Hiding Information in Reversible English Transforms for a Blind Receiver

Abstract EN

This paper proposes a new technique for hiding secret messages in ordinary English text.

The proposed technique exploits the redundancies existing in some English language constructs.

Redundancies result from the flexibility in maneuvering certain statement constituents without altering the statement meaning or correctness.

For example, one can say “she went to sleep, because she was tired” or “Because she was tired, she went to sleep.” The paper provides a number of such transformations that can be applied concurrently, while keeping the overall meaning and grammar intact.

The proposed data hiding technique is blind since the receiver does not keep a copy of the original uncoded text (cover).

Moreover, it can hide more than three bits per statement, which is higher than that achieved in the prior work.

A secret key that is a function of the various transformations used is proposed to protect the confidentiality of the hidden message.

Our security analysis shows that even if the attacker knows how the transforms are employed, the secret key provides enough security to protect the confidentiality of the hidden message.

Moreover, we show that the proposed transformations do not affect the inconspicuousness of the transformed statements, and thus unlikely to draw suspicion.