Image hiding by optimal LSB substitution and genetic algorithm

In this paper, we develop a novel method to embed important data in the host image so that the interceptors will not notice about the existence of the data. The basic concept of the proposed method is by simple LSB substitution. To prevent illicit access of data and increase the system performance, the method of randomized process and the optimal LSB substitution are proposed. The effectiveness of the optimal LSB substitution in the worst case is proved. We also develop a genetic algorithm to solve the problem of hiding important data in the rightmost k LSBs of the host image, which may involve a huge computation time to find the optimal result when k is large. Finally, based on the concept of perceptual modeling, an improved hiding technique is developed to obtain a high-quality embedding result. Experimental results will reveal that the quality of the embedding result will not be seriously degraded, and is near optimal by utilizing the proposed method. (C) 2001 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.