Simulation-based exploration of SVD-based technique for hidden communication by image steganography channel

The paper presents an empirical study of the properties of a new image-based information hiding technique that are critical for hidden communication. The technique is based on the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) transform of a digital image and uses embedding a bit of data through slight modifications of a linear combination of singular values of a small block of the segmented cover image. The primary objective of the study is to establish the dependence between the capacity rate of the invisibly embedded data and robustness of the steganographic channel distorted by JPEG compression while varying embedding procedure attributes. The second objective of the empirical study is to establish practical recommendations concerning adjusting of the controllable attributes of the SVD-based data embedding procedure given the message size and the threshold for Bit Error Rate. The results of the study provide evidence that the developed information hiding approach is promising for hidden communication.