Content uploaded by Gaurav Deep
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Gaurav Deep on Nov 11, 2019
Content may be subject to copyright.
Review: To Study Scope of Data Hiding in MP3
Files
*Nishant Sharma **Er. Gaurav Deep
*Student (M.Tech), Deptt. Of Computer Engg,
Punjabi University
**Asst. Professor, Deptt. Of Computer Engg,
Punjabi University, Patiala
Abstract: Steganography is a kind of secret communication
method used to hide secret data in some digital media such as
images, audio etc. Hiding secret data using audio files as
carrier is known as “Audio Steganography”. The availability
and the popularity of audio files make them eligible to carry
hidden information, and thus hold significance. With the
advancement in digital audio media, many audio
steganography techniques have been developed and also used.
After the events of September 11, 2001, there was immediate
concern voiced regarding the possible use of steganography by
the al Qaida network. There has been additional concern
voiced regarding the television broadcast of bin Laden. There
is the possibility that there could have been hidden messages
in the audio portion of the broadcasts. MP3 file format has
been very popular since its inception due to its ability to
minimize the file size without compromising audible quality.
Several techniques have been devised for steganography in
mp3 files. One such padding byte stuffing techniques hides
data by replacing padding byte in a MP3 frame by secret data.
In this paper, we look at various audio steganography
techniques and we study about MP3 files and techniques for
data hiding in MP3 files. We study about concept of padding
in MP3 file and how this can be used to implement
steganography in MP3 file.
1. I
NTRODUCTION
Steganography is the science of hiding information so that
it remains undetected except by its intended receiver. Need
of steganography arises when one needs to communicate
privately and he cannot risk to arouse the suspicion by
sending encrypted message in plain sight. The main goals
of steganography are:
1. Data must remain hidden.
2. Data should be visible, but not recognizable.
3. It should provide better imperceptibility.
4. Data should be hidden directly in carrier.
5. Quality of carrier should not be compromised.
Steganography in digital media, also known as “audio
steganography” is hiding some message in audio files.
Steganography techniques are mostly used for images there
are not many methods for audio steganalysis. Thus, audio
Steganography provides considerably better security. Three
major parameters to compare audio steganography
techniques with each other are:
1. Perceptual Transparency: Stego file and original cover
file should be indistinguishable.
2. Robustness: Capability to face
intentional/unintentional attacks such as resampling
etc.
3. Capacity: Amount of data that can be embedded
without compromising perceptual transparency.
Fig.1 Steganography model
Various audio steganography techniques with their
advantages and drawbacks have been listed in table1.
In audio Steganography, many types of file can be used as a
cover of steganography such as Waveform Audio File
Format (WAVE, or more commonly known as WAV due
to its filename extension) or MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio
Layer III (MP3). Similarly, secret messages that are
embedded can be of secured types such as text or speech.
MP3 file format – MP3 refers to layer 3 [highest
complexity] of MPEG – 1 compression mode. The mp3
format has been designed to store audio data, which is
different from visual information stored in images.
Therefore image stegonography techniques may not always
work with audio data. Furthermore, unlike some image data
formats, mp3 files are compressed and encoded in a very
storage-conscious way. Thus they are not the best host files
for stegonographic data. Though it is considered lossy, it
can achieve transparent or perceptually lossless
compression.
MP3 file structure: The content of MP3 file depends on
the type of encoding used. The common structures of MP3
files consist of three components:
a. Tags
b. Padding bytes
c. Frames
Nishant Sharma et al | IJCSET(www.ijcset.net) | June 2015 | Vol 5, Issue 6, 138-141
138
Table1. Audio steganography techniques
Tags are of two types: ID3V1 and ID3V2.
Tags in mp3 file usually carry metadata information such
as artist name, track name etc. ID3V1 tags are of static size
and also less flexible. ID3v2 on the other hand are more
flexible. Also, ID3V2 has its own frames which can store
data, so they can be used for steganographic purposes.
Padding byte provides additional data embedding; the data
provided are added to the frame. Its working principle is
that on the event of the encoding, additional data are evenly
filled to the frame; this byte can be found in Constant Bit
Rate (CBR) so as to ensure that frames are of the same size.
