Image Steganographic Scheme Based on Double-layer Magic Matrix

Data hiding is a technique used for embedding secret messages in a carrier medium which cannot be perceived by human eye. In the data hiding scheme based on the magic matrix, previous methods exploited a magic matrix with various shapes to carry secret messages, but the embedding capacity was often limited. Inspired by the magic matrix scheme using magic signet proposed by Lee et al., the proposed method develops a double-layer magic matrix scheme to enhance the embedding capacity. Under the framework of a double-layer matrix, we tested many combinations of different signet sizes which can carry secret data in various notational number systems. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme had a higher embedding capacity and good image quality compared to the previous methods.