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AUDIO STEGANOGRAPHY

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 Audio Steganography

AUDIO STEGANOGRAPHY

S K SOMAIYA COLLEGE, MUMBAI

In partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of

S.Y. M.Sc. (Computer Science)

Submitted By,

Mr. Kunal Milind Kamble

(Roll No- 31031520009)

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 Audio Steganography

ABSTRACT

TITLE – AUDIO STEGANOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one,
apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of
security through obscurity. Steganography works by replacing bits of useless or unused data in
regular computer files (such as graphics, sound, text, HTML, or even floppy disks ) with bits of
different, invisible information. This hidden information can be plain text, cipher text, or even
images.

In a computer-based audio Steganography system, secret messages are embedded in digital

sound. The secret message is embedded by slightly altering the binary sequence of a sound file.
Existing audio Steganography software can embed messages in WAV, AU, and even MP3 sound
files. Embedding secret messages in digital sound is usually a more difficult process than
embedding messages in other media, such as digital images. These methods range from rather
simple algorithms that insert information in the form of signal noise to more powerful methods
that exploit sophisticated signal processing techniques to hide information.

Thus the main purpose of this seminar is to explain Audio Steganography and algorithms
commonly employed for Audio Steganography and its applications.

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 Audio Steganography

INDEX

1.0 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………………..3
2.0 AUDIO STEGANOGRAPHY METHODS…………………………………………………………..4
2.1 LSB ENCODING…………………………………………………………………………………..4
2.2 PHASE CODING………………………………………………………………………………….6
2.3 ECHO HIDING…………………………………………………………………………………….7
2.4 SPREAD SPECTRUM………………………………………………………………………….10
3.0 EVALUATION OF AUDIO STEGANOGRAPHY……………………………………………….12
3.1 ADVANTAGES………………………………………………………………………………….12
3.2 DISADVANTAGES……………………………………………………………………………..13
4.0 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………………….14
References………………………………………………………………………………………………..15

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 Audio Steganography

1.0 Introduction

People use cryptography to send secret messages to one another without a third party
overseeing the message. Steganography is a type of cryptography in which the secret message
is hidden in a digital picture. While cryptography is preoccupied with the protection of the
contents of a message or information, Steganography concentrates on concealing the very
existence of such messages from detection. Steganography there are two important parts, part
one is the compression or embedding and part two is decompression or extracting of the data.
The term Steganography is adapted from the Greek word steganographia, meaning “covered
writing” and is taken in its modern form to mean the hiding of information inside other
information. Naturally these techniques date back throughout history, the main applications
being in couriering information during times of war.
With the invention of digital audio and images files this has taken on a whole new meaning;
creating new methods for performing “reversible data hiding” as it is often dubbed. This has
many possible applications including the copyright watermarking of audio, video and still image
data. In digital media, Steganography is mainly oriented around the undetectable transmission
of one form of information within another. In order for a data hiding technique to be successful
it must adhere to two rules:
 The embedded data must be undetectable within its carrier medium (the audio or image
file used). The carrier should display no properties that flag it as suspicious, whether it is
to the human visual/auditory system or in increased file size for the carrier file.
 The embedded data must maintain its integrity within the carrier and should be easily
removable, under the right circumstances, by the receiving party.

The existing system of Audio Steganography poses more restrictions on the choosing of audio
files. User can select only wav files to encode. Further embedding information into sound files is
generally considered more difficult than images; according to the human ear is extremely
sensitive to perturbations in sound and can in fact detect such turbulence as low as one part in

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 Audio Steganography

10 million. The four methods discussed further provide users with a large amount of choice and
makes the technology more accessible to everyone.

2.0 Methods of Audio Steganography

This section presents some common methods used in audio Steganography

2.1 LSB CODING

Least significant bit (LSB) coding is the simplest way to embed information in a digital audio file.
By substituting the least significant bit of each sampling point with a binary message, LSB
coding allows for a large amount of data to be encoded. The following diagram illustrates how
the message 'HEY' is encoded in a 16-bit CD quality sample using the LSB method:

Standard LSB ALGORITHM:

It performs bit level manipulation to encode the message. The following steps are
a. Receives the audio file in the form of bytes and converted in to bit pattern.
b. Each character in the message is converted in bit pattern.
c. Replaces the LSB bit from audio with LSB bit from character in the message.

Algorithm: Improved/ Modified LSB embedding

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 Audio Steganography

if host sample a>0

if bit 0 is to be embedded
if ai−1=0 then ai−1ai−2...a0=11...1
if ai−1=1 then ai−1ai−2...a0=00...0 and
if ai+1=0 then ai+1=1
else if ai+2=0 then ai+2=1
...
else if a15=0 then a15=1
else if bit 1 is to be embedded
if ai−1=1 then ai−1ai−2...a0=00...0
if ai−1=0 then ai−1ai−2...a0=11...1 and
if ai+1=1 then ai+1=0
else if ai+2=1 then ai+2=0
...
else if a15=1 then a15=0
if host sample a<0
if bit 0 is to be embedded
if ai−1=0 then ai−1ai−2...a0=11...1
if ai−1=1 then ai−1ai−2...a0=00...0 and
if ai+1=1 then ai+1=0
else if ai+2=1 then ai+2=0
...
else if a15=1 then a15=0
else if bit 1 is to be embedded

if ai−1=1 then ai−1ai−2...a0=00...0

if ai−1=0 then ai−1ai−2...a0=11...1 and
if ai+1=1 then ai+1=0
else if ai+2=1 then ai+2=0
...

