• Most of the information embedding techniques is based on
gray-scale images whereas very few of them address color im-
ages. The color images offers high payload within acceptable
distortion by considering red, green and blue (RGB) compo-
nents instead of considering only the luminance component.
Hence, the secret information is fabricated separately into the
red, green and blue channels and the payload becomes three
times of that of the gray-scale image by keeping the quality
metrics almost intact.
Sections 2 and 3 of the paper deal with the formulation
of Stirling Transform and the novel scrambling process. Compu-
tational complexities and the proposed technique are discussed
in Sections 4 and 5. Results and discussions are elaborated in
Section 6. Conclusions and future scope are drawn in Section 7 and
the references are given in the end.
2. Formulation of Stirling Transform
In combinatorial mathematics, Stirling Transform (ST) deals
with the transformation of a polynomial sequence of n non-
negative integers into another sequence. In digital image process-
ing, this transform can be used to convert the pixel components
{ak } into the transformed components {bk } using the formula given
in Eq. (A.1).
 

n
n
bn = a (A.1)
k k
k=1
n
Where, k = 1, 2, 3,…. and { } is the Stirling number of the second
k
kind, also denoted S(n,k) (with a capital S). It can be expressed us-
ing Eq. (A.2).
 
1 
k
k
S (n, k ) = (−1 )i i (k − i )n (A.2)
k!
i=0
By the formulation of pair of pixel components (a1 , a2 ), the
transformed components (b1 , b2 ) are obtained as follows:
b1 = S ( 1, 1 ) × a1 [k = 1, and n = 1]
b2 = S ( 2, 1 ) × a1 + S ( 2, 2 ) × a2 [k = 1, 2, and n = 2]
On computing S(n, k), the values of S(1, 1), S(2, 1) and S(2, 2)
becomes one for all three cases. Hence, the formulated expression
of b1 and b2 becomes:
b1 = a1 b2 = a1 + a2
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S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal / Journal of Information Security and Applications 000 (2018) 1–11 3

Similarly, the Inverse Stirling Transform (IST) is used to convert M = 2 and N = 2) can be formulated as follows:
back the transformed components {bk } into pixel components {ak }
1 
1 1
as given in Eq. (A.3). F (u, v ) = f (x, y ) (A.8)
  4

n
n
x=0 y=0
an = b (A.3)
k k Where, u = 0 to 1 and v = 0 to 1.
k=1
Now, if the summation expression 1x=0 1y=0 f (x, y ) is not get-
n ting divisible by 4 for arbitrary values of u and v, then that fre-
where, [ ], also denoted as |s(n,k)| (with a lower-case s) is a signed
k quency component becomes fractional.
Stirling number of the first kind. It can be computed based on the In 2015, Gashkov [16] showed that the computational complex-
following recurrence relation. ity of nth-order binomial transformation in the additive basis B + is
computed as n(n−1)/2 i.e., (n2 ). Similarly, one can also note that
s(n, k ) = s(n − 1, k − 1) + (n − 1 )s(n − 1, k ) for n ≥ 1 (A.4)
the computational complexity of the nth row of the Stirling trian-
where, the initial conditions are s(0, 0) = 1 and s(n, 0) = s(0, n) = 0, gle of the second kind in the basis B+ is O(n2 ). This is also true for
for all, n ≥ 1. the triangle containing the moduli of Stirling numbers of the first
−1
By the formulation of pair of transformed components (b1 , b2 ), kind. By means of the identity snk = snk−1 − (n − 1 )snk −1 in the basis
the pixel components (a1 , a2 ) are obtained as follows: B+ ,∗ , one can also show that, the complexity of the nth-order Stir-
ling transformation of the first kind is O(n2 ). The same is also valid
a1 = s ( 1 , 1 ) × b1 [k = 1, and n = 1] for the monotone Stirling transformation of the first kind.
a2 = s ( 2 , 1 ) × b1 + s ( 2 , 2 ) × b2 [k = 1, 2, and n = 2] By evaluating the Eq. (A.1) with the help of Eq. (A.2) for the
On computing |s(n, k)|, the values of |s(1, 1)|, |s(2, 1)| and |s(2, 1 × 2 block of pixel components (ai ), one can formulate the Stril-
2)| becomes 1, −1 and 1, respectively. Hence, the formulated ex- ing Transform (ST) to obtain the transformed components (bi ) as
pression of a1 and a2 becomes: follows:

a1 = b1 a2 = −b1 + b2 b1 = a1 b2 = a1 + a2

In matrix form, the Stirling Transform (ST) and its inverse (IST) Compared to the computational complexity of two dimensional
are represented as given in Eqs. (A.5) and (A.6). Discrete Fourier Transformations (2D-DFT), the 1 × 2 block of the
Stirling Transformation (ST) yields no fractional transformed com-
  
yields 1 1 yields b1 = a1 ponents (bi ) as there is no pending division operation to be per-
b = aS → b1 b2 = a1 a2 → formed.
0 1 b2 = a1 + a2
(A.5) 4. Scrambling

