PM1 steganography in JPEG images using genetic algorithm

Plus minus 1 (PM1) is an improved method to least significant bits (LSB)-based steganography techniques, which not only foils typical attacks against LSB-based techniques, but also provides high capacity. But how to apply it to JPEG images does not appear in literatures. In this paper, PM1 steganography in JPEG images using genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed, in which the GA is used to optimize the performance, such as minimizing blockiness. Theoretical analysis to the histogram characteristics after steganography is discussed in details, which proves that PM1 used in JPEG images preserves the first-order statistical properties. Experiments show that the proposed method outperforms the other methods in terms of capacity and security.