Frames: MP3 audio file is just built up from a succession
of smaller parts called frames. Each frame is a data block
with its own header and audio information. There is no
main header in mp3. While retrieving information about an
MP3 audio file, we need to simply locate the first frame,
and retrieve information from its header. Information
within other frames should be consistent with the first one,
except for the bitrate, if it is a variable bitrate (VBR) file.
MP3 Encoding: MP3 encoding refers to quality enhancer
of both compressed sound and the size of compressed
sound file. The three encoding bit rates used by different
encoders include the CBR, Variable Bit Rate (VBR) and
Average Bit Rate (ABR). CBR refers to a standard
encoding mechanism used by basic encoders. In this
encoding mechanism, each frame used the same bit rate in
the audio data. The bit rate is fixed in the whole of MP3
file, as the same number of bits is used for each part of the
MP3 file. However, the quality of MP3 is variable. These
techniques can be used to predict the size of encoded file
and can be calculated by multiplying the bit rate chosen to
encode with the length of a song. VBR is a technique that
can keep the quality of audio files during the encoding
process. In this technology the quality of the sound can be
specified but the size of the sound file remains
unpredictable. ABR is a mode that uses higher bit rate for
the part of music by choosing the encoder adds bits. The
final result showed that the quality is higher than CBR.
Moreover, the average file size remains predictable.
Techniques used for steganography have been classified in
three categories:
1. Embedding before compression. This category
includes methods that hide secret data in metadata of
mp3 file such as in ID3V1/ID3V2 tags or in song
lyrics.
2. Embedding during compression. This category
includes general audio steganography techniques
described earlier.
3. Embedding after compression. This category includes
techniques that work with mp3 file after it is
compressed. Not much research has been done in this
area. This is due to the fact that these techniques are
difficult to implement and sometimes desirable results
are not achieved.
Padding byte stuffing technique comes under third
category. To understand this, one should be familiar with
Nishant Sharma et al | IJCSET(www.ijcset.net) | June 2015 | Vol 5, Issue 6, 138-141
139
MP3 file structure and padding bytes. As an example, let us
take a file with bitrate as 128k and with sample rate 44kHz.
Now frame length for such file is 418 bytes. Now some
frames actually has 417 bytes and to fit the bitrate as 128K,
these frames are padded with extra byte.
There are various challenges in working with padding byte
stuffing technique. There has not been much research in
this area so information regarding this technique is limited.
Furthermore, there is limited information about how frames
are padded. One can assume that one byte is added at the
end of frame, but that does not necessarily be true in all
cases. To find
information about a MP3 file, we need to read its header,
and that will give the information about frames in the file.
Now each frame needs to be checked for padding bit, that is
whether padding bit has been added or not. After
identifying the frames without padding bytes, we need to
replace those bytes with our secret message. This itself
poses a big challenge. So, there are many challenges related
to this technique but if we overcome those challenges, it
will surely be a big step forward in an area which has not
been explored much.
2. LITERATURE SURVEY
AUTHOR NAME YEAR TITLE WORK DONE BY AUTHOR RESULT ANALYSIS
Huynh Ba
Dieu,Nguyen
Xuan Huy
2014
IEEE
An improved
technique for
hiding data in
audio
Author presents an improved technique for
hiding data in audio that modifies the
amplitude of the cover audio to embed the
secret message and increases the security
by using a secret key. Results show that the
proposed method is inaudible and suitable
for hiding data in audio.
The experiment shows that our
method is secure, imperceptible
and can be used for hiding data in
the audio file.
Neha Gupta, Ms.
Nidhi Sharma 2014
ICROIT
DWT and LSB
based audio
steganography
The author proposes a system that uses the
concept of DWT (Discrete Wavelet
Transform) and LSB (Least Significant
Bit)to develop a new method of Audio
Steganography. Paper focuses on hiding an
image in audio file and comparing it with
simple LSB technique.
Taking Peak signal to noise ratio
as a measure, we see that there is
no audiblbe difference in the audio
file before and after hiding the
image.