   The scrambling of secret image (W) prior to embed it into the

−1 yields 1 0 yields a1 = b1 cover image is an interesting study as far as the security is con-
a = bS → a1 a2 = b1 b2 →
−1 1 a2 = b2 − b1 cerned. Arnold’s cat map [13] is widely acceptable scrambling pro-
cess that enhances the security by shuffling the pixel positions of
(A.6)
the secret image. In this study, a simple scrambling process is pro-
where, b and a are 1 × 2 sub-matrices corresponding to the pixel posed to improve the security of the secret image, which is invert-
and transformed components; S and S−1 are the 2 × 2 Stirling ible in nature.
Transform and its inverse sub-matrices. Let (p1 , p2 ) be the non-overlapping pair of pixels of the u × v
secret image and the parameter r is initialized as 0. The modified
3. Computational complexities pair of pixel components (p’1 , p’2 ) is obtained as follows:
p 1 = p1  r
(A.7)
Before analyzing the computational complexity of Stirling p 2 = p 1 + ( p1  p2 )
Transform (ST), we have investigated the complexity of two dimen-
sional Discrete Fourier Transformations (2D-DFT) as most of the To keep the pixel values in the valid range [0, 255], the second
existing steganography schemes were proposed based on it. The modified pixel (p’2 ) may be adjusted further as follows:
two dimensional Discrete Fourier Transformation (2D-DFT) for the 
p2 : i f p2 ≤ 255
image (I) of size M × N can be defined as given in Eq. (A.7). p2 = (A.8)
p2 − 256 : i f p2 > 255
1 
M−1 N−1
F (u, v ) = f (x, y )e− j2π (ux/M+vy/N ) (A.7) For successive cases, the parameter r is assigned as, r = p’2 . The
MN above set of steps is executed until and unless each pair of pixels
x=0 y=0
is scrambled.
Where, u = 0 to M−1 and v = 0 to N−1. Now, Let us consider the scrambled image W’, which is decom-
The variable u and v are the frequency variables, x, y are the posed into successive pairs of pixels (q1 , q2 ) at the recipient end.
spatial variables and f(x,y) is pixel intensity value in spatial do- The pixel value q2 may be adjusted as follows:
main. 
To compute the DFT, using the Eq. (A.7), one need to do an O(1) q2 : i f q2 ≥ q1
q2 = (A.9)
calculation for every input value and for every output value. Hence, q2 + 256 : i f q2 < q1
the complexity for 2D DFT is computed as O((M × N)2 ), because the
number of input pixels is M × N and the number of output pixels To re-compute the original pair of pixels (p1 , p2 ), the following
is also M × N. If the image is a square image i.e., M = N, then the operations are to be performed:
time complexity would be O((N)4 ). p1 = q1  r
(A.10)
Apart from the computation complexity, the two dimensional p2 = p1  ( q2 − q1 )
Discrete Fourier Transformation (2D-DFT) with size 2 × 2 (i.e.,

