Enhancing The Robustness Of Pixel Value Differencing Steganography Via Reed-Solomon Error Correction

Mirza Gofur Saleh, Danang Rimbawa H.A.

Abstract


Pixel Value Differencing (PVD) algorithm is a spatial steganography technique with high embedding capacity, yet it possesses a fundamental vulnerability to data corruption caused by physical transmission channel disturbances. This study proposes a robust steganography architecture by integrating Reed-Solomon (RS) Code into the PVD scheme to secure the transmission of operational secret messages. Experimental evaluation was conducted using the international standard image dataset (USC-SIPI) and tactical case study images with a resolution of 512×512 pixels. The system's performance was quantitatively measured based on visual imperceptibility (PSNR) and robustness against image manipulation attacks (BER). The test results demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves superior visual quality, with PSNR values consistently ranging from 78 to 80 dB, far exceeding the visual imperceptibility threshold. In terms of robustness, the RS(255, 245) configuration proved highly effective in localizing and correcting burst errors caused by Salt & Pepper noise (1% intensity), resulting in a 0% Bit Error Rate (BER). Conversely, this study transparently validates the inherent limitations of the spatial architecture against lossy compression, where JPEG compression attacks (Q=80) resulted in total message extraction failure. In conclusion, the integration of PVD and RS Code offers absolute reliability for secret data transmission within lossless format environments, while laying an empirical foundation for future development of cyber defense architectures into the frequency domain.

Keywords


Spatial Steganography, Pixel Value Differencing, Reed-Solomon Code, PSNR, Bit Error Rate.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.52155/ijpsat.v58.2.8430

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