TY - JOUR
T1 - StealthPDF
T2 - Data hiding method for PDF file with no visual degradation
AU - Kuribayashi, Minoru
AU - Wong, Kok Sheik
N1 - Funding Information:
This research has been partially supported by the Kayamori Foundation of Information Science Advancement, JSPS, Japan KAKENHI Grant Number 19K22846 , and the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) MoHE, Malaysia Grant under the project - Recovery of missing coefficients - fundamentals to applications (Grant No. FRGS/1/2018/ICT02/MUSM/02/2 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - Conventional data hiding methods for PDF file insert a payload data by slightly modifying the position of characters in a document. Even if the changes are small, a certain degree of visual distortion is inevitably introduced to the PDF file. In this work, we propose a new data hiding method that splits the space value between characters. Specifically, a space value is split into two or more related values. Except for the first value which is reserved to store the corrective data, each of the related values encodes a segment of the payload data. When the PDF file is opened by a PDF viewer, the visual appearance is exactly the same as its original counterpart, i.e., complete quality preservation. To prevent direct observation of PDF file, access control is introduced by setting an owner password, which is a built-in function in the PDF standard. In the best case scenario, 38,160 bits can be hidden, while the observed file size increase is 12,776 Bytes.
AB - Conventional data hiding methods for PDF file insert a payload data by slightly modifying the position of characters in a document. Even if the changes are small, a certain degree of visual distortion is inevitably introduced to the PDF file. In this work, we propose a new data hiding method that splits the space value between characters. Specifically, a space value is split into two or more related values. Except for the first value which is reserved to store the corrective data, each of the related values encodes a segment of the payload data. When the PDF file is opened by a PDF viewer, the visual appearance is exactly the same as its original counterpart, i.e., complete quality preservation. To prevent direct observation of PDF file, access control is introduced by setting an owner password, which is a built-in function in the PDF standard. In the best case scenario, 38,160 bits can be hidden, while the observed file size increase is 12,776 Bytes.
KW - Authentication
KW - Complete quality preservation
KW - Data hiding
KW - PDF
KW - Space
KW - StealthPDF
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jisa.2021.102875
DO - 10.1016/j.jisa.2021.102875
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85108712908
SN - 2214-2134
VL - 61
JO - Journal of Information Security and Applications
JF - Journal of Information Security and Applications
M1 - 102875
ER -