Please cite this article as: S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal, On the use of the Stirling Transform in image steganography, Journal of Information
Security and Applications (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2018.04.003
JID: JISA
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4 S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal / Journal of Information Security and Applications 000 (2018) 1–11
For the initial pair of pixels, r = 0; however, for successive cases,
the parameter r preserves the old copy of q2 pixel.
5. Proposed technique
This paper highlights a novel steganographic scheme in Stir-
ling Transform (ST) domain to authenticate color images. Two ma-
jor parameters which keep the security of fabricated secret infor-
mation are the shared PIN (Z) and the system time (X), respec-
tively. An OTP (One Time Password) is generated from the above
mentioned metrics at the sender end which in turn is transmitted
into the recipient mobile number. However, a copy of system time
(X) is preserved in a non-editable data store (D1) of a database
server in public domain. At the recipient end, the system time is
re-computed (denoted as Y) from the shared PIN (Z) and the re-
ceived OTP, respectively. The sender’s system time (X) is compared
with the recipient’s system time (Y) to ensure the extraction of se-
cret information (W). The parameters Z and OTP are kept as pri-
vate by both parties however, the system time (X) is public in na-
ture. The block diagram of the authenticating system is shown in
Fig. A.1.
(a) A message digest (MD) is computed from the secret data
(W) by applying MD5 algorithm.
(b) For successive pairs of pixel components of the secret data
(W), it is scrambled as discussed in Section 3.
(c) Entire scrambled data and the message digest (MD) are em-
bedded in a block-wise manner into the cover image (I)
which results the stego-image (I’) at the output.
(d) The OTP is generated from the shared PIN (Z) and the sys-
tem time (X) as OTP = X  Z. The system time (X) of succes-
sive authenticating session can be stored at the data store
(D1) of a database server.
(e) The stego-image is transmitted to the intended recipient
through the unreliable medium whereas the OTP is delivered
to the intended recipient in the form of SMS on mobile.
(f) The recipient accepts the OTP in his/her mobile number and
provides the shared PIN to re-compute the system time (Y)
as, Y = OTP  Z. For ith authentication session, the value of
X is fetched from the data store D1 and is compared against
Y to ensure the extraction process.
(g) Only identical values of X and Y allows the extraction of
the scrambled data (along with the message digest MD). The
scrambled data is unscrambled by applying reverse process.
(h) Another message digest (MD’) is recomputed at the recip-
ient end which in turn is compared against the recovered
message digest (MD). If both are same then authentication
is successful otherwise, the authentication is considered as
unsuccessful.
Three levels of security are achieved in proposed scheme. The
first level ensured scrambling of secret image through the simple
scrambling process. Second level revealed the OTP sharing process
between the authorized sender and receiver. However, the third
level of security is accomplished for the authenticating process
based on the message digest.
The embedding and extraction phases are elaborately described
in Sections 5.1 and 5.2 respectively.
5.1. Embedding
The carrier image is partitioned into non-overlapping
(red\green\blue) pair of pixel components in a sliding window
manner. A pre-embedded adjustment has been incorporated to
avoid overflow and underflow. Stirling Transform (ST) is applied
on each pair of pixel components (red/green/blue) to obtain trans-
Please cite this article as: S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal, On the use of the Stirling Transform in image steganography, Journal of Information
Security and Applications (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2018.04.003
[m5G;April 21, 2018;14:46]
formed components. A novel scrambling process has been used
to scramble the secret image (W) as discussed in Section 4. The
method is implemented by partitioning each pair of transformed
components into two parts VCA (Vector Co-ordinate Area) and
VMA (Vector Modification Area). A reference value (f) is computed
and the secret bits in varying proportion are embedded into the
VMA part of the optimal pair of transformed components (which
offers minimum deviation on embedding) for the payload range
0.5–3 bpB. Inverse Stirling Transform (IST) is applied on each
pair of embedded components to generate the pixel components
in spatial domain. The process is repeated until and unless the
entire secret information is fabricated and the stego-image (I’) is
produced.
Algorithm:
Input: Cover image (I), scrambled image (W’) and message digest (MD).
Output: Stego-image (I ).
Step 1. The cover image (I) is partitioned into non-overlapping
(Red\Green\Blue) pair of pixel components (pi , pi+1 ) in a sliding
window manner.
Step 2. A pre-embedded adjustment is applied on each pixel component p, if
necessary, to avoid overflow and underflow on embedding an average
 payload of B bits per Byte of scrambled data as given in Eq. (A.11).
( 28 − 2B ) : p ≥ ( 28 − 2B )
p= (A.11 )
2B : p ≤ 2B
Step 3. Stirling Transform (ST) is applied on each pair of pixel components
(pi , pi+1 ) to generate transformed components (ti , ti+1 ) by Eq. (A.5).
Step 4. N bits of secret bit-stream (scrambled) are fabricated on each pair of
transformed components (ti , ti+1 ) where, 1 ≤ N ≤ 6. The embedding
rules are discussed below:
a) Secret data (d) is a decimal number obtained by retrieving N number of
bits from the scrambled secret bit-stream (W) as given in Eq. (A.12).
d = (b0 b1 b2 b3 . . . bN−1 )2 (A.12 )
b) Repeat step 4(b) to 4(h) to select the pair of transformed components
which offers minimal changes followed by embedding from a set of
(2┌N/2┐ + 1)2 pairs of transformed components by taking all the
possible combinations in the range of (tk −2┌N/2┐−1 ) to (tk +2┌N/2┐−1 ).
c) Assign PVMA = N for VMA and the number of pixel components, n = 2.
d) Allocate the VCA evenly based on n, and generate two vectors as (g1 ,
g2 ).
e) Allocate N bits of VMA into two halves i.e., N1 and N2 where,
N1 = └ N/2┘ , N2 = N−N1 .
f) Calculate the reference value f using Eq. (A.13) with respect to (g1 , g2 )
to embed N secret bits where, n = 2.
n
f ( g1 , g2 ) = gi (2i − 1 )mod 2n (A.13 )
i=0
g) Compute the summation SV = (d + f) % 2 N.
h) Obtain the pair of embedded components (t’i , t’i+1 ) by replacing the
VMA with SV as.

