Improved Performance of Image Steganography Technique using Quantum Scrambling and Pixel‘s Intensity Adjustment

Abstract

Steganography is the art for hidden communication. It provides the solution for secrete data communication. Trustworthy steganography techniques should provide the data protection when it is being transferred and fulfill the principles of security. This dissertation proposed a efficient steganography technique based on Quantum Hilbert image Scrambling (QHIS), alpha blending operation, and genetic algorithm based pixel’s least significant bit swapping. Every steganography technique has two processes; encoding and decoding. In the encoding process of proposed steganography technique, initially secrete image is scrambled using QHIS then apply alpha blending (i.e type of mixing) operation on both the scrambled image and cover image, which results stego image. The stego image picture quality can be improved by allying GA based pixel’s adjustment. The strength of proposed steganography technique is shown in experimental results by testing it on different image quality parameters (i.e. Peak Signal to Noise Ratio, Normalized Cross Correlation, Average Difference, Maximum difference, Structural contents).