Least significant qubit (LSQb) information hiding algorithm for quantum image

Quantum computation has the ability to solve some problems that are considered inefficient in classical computer. Research on Quantum image processing has been extensively exploited in recent decades. Quantum image information hiding can be divided into quantum image digital watermarking, quantum image steganography, anonymity and other branches. Least significant bit (LSB) information hiding plays an important role in classical world because many information hiding algorithms are designed based on it. In this paper, based on novel enhanced quantum representation (NEQR), the concrete least significant qubit (LSQb) information hiding algorithm for quantum image is given firstly. Because information hiding located on the frequency domain of an image can increase the security, we further discuss the frequency domain LSQb information hiding algorithm for quantum image based on quantum Fourier transform. In our algorithms, the corresponding unitary transformations are designed to realize the aim of embedding the secret information to the least significant qubit representing color of the quantum cover image. Finally, we illustrate the procedure of extracting the secret information. Quantum image LSQb information hiding algorithm can be applied in many fields according to different needs. (c) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.