t i = (ti & (29 − 2N1 ) ) + SVN 
2 2
t  i+1 = (ti+1 & (29 − 2N2 ) ) + (SV %2 2  )
N
Step 5. The Inverse Stirling Transform (IST) is applied on each pair of
embedded components (t’i , t’i+1 ) by Eq. (A.6).
Step 6. Repeat step 1 to step 5 to complete the process of embedding.
Successive embedding operation produces the stego-image (I ).
Step 7. Stop.
5.2. Extraction
At the recipient end, the stego-image (I ) is received over in-
ternet, and the OTP is received in his/her private mobile number.
Re-computed system time (Y), as obtained from the shared PIN (Z)
and the OTP, is compared against the server’s system time (X). If
X and Y are identical, the stego-image (I ) is processed for carry-
ing out the extraction process. The stego-image (I ) is partitioned
into non-overlapping pair of pixel components. Each pair of pixel
components are converted into transform domain based on Stir-
ling Transform (ST). The method is implemented by partitioning
each pair of transformed components into two parts VCA (Vec-
tor Co-ordinate Area) and VMA (Vector Modification Area). As per
the specified payload, varying number of secret bits correspond-
JID: JISA
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S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal / Journal of Information Security and Applications 000 (2018) 1–11 5

SENDER RECIEVER
Secret Data (W) OTP Calculate
System Time

Shared PIN (Z)

Compute Message
Digest Y = OTP ⊕ Z
D1 X
Server
Message Digest (MD)
n X=Y?
Wrong OTP !!!

Scrambling y

Stego-image (I') Extraction

Scrambled Data (W’)

Message Digest (MD) Scrambled Data (W')

Embedding
Cover Image (I)

Unscrambling

Stego-image (I’)

Unscrambled Data (W)

Shared PIN (Z)

One Time Password Re-compute

Generation Message Digest

Message Digest (MD')

System Time (X) OTP = X ⊕ Z

Sends OTP to MD = MD' ? n

Recipient’s Mobile No
y
D1 X
Server Stop Authenticated Unauthenticated

Fig. A.1. Block diagram of proposed steganographic technique based authenticating system at sender and recipient ends.

ing to the message digest (MD) and the scrambled image (W’) cussed in Section 4. Hence, the secret image (W) is reconstructed
are extracted. Successive extraction operation ensured the retrieval at the recipient end. Message digest (MD’) is re-computed and the
of message digest (MD) and the secret image in scrambled form same is compared against the retrieved message digest (MD) to
which in turn is unscrambled based on the reverse process as dis- verify the authenticity of the color image.

Please cite this article as: S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal, On the use of the Stirling Transform in image steganography, Journal of Information
Security and Applications (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2018.04.003
JID: JISA
ARTICLE IN PRESS [m5G;April 21, 2018;14:46]

6 S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal / Journal of Information Security and Applications 000 (2018) 1–11