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 Audio Steganography

else if a15=1 then a15=0

In LSB coding, the ideal data transmission rate is 1 kbps per 1 kHz. In some implementations of
LSB coding, however, the two least significant bits of a sample are replaced with two message
bits. This increases the amount of data that can be encoded but also increases the amount of
resulting noise in the audio file as well. Thus, one should consider the signal content before
deciding on the LSB operation to use. For example, a sound file that was recorded in a bustling
subway station would mask low-bit encoding noise. On the other hand, the same noise would
be audible in a sound file containing a piano solo.

The main advantage of the LSB coding method is low computational complexity of the
algorithm while its major disadvantage: As the number of used LSBs during LSB coding increases
or, equivalently, depth of the modified LSB layer becomes larger, probability of making the
embedded message statistically detectable increases and perceptual transparency of stego
objects is decreased. Low Bit Encoding is therefore an undesirable method, mainly due to its
failure to meet the Steganography requirement of being undetectable.

2.2 PHASE CODING

Phase coding addresses the disadvantages of the noise-inducing methods of audio
Steganography. Phase coding relies on the fact that the phase components of sound are not as
perceptible to the human ear as noise is. Rather than introducing perturbations, the technique
encodes the message bits as phase shifts in the phase spectrum of a digital signal, achieving an
inaudible encoding in terms of signal-to-perceived noise ratio.

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 Audio Steganography

The phase coding method breaks down the sound file into a series of N segments. A Discrete
Fourier Transform (DFT) is applied to each segment to create a matrix of the phase and
magnitude. The phase difference between each segment is calculated, the first segment (s0)
has an artificial absolute phase of p0 created, and all other segments have newly created phase
frames. The new phase and original magnitude are combined to get the new segment, Sn.
These new segments are then concatenated to create the encoded output and the frequency
remains preserved. In order to decode the hidden information the receiver must know the
length of the segments and the data interval used. The first segment is detected as a 0 or a 1
and this indicates where the message starts.
This method has many advantages over Low Bit Encoding, the most important being that it is
undetectable to the human ear. Like all of the techniques described so far though, its weakness
is still in its lack of robustness to changes in the audio data. Any single sound operation or
change to the data would distort the information and prevent its retrieval.

2.3 ECHO HIDING

Echo hiding embeds its data by creating an echo to the source audio. Three parameters of this
Artificial echo are used to hide the embedded data, the delay, the decay rate and the initial
amplitude. As the delay between the original source audio and the echo decrease it becomes
harder for the human ear to distinguish between the two signals until eventually a created
carrier sound’s echo is just heard as extra resonance.

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 Audio Steganography

In addition, offset is varied to represent the binary message to be encoded. One offset value
represents a binary one, and a second offset value represents a binary zero. If only one echo
was produced from the original signal, only one bit of information could be encoded. Therefore,
the original signal is broken down into blocks before the encoding process begins. Once the
encoding process is completed, the blocks are concatenated back together to create the final
signal.

Then the following algorithm (illustrated through pseudo code) is used to encode each block.

init(Block blocks[]) {
for (int i=0; i < blocks.length; i++) {
if (blocks[i].echoValue() == 0)
blocks[i] = offset0(blocks[i]);
else
blocks[i] = offset1(blocks[i]);
}
}

Block offset0(Block block) {

return (block + (block - OFFSET_0));

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 Audio Steganography

Block offset1(Block block) {

return (block + (block - OFFSET_1));
}

The blocks are recombined to produce the final signal.

The "one" echo signal is then multiplied by the "one" mixer signal and the "zero" echo signal is
multiplied by the "zero" mixer signal. Then the two results are added together to get the final
signal. The final signal is less abrupt than the one obtained using the first echo hiding
implementation. This is because the two mixer echoes are complements of each other and that
ramp transitions are used within each signal. These two characteristics of the mixer signals
produce smoother transitions between echoes.

The following diagram summarizes the second implementation of the echo hiding process.

To extract the secret message from the stego-signal, the receiver must be able to break up the
signal into the same block sequence used during the encoding process. Then the
autocorrelation function of the signal's spectrum (the spectrum is the Forward Fourier
Transform of the signal's frequency spectrum) can be used to decode the message because it
reveals a spike at each echo time offset, allowing the message to be reconstructed.

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 Audio Steganography

Much like phase encoding this has considerably better results than Low Bit Encoding and makes
good use of research done so far in psychoacoustics. As with all sound file encoding, we find
that working in audio formats such as WAV is very costly, more so than with bitmap images in
terms of the “file size to storage capacity” ratio. The transmission of audio files via e-mail or
over the web is much less prolific than image files and so is much more suspicious in
comparison. It allows for a high data transmission rate and provides superior robustness when
compared to the noise inducing methods.
2.4 SPREAD SPECTRUM
Spread spectrum systems encode data as a binary sequence which sounds like noise but which
can be recognised by a receiver with the correct key. The technique has been used by the
military since the 1940s because the signals are hard to jam or intercept as they are lost in the
background noise. Spread spectrum techniques can be used for watermarking by matching the
narrow bandwidth of the embedded data to the large bandwidth of the medium.

