Reversible Data Hiding in Encrypted Images Based on Two-Round Image Interpolation

Abstract

The data embedding of vacating room after encryption reversible data hiding in encrypted images (VRAE RDHEI) is performed on an encrypted image without redundancy and spatial correlation. Data extraction and image recovery rely on a range of unique mechanisms that utilize spatial correlation in the decrypted domain. Of these mechanisms, pixel prediction is among the most frequently used, directly affecting the capacity and fidelity. In this paper, we propose a novel method that uses a two-round interpolation mechanism to enhance pixel prediction precision while preserving a large number of carrier pixels. In the proposed method, the content owner uses a stream cipher to encrypt the image as a carrier. The data hider flips specific LSBs of the encrypted image for data embedding. On the receiver side, the process of data extraction and image recovery is divided into two stages. In each stage, based on the varying distributions of the original or recovered pixels with the carrier pixels, the corresponding pixel interpolation schemes are used to accurately predict the pixels for data extraction and image recovery. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can efficiently improve the capacity and fidelity with full reversibility compared to existing VRAE RDHEI methods.