Algorithm:
Input: Stego-image (I ) and size of secret data (X).
Output: Scrambled image (W’) and the message digest (MD).
Step 1. The stego-image (I ) is partitioned into non-overlapping (Red\Green\Blue) pair of pixel components (pi , pi+1 ) in a sliding window manner.
Step 2. Stirling Transform (ST) is applied on each pair of pixel components (pi , pi+1 ) to generate transformed components (ti , ti+1 ).
Step 3. N bits of the fabricated secret bit-stream (scrambled) are extracted from each pair of transformed components (ti , ti+1 ) where, each transformed component
is considered as a 9-bit representation and 1 ≤ N ≤ 6. The extraction rules are discussed below:
a) Assign PVMA = N for VMA and the number of pixel components, n = 2.
b) Allocate the VCA evenly according to n, and generate 2 vectors denoted as (g1 , g2 ).
c) N1 and N2 bits are extracted from each pair of transformed components (ti , ti+1 ) i.e., from VMA where, N1 = └ N / 2┘ , N2 = N−N1 . Intermediate data (d) is a
decimal number obtained by concatenating (‘+’) two extracted bit sequences (b’0 b’1 …b’N1−1 )2 and (b”0 b”1 …b”N2−1 )2 from ti and ti+1 as given in Eq. (A.14).
d = b 0 b 1 ...bN1−1 + b 0 b 1 ...b N2−1 (A.14 )
2 2
d) Calculate the reference value f by using Eq. (A.15) with respect to vectors (g1 , g2 ) to extract N secret bits where n = 2.
n
f ( g1 , g2 ) = gi (2i − 1 )mod 2n (A.15 )
i=0
e) Secret data (d’) of the scrambled bit-stream consisting of N bits are recovered from each pair of transformed components (ti , ti+1 ) where, d’ = (2N – f+d) % 2N.
Step 4. The inverse Stirling Transform (IST) is applied on each pair of embedded components (t’i , t’i+1 ) to generate the non-negative pixel components (p’i , p’i+1 ).
Step 5. Repeat step 1 to step 5 as per the size of the secret image (X) to complete the extraction of scrambled image (W’) which in turn is unscrambled.
Step 6. Stop.
Example 4.1.1: Two pixels (174, 105) have been considered for fabricating secret data 14. Apply proposed steganographic technique to re-compute the embedded pair
of pixel components.
Solution:
Embedding:- The following steps are followed to embed the secret data:
Step 1: Pixel pair (p0 , p1 ) = (174, 105), secret data (d) = 14 = (1110)2 , (N) = 4 (no. of bits to be embedded). Since, no overflow and underflow conditions are arises,
no pre-embedded adjustment is needed in this example.
Step 2: Convert the pair of pixel components into transformed domain using Stirling Transform (ST) as given below:
t0 = p0 = 174; t1 = p0 + p1 = 174 + 105 = 279.
Step 3: 25 pairs of transformed components are obtained from (t0 , t1 ), as (172, 277), (172, 278), (172, 279), (172, 280), (172, 281), (173, 277), (173, 278), (173, 279),
(173, 280), (173, 281), (174, 277), (174, 278), (174, 279), (174, 280), (174, 281), (175, 277), (175, 278), (175, 279), (175, 280), (175, 281), (176, 277), (176, 278),
(176, 279), (176, 280) and (176, 281). It can be examined by repeating steps 4(a) to 4(h) of algorithm for embedding that the optimal pair for embedding is
(t0 , t1 ) = (176, 280).
Step 4: PVMA = 4, n = 2, (t0 , t1 ) = (176, 280) = (010110 0 0 0, 10 0 0110 0 0)2 .
Step 5: Generate two vectors (g1 , g2 ) = (010110 0, 10 0 0110)2 = (44, 70).
Step 6: Compute, f (g1 , g2 ) = (44 × 1 + 70 × 3) % 22 = 254% 4 = 2 = (0010)2 .
Step 7: Calculate the summation SV = (14 + 2) % 24 = 0 = (0 0 0 0)2 .
Step 8: Since, VMA = 00 || 00, N1 = └ 4 / 2 ┘ = 2, N2 = 4−2 = 2. Replace it by SV as given below:
t  i = (176&(29 − 22 ) ) + 0/24/2 = (176&(512 − 4 ) + 0/4 = (176&508 ) + 0 = 176
t  i+1 = (280&(29 − 22 ) ) + 0%24/2 = (280&(512 − 4 ) ) + 0% 4 = (280&508 ) + 0 = 280
Step 9: Embedded pair of components, (t’0 , t’1 ) = (176, 280) = (010110 0 0 0, 10 0 0110 0 0)2 .
Step 10: Inverse Stirling Transform (IST) is applied to re-generate the pair of pixel components, (p’0 , p’1 ) = (176, (280−176)) = (176, 104).
Extraction:- The following steps are followed to recover the secret data:
Step 1: Pair of pixel components (p0 , p1 ) = (176, 104), no. of bits to be extracted (N) = 4.
Step 2: Convert the pair of pixel components into transformed domain by applying Stirling Transform (ST) as given below:
t0 = p0 = 176; t1 = p0 + p1 = 176 + 104 = 280.
Step 3: PVMA = 4, n = 2, (t0 , t1 ) = (176, 280) = (010110 0 0 0, 10 0 0110 0 0)2 .
Step 4: Generate 2 vectors (g1 , g2 ) = (010110 0, 10 0 0110)2 = (44, 70).
Step 5: Compute, f (g1 , g2 ) = (44 × 1 + 70 × 3) % 22 = 254% 4 = 2 = (0010)2 .
Step 6: VMA = (0 0)2 || (0 0)2 . Intermediate data (d) = (00)2 + (00)2 = (0000)2 = 0.
Step 7: The recovered secret data, d’ = (24 – 2 + 0) % 24 = (16 – 2 + 0) % 16 = 14 = (1110)2 .
Step 8: Inverse Stirling Transform (IST) is applied on each pair of transformed components to re-compute the pair of pixel components, (p’0 , p’1 ) = (172,
(276–172)) = (172, 104).