Two versions of SS can be used in audio Steganography: the direct-sequence and frequency-
hopping schemes. In direct-sequence SS, the secret message is spread out by a constant called
the chip rate and then modulated with a pseudorandom signal. It is then interleaved with the
cover-signal. In frequency-hopping SS, the audio file's frequency spectrum is altered so that it
hops rapidly between frequencies.

Spread Spectrum Steganography has significant potential in secure communications –

commercial and military. Audio Steganography in conjunction with Spread Spectrum may
provide added layers of security.

Spread spectrum encoding techniques are the most secure means by which to send hidden
messages in audio, but it can introduce random noise to the audio thus creating the chance of
data loss. They have the potential to perform better in some areas than LSB coding, parity
coding, and phase coding techniques in that it offers a moderate data transmission rate while
also maintaining a high level of robustness against removal techniques

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 Audio Steganography

The following procedural diagram illustrates the design:

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 Audio Steganography

3.0 Evaluation of Audio Steganography

3.1 ADVANTAGES:

 Audio based Steganography has the potential to conceal more information:

 Audio files are generally larger than images
 Our hearing can be easily fooled
 Slight changes in amplitude can store vast amounts of information
 The flexibility of audio Steganography is makes it very potentially powerful:
 The methods discussed provide users with a large amount of choice and makes
the technology more accessible to everyone. A party that wishes to
communicate can rank the importance of factors such as data transmission rate,
bandwidth, robustness, and noise audibility and then select the method that
best fits their specifications.
 For example, two individuals who just want to send the occasional secret
message back and forth might use the LSB coding method that is easily
implemented. On the other hand, a large corporation wishing to protect its
intellectual property from "digital pirates" may consider a more sophisticated
method such as phase coding, SS, or echo hiding.
 Another aspect of audio Steganography that makes it so attractive is its ability to
combine with existing cryptography technologies.
 Users no longer have to rely on one method alone. Not only can information be
encrypted, it can be hidden altogether.
 Many sources and types makes statistical analysis more difficult:
 Greater amounts of information can be embedded without audible degradation
 Security:

 Many attacks that are malicious against image Steganography algorithms (e.g.
geometrical distortions, spatial scaling, etc.) cannot be implemented against
audio Steganography schemes. Consequently, embedding information into audio
seems more secure due to less steganalysis techniques for attacking to audio.

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 Audio Steganography

 As emphasis placed on the areas of copyright protection, privacy protection, and

surveillance increases, Steganography will continue to grow in importance as a
protection mechanism.

 Audio Steganography in particular addresses key issues brought about by the

MP3 format, P2P software, and the need for a secure broadcasting scheme that
can maintain the secrecy of the transmitted information, even when passing
through insecure channels.

3.2 DISADVANTAGES:
 Embedding additional information into audio sequences is a more tedious task
than that of images, due to dynamic supremacy of the HAS over human visual
system.
 Robustness: Copyright marks hidden in audio samples using substitution could be
easily manipulated or destroyed if a miscreant comes to know that information is
hidden this way.
 Commercialized audio Steganography have disadvantages that the existence of
hidden messages can be easily recognized visually and only certain sized data
can be hidden.
 Compressing an audio file with lossy compression will result in loss of the
hidden message as it will change the whole structure of a file. Also, several lossy
compression schemes use the limits of the human ear to their advantage by
removing all frequencies that cannot be heard. This will also remove any
frequencies that are used by a Steganography system which hides information
in that part of the spectrum.

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5.0 Conclusion:

This paper has looked in detail at the major techniques used for data hiding in audio files.
Section I gave an overview of Steganography and in particular the concept of Audio
Steganography. Section II described in detail, various Audio Steganography algorithms namely
LSB Coding, Phase Coding, Spread Spectrum and Echo Hiding. At the end, feasibility of Audio
Steganography was evaluated by considering it’s the pros and cons.
In summary, if implemented correctly and in conjunction with cryptographic methods to secure
the embedded data before insertion to a cover medium, many of the data hiding methods
described above could become powerful tools for the transmission of undetectable and secure
communication.

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References:
The literature in this paper is taken from the following sources:
[1] Steganography Methods on Text, Audio, Image and Video: A Survey Aryfandy Febryan, Tito Waluyo
Purboyo and Randy Erfa Saputra
[2] EFFICIENT DATA HIDING SCHEME USING AUDIO STEGANOGRAPHY Mohit Kulkarni, Maitreyee Phatak,
Uma Rathod, Sudhir Prajapati
[3] Securing Technique Using Pattern-Based LSB Audio Steganography and Intensity-Based Visual
Cryptography Pranati Rakshit , Sreeparna Ganguly , Souvik Pal , Ayman A. Aly and Dac-Nhuong Le

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