MPsteg: hiding a message in the Matching Pursuit domain
Giacomo Cancelli, Mauro Barni, Gloria Menegaz · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2006
In this paper we propose a new steganographic algorithm based on Matching Pursuit image decomposition. Many modern approaches to detect the presence of hidden messages are based on statistical analysis, preferably on the analysis of higher-order statistical regularities. The idea behind this work is to adaptively choose the elements of a redundant basis to represent the host image. In this way, the image is expressed as the composition of a set of structured elements resembling basic image structures such as lines, corners, and flat regions. We argue that embedding the watermark at this, more semantic, level results in a lower modification of the low-level statistical properties of the image, and hence in a lower detectability of the presence of the hidden message.