6. Results and discussions
The results and discussions for proposed technique have been
elaborated in this section. The variation of quality level of the
stego-image with respect to increasing payload is the fundamental
study of the performance evaluation for proposed technique. The
quality level is analyzed by means of Mean Squared Error (MSE),
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Image Fidelity (IF), Univer-
sal Image Quality index (UIQ), Structural Similarity index (SSIM),
Standard Deviation (SD) and Standard Deviation Error (SDE), re-
spectively. Ten benchmark (BMP) color images [14] of dimension
512 × 512 labeled as: (i) Lena, (ii) Baboon, (iii) Pepper, (iv) Airplane,
(v) Sailboat, (vi) Earth, (vii) San Diego, (viii) Splash, (ix) Oakland
and (x) Foster City are taken to embed varying sizes of secret im-
age (i.e. the gold-coin) as shown in Fig. A.2.
In this proposed scheme, the secret image has been scrambled
based on a novel scrambling process as discussed in Section 4. The
different states of modifications of carrier/cover images viz. “Lena”,
“Baboon” and “Airplane” (before and after embedding the scram-
bled image) are shown in Fig. A.3.
Performance of the proposed technique has been evaluated
based on the standard metrics such as Peak Signal to Noise Ratio
(PSNR), Mean Squared Error (MSE), Image Fidelity (IF), Structural
Similarity index (SSIM) and Universal Image Quality index (UIQ)
with respect to 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3 bits per Byte (bpB) of
payloads. It can also be observed that the proposed method gives a
uniform PSNR, MSE, IF, SSIM and UIQ and as the payload increases
the quality drops subsequently. It is seen from Table A.1 that the
minimum PSNR obtained is 37.45 dB at 3 bpB for the “Pepper” im-
age whereas the maximum PSNR is 52.41 dB at 0.5 bpB for the
“Foster City” image. The MSE is minimum at payload of 0.5 bpB for
“Foster City” and maximum at 3bpB for “Pepper” which is 0.3730
and 11.68 respectively. The other quality metrics such as IF, SSIM
and UIQ analysis has also been made to measures the rate of qual-
ity degradation, pixel’s independence and structural distortion in
the stego-image as compared to the original image. Minimum val-
ues of IF, SSIM and UIQ are 0.9990 (Pepper and Splash), 0.9780
(Splash) and 0.6906 (Splash) respectively at 3 bpB however, the
maximum values of IF, SSIM and UIQ at 0.5 bpB are 0.9999 (for
all ten images), 0.9999 (Baboon) and 0.9983 (Baboon) respectively.

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Fig. A.2. Different cover images of dimension 512 × 512 along with the secret image.

Fig. A.3. Different states of modification for Cover, Stego and scrambled images in the proposed technique.

Please cite this article as: S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal, On the use of the Stirling Transform in image steganography, Journal of Information
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Table A.1
Simulation results for the carrier/cover images of dimension 512 × 512 with respect to payload vari-
ation of 0.5–3 bpB.

