On the fault-tolerant performance for a class of robust image steganography

The mainstream adaptive steganography algorithms often cannot transmit secret messages correctly when stego images suffer from JPEG compression. In this respect, researchers proposed a series of robust adaptive steganography methods based on the framework of “Compression-resistant Domain Constructing + RS-STC Codes” in previous studies. However, these methods leave behind the fault tolerance analysis, resulting in potential mistakes in extracted messages, which brings uncertainty to practical application. To solve this problem, an error model based on burst errors and STCs decoding damage is given in this manuscript, utilizing the burst error model based on Poisson distribution. Then the model is verified using the hypothesis test problem judged by the χ2 test method. Based on the proposed model, the error conditions of received stego sequence are depicted, and the fault-tolerant performance of the robust steganography based on “Compression-resistant Domain Constructing + RS-STC Codes” is deduced, that is, the probability lower bound for RS-STCs decoding to correctly extract embedded messages. Experiments demonstrate that the practical fault-tolerant results of previous robust steganography methods consist with the theoretical derivation results, which provides a theory support for coding parameter selection and message extraction integrity to the robust steganography based on “Compression-resistant Domain Constructing + RS-STC Codes”.