Rohit Tanwar,
Monika Bisla 2014
ICROIT Audio
Steganography
In this paper, author presents us with
different techniques that can be applied
over a audio file to hide data in it. Each
method has been described in detail with its
merits and demerits.
Audio steganography is more
challenging than its counterparts,
as Human Auditory System is
more sensitive than Human Visual
System. Each technique has its
own merits and demerits and their
usage depends upon various
parameters such as need of
security, length of message etc.
Mohammed
Salem Atoum,
Subariah
Ibrahimn, Ghazali
Sulong, Akram
Zeki, Adamu
Abubakar
2013
IEEE
Exploring the
challenges of
audio
steganography
This paper presents the issues and
challenges
faced for steganographic techniques that
uses MP3 files as the cover or carrier file.
Some techniques for data hiding in MP3
are reviewed, and the possibility of finding
other new techniques hiding information in
MP3 files has been reviewed..
MP3 files can be embedded
before, during and after
compression. After compression is
the best strategy among them
because of high robustness and
security.
Mohammed
Salem Atoum,
Subariah Ibrahim,
Ghazali Sulong3
and Ali M-Ahmad
2012
IJCSI
MP3
steganography
review
Author presents a thorough analysis on the
techniques used in audio files technologies,
with more emphasis on MP3
steganography technique. Detailed
information about MP3 has also been
provided.
This paper reviewed existing
steganography techniques that can
be used with MP3 as carrier file.
Conclusion on each technique
Have been drawn that could
likely offer better results
Xuping Huang,
Ryota
Kawashima,
NorihisaSegawa,
Yoshihiko Abe
2013
IEEE
Design and
implementation
of synchronized
audio to audio
steganography
scheme
Author proposes a synchronized
steganography system for acoustic data
such that the secret data is to be recorded
and steganographically embedded and
subsequently
sent or broadcasted to multiple receivers.
Author has developed a
synchronized audio-to-audio
steganography
Solution in which secret speech
data is recorded and embedded
into audio data when it is
playing. Results show that it is
difficult to realize the difference
by human perception.
Nishant Sharma et al | IJCSET(www.ijcset.net) | June 2015 | Vol 5, Issue 6, 138-141
140
3. CONCLUSION
While doing this literature review, we come to know about
various techniques that are being used for audio
steganography. Steganography is an area that holds its
significance because it relates to security. Due to this, it
also needs development with changing times. So, various
other techniques are coming into play and many other areas
are being discovered to hide data in audio files. Padding
byte stuffing technique is one such area, and it can be
avenue for future research work. However there are
challenges to it, which if we overcome, it will be a big step
forward in information security. We need accurate methods
for finding exact location of paddings in mp3, and also we
need to reduce signal-to-noise ratio.
REFERENCES
[1]. Mohammed Salem Atoum, Subariah Ibrahim, Ghazali Sulong3 and
Ali M-Ahmad, “MP3 steganography : review”, IJCSI, Nov. 2012
[2]. Mohammed Salem Atoum, Subariah Ibrahimn, Ghazali Sulong,
Akram Zeki, Adamu Abubakar, “Exploring the challenges of mp3
steganography”, International Conference on Advanced
Computer Science Applications and Technologies, 2013
[3]. Rohit Tanwar, Monika Bisla, “Audio Steganography”, ICROIT 2014
[4]. Ritej Gaba, Gaurav Deep, “Comparison of various video
steganography techniques”, IJAIR 2013
[5]. Huynh Ba Dieu, Nguyen Xuan Huy, “An Improved Technique for
Hiding Data in Audio”, 2014 IEEE
[6]. Neha Gupta, Ms. Nidhi Sharma, “ DWT and LSB based audio
steganography”, 2014 ICROIT
[7]. Xuping Huang, Ryota Kawashima, Norihisa Segawa, Yoshihiko
Abe, “Design and implementation of synchronized audio to audio
steganography scheme”, 2008 IEEE
[8]. James C. Judge, “Steganography: past, present and future”, SANS
institute
[9]. Padding bytes, Nov 2014, URL:
www.compuphase.com/mp3/mp3loops.htm
Nishant Sharma et al | IJCSET(www.ijcset.net) | June 2015 | Vol 5, Issue 6, 138-141
141