Images Payloads (bpB) PSNR (dB) MSE IF SSIM UIQ

Lena 0.5 52.3854 0.3754 0.9999 0.9998 0.9911

1.0 48.6962 0.8779 0.9999 0.9996 0.9800
1.5 46.4729 1.4648 0.9999 0.9990 0.9676
2.0 43.9828 2.5989 0.9998 0.9987 0.9475
2.5 41.0293 5.1304 0.9997 0.9956 0.9096
3.0 38.5650 9.0485 0.9994 0.9949 0.8613
Baboon 0.5 52.3904 0.3750 0.9999 0.9999 0.9983
1.0 48.7029 0.8766 0.9999 0.9999 0.9962
1.5 46.4944 1.4576 0.9999 0.9996 0.9937
2.0 43.9521 2.6174 0.9999 0.9995 0.9889
2.5 41.0459 5.1108 0.9997 0.9984 0.9799
3.0 38.5620 9.0547 0.9995 0.9982 0.9675
Pepper 0.5 51.9951 0.4107 0.9999 0.9985 0.9851
1.0 48.5137 0.9156 0.9999 0.9981 0.9771
1.5 45.1303 1.9955 0.9998 0.9910 0.9620
2.0 42.9095 3.3276 0.9997 0.9895 0.9458
2.5 39.2033 7.8117 0.9993 0.9790 0.9115
3.0 37.4555 11.6824 0.9990 0.9784 0.8715
Airplane 0.5 52.3427 0.3792 0.9999 0.9998 0.9722
1.0 48.6965 0.8779 0.9999 0.9995 0.9444
1.5 46.4708 1.4655 0.9999 0.9988 0.9181
2.0 43.9514 2.6178 0.9999 0.9985 0.8762
2.5 41.1240 5.0197 0.9999 0.9950 0.8207
3.0 38.6191 8.9365 0.9997 0.9944 0.7487
Sailboat 0.5 52.3292 0.3803 0.9999 0.9998 0.9923
1.0 48.7079 0.8756 0.9999 0.9997 0.9833
1.5 46.3994 1.4898 0.9999 0.9992 0.9748
2.0 43.8894 2.6555 0.9999 0.9990 0.9578
2.5 40.9377 5.2398 0.9997 0.9965 0.9330
3.0 38.4999 9.1853 0.9995 0.9960 0.8976
Earth 0.5 52.3946 0.3746 0.9999 0.9998 0.9959
1.0 48.6964 0.8779 0.9999 0.9997 0.9907
1.5 46.5259 1.4471 0.9999 0.9992 0.9851
2.0 43.9668 2.6085 0.9998 0.9990 0.9738
2.5 41.1148 5.0304 0.9997 0.9967 0.9527
3.0 38.5808 9.0156 0.9995 0.9962 0.9207
San Diego 0.5 52.4064 0.3736 0.9999 0.9999 0.9989
1.0 48.6994 0.8773 0.9999 0.9999 0.9974
1.5 46.4905 1.4589 0.9999 0.9997 0.9957
2.0 43.9709 2.6061 0.9999 0.9996 0.9928
2.5 41.0860 5.0638 0.9998 0.9988 0.9868
3.0 38.5859 9.0052 0.9997 0.9986 0.9782
Splash 0.5 52.1497 0.3964 0.9999 0.9979 0.9539
1.0 48.5684 0.9041 0.9999 0.9974 0.9222
1.5 45.5149 1.8264 0.9998 0.9896 0.8907
2.0 43.2052 3.1085 0.9997 0.9880 0.8423
2.5 39.6977 6.9712 0.9993 0.9790 0.7708
3.0 37.7319 10.9620 0.9990 0.9780 0.6906
Oakland 0.5 52.3019 0.3827 0.9999 0.9998 0.9977
1.0 48.6541 0.8865 0.9999 0.9997 0.9952
1.5 46.0359 1.6199 0.9999 0.9991 0.9918
2.0 43.5880 2.8463 0.9998 0.9989 0.9861
2.5 40.4133 5.9122 0.9997 0.9965 0.9745
3.0 38.2077 9.8245 0.9995 0.9962 0.9575
Foster City 0.5 52.4138 0.3730 0.9999 0.9997 0.9884
1.0 48.7416 0.8688 0.9999 0.9994 0.9744
1.5 46.3083 1.5214 0.9999 0.9985 0.9544
2.0 44.0106 2.5824 0.9999 0.9982 0.9314
2.5 41.1739 4.9624 0.9998 0.9942 0.8843
3.0 38.6306 8.9129 0.9997 0.9935 0.8192

Usual values of IF, SSIM and UIQ lie between 0 and 1. The closer
the IF, SSIM and UIQ to one is considered as the more similar is
the test to the original image. Simulation results of Table A.1 en-
sured that the deviation of stego-image quality is very less and an
observer cannot easily detect any difference between the original
and stego images.
In the comparative analysis part, proposed method has been
compared against the existing steganography schemes such as
Chang et al.’s [17], Xia et al.’s [18], STCIA [12], 3-LSB [2] and hybrid
GEMD [7] with respect to different payloads. Compared to Chang
et al.’s scheme [17], the PSNR values are computed at 1 bpB of
payload for both schemes and at the same time, proposed method
offers higher PSNR for the following test images: ‘Lena’, ‘Baboon’,
‘Pepper’, ‘F16’ and ‘Boat’. Fig. A.4 illustrates that the PSNR enhance-
ment is around 1.5 dB for all of these test images except the ‘Pep-
per’. Similarly, the proposed method has been compared against
the Xia et al.’s scheme [18] and STCIA scheme [12] in terms of
PSNR at 2 bpB of payload. Fig. A.5 shows that the PSNR enhance-
ments for all five test images are around 2.5 dB and 0.5 dB which
are quite good from the perspective of image quality. Moreover, the

