An extended matrix encoding algorithm for steganography of high embedding efficiency

F5 steganography is much different from most of LSB replacement or matching steganographic schemes, because matrix encoding is employed to increase embedding efficiency while reducing the number of necessary changes. By using this scheme, the hidden message inserted into carrier media imperceptibly can be transferred via a more secure subliminal channel. The embedding domain is the quantized DCT coefficients of JPEG image, which makes the scheme be immune to visual attack and statistical attack from the steganalyst. Based on this effective scheme, an extended matrix encoding algorithm is proposed to improve the performance further in this paper. By changing the hash function in matrix encoding and converting the coding mode, the embedding efficiency and embedding rate get increased to a large extent. Eventually, the experimental results demonstrate the extended algorithm is superior to the classic F5 steganography.

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► The proposed method extends and improves the coding mode of traditional matrix encoding in F5 algorithm.
► The embedding efficiency and embedding rate get increased at the same time.
► The improved method performs excellently especially when the secret message is full of consecutive black pixels.