A Scalable Data Hiding Scheme Using Hilbert Space Curve and Chaos

Abstract

Data hiding techniques using visual cryptography use images as data carriers in such a way that human visual system cannot perceive any modifications in the images. Extensive work has been done on data hiding using gray scale images during the last two decades. Embedding capacity, visual quality of the stego-image, security and the complexity of the embedding algorithm are four main criteria in evaluating the performance of a data hiding scheme. In the present paper, a data hiding scheme is proposed that performs well on two important aspects - data security and embedding capacity while maintaining the quality of the stego-image. The proposed algorithm employs Hilbert space curve and chaotic maps to find out secure data locations with enhanced data security. The method is scalable for large data size and is also computationally convenient. Numerical results demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.