Please cite this article as: S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal, On the use of the Stirling Transform in image steganography, Journal of Information
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46.5
46.3
46.1
45.9

PSNR (dB)
45.7
45.5
45.3
45.1
44.9
44.7
44.5

Chang et al.'s scheme [17] Proposed method

Fig. A.4. Comparisons of PSNR (dB) improvement between Chang et al.’s scheme [17] and proposed scheme at 1.5 bpB of payload.

44.5
44
43.5
43
PSNR (dB)

42.5
42
41.5
41
40.5
40
39.5

Xia et al.'s scheme [18] STCIA [12] Proposed method

Fig. A.5. Comparisons of PSNR (dB) improvement between Chang et al.’s scheme [18] and proposed scheme at 2 bpB of payload.

38.6

38.4

38.2
PSNR (dB)

38

37.8

37.6

37.4

3-LSB method [2] Hybrid GEMD [7] Proposed method

Fig. A.6. Comparisons of PSNR (dB) improvement between 3-LSB method [2], hybrid GEMD method [7] and proposed scheme at 3 bpB of payload.

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56

54

52

Standard Deviation 50
Lena
48 Baboon
46 Airplane

44

42
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Payload (bpB)
Fig. A.7. Comparative analysis of standard deviation between original and stego images with respect to varying payloads.

0.1
0.09
Standard Deviaon Error

0.08
0.07
0.06
0.05 Baboon
0.04 Lena
0.03 Airplane
0.02
0.01
0
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Payloads (bpB)
Fig. A.8. Comparative analysis of standard deviation error between original and stego images with respect to varying payloads.

performance analysis has also been made among 3-LSB scheme [2],
hybrid GEMD [7] and the proposed method at 3 bpB of payloads.
It is clearly observed from Fig. A.6 that the PSNR improvement for
proposed method over the LSB [2] and hybrid GEMD [7] schemes
is around 1 dB for all three test images.
In Fig. A.7 it is seen that the Standard Deviation (SD) analysis
has been made for “Lena”, “Baboon” and “Airplane”. The Standard
Deviation is computed by taking the average of Standard Deviation
values corresponding to red, green and blue channels. Standard De-
viation (SD) of the stego-images at varying payload is differing very
slightly and one cannot easily detect the differences between U × V
source and stego-images and they are seemingly identical.
The dispersion in Standard Deviation (SD) due to embedding
can be analyzed by Standard Deviation Error (SDE) where the er-
ror has been computed as the absolute difference of Standard De-
viation (SD) between the original and the stego images. It can be
noticed from Fig. A.8 that the stego-images are deviating from the
original image with respect to increasing payload. It can also be
seen that the error is around 0.02 up to 2 bpB and then it is
slightly increasing. The maximum value of standard deviation error
(SDE) is around 0.09 which is negligible as far as the comparison
between original and stego images is concerned.
7. Conclusions and future scopes
Proposed technique is an authenticating process operated in
transform domain that offers three levels of security by providing
two important parameters: system time (X) and shared PIN (Z). It
scrambles the secret image prior to embedding. The quality level is
analyzed for the payload range 0.5 to 3 bpB. The PSNR of all stego-
images is above 30 dB. Hence, the technique ensured improved se-
curity with respect to the variable payload and minimum degrada-
tion in quality. Simulation results also confirms that the proposed
technique outperforms Chang et al.’s [17], Xia et al.’s [18], STCIA
[12], 3-LSB [2] and hybrid GEMD [7] methods in terms of image
quality. The inclusion of Stirling Transform (ST) ensures integer cal-
culation; and the color images as the cover provides three times of
payload as compared to gray-scale image.
In future work, the payload and quality may be improvised by
embedding more information into the edge areas based on the
classical edge detectors. One dimensional chaotic sequence such as

Please cite this article as: S.K. Ghosal, J.K. Mandal, On the use of the Stirling Transform in image steganography, Journal of Information
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Tent Map and Logistic Map may also be investigated to increase
the security.
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