Abstract
Nowadays cyber criminalists’ interest in incorporation of steganography into armory of rogue hackers is on the rise and information hiding techniques are becoming the new black among Black Hats. In this paper we focus on analyzing the efficiency of the recently proposed IP telephony information hiding method called transcoding steganography (TranSteg) that enables hidden communication with a high steganographic bandwidth while retaining good voice quality. Specifically, we focus on analyzing which voice codecs would be the most favourable for TranSteg to minimize the negative influence on voice quality while maximizing the obtained steganographic bandwidth and limiting the risk of detection.
Acknowledgments
This research was partially supported by Polish National Science Centre under grant 2011/01/D/ST7/05054.
References
Ahsan, K. and D. Kundur (2002) “Practical Data Hiding in TCP/IP.” In: Proc Workshop Multimedia Security at ACM Multimedia 2002, Juan-les-Pins, France.Search in Google Scholar
Andersen, S. V., W. B. Kleijn, R. Hagen, J. Linden, M. N. Murthi and J. Skoglund (2002) “iLBC – A Linear Predictive Coder with Robustness to Packet Losses.” In: IEEE 2002 Workshop Speech Coding, Tsukuba, Japan, pp. 23–25.10.1109/SCW.2002.1215711Search in Google Scholar
Aoki, N. (2008) “A Technique of Lossless Steganography for G.711 Telephony Speech.” In: Int Conf Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing (IIHMSP 2008), Harbin, China, Aug 15–17, pp. 608–611.10.1109/IIH-MSP.2008.122Search in Google Scholar
Bai, L. Y., Y. Huang, G. Hou and B. Xiao (2008) “Covert Channels Based on Jitter Field of the RTCP Header.” In: Int Conf Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing.10.1109/IIH-MSP.2008.169Search in Google Scholar
Bender, W., D. Gruhl, N. Morimoto and A. Lu (1996) “Techniques for Data Hiding.” IBM. Syst. J., 35(3/4):313–336.10.1147/sj.353.0313Search in Google Scholar
CCITT (1990) Recommendation G.726: 40, 32, 24, 16 kbps adaptive differential pulse code modulation (ADPCM).Search in Google Scholar
Dittmann, J., D. Hesse and R. Hillert (2005) “Steganography and Steganalysis in Voice-over IP Scenarios: Operational Aspects and First Experiences with a New Steganalysis Tool Set.” In: Proc. SPIE, Vol. 5681, Security, Steganography, and Watermarking of Multimedia Contents VII, San Jose, pp. 607–618.10.1117/12.586579Search in Google Scholar
ETSI (2000) Digital cellular telecommunications system (Phase 2+) (GSM); Full rate speech; Transcoding (GSM 06.10 version 8.1.1 Release 1999).Search in Google Scholar
Forbes, C. R. (2009) A New covert channel over RTP. MSc thesis, Rochester Institute of Technology. https://ritdml.rit.edu/bitstream/handle/1850/12883/CForbesThesis8-21-2009.pdf?sequence=1.Search in Google Scholar
Goodin, D. (2011) Duqu Spawned by ‘Well-funded Team of Competent Coders’ – World’s First Known Modular Rootkit does Steganography, too, The Register.Search in Google Scholar
Grocholewski, S. (1997) “CORPORA – Speech Database for Polish diphones.” In: 5th Europ Conf Speech Communication and Technology Eurospeech ’97, Rhodes, Greece.10.21437/Eurospeech.1997-492Search in Google Scholar
Hersent, H. (2000) IP Telephony – Packet-based Multimedia Communications Systems. Pearson Education Ltd, London.Search in Google Scholar
I)ruid (2007) “Real-time Steganography with RTP.” Technical Report, Sept. http://www.uninformed.org/?v=8&a=3&t=pdf.Search in Google Scholar
ITU-T (1998) Recommendation G.711: Pulse code modulation (PCM) of voice frequencies.Search in Google Scholar
ITU-T (2001) Recommendation P.862: Perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ): An objective method for end-to-end speech quality assessment of narrow-band telephone networks and speech codecs.Search in Google Scholar
ITU-T (2009) Recommendation G.711.0: Lossless compression of G.711 pulse code modulation.Search in Google Scholar
Janicki, A. and T. Staroszczyk (2011) “Speaker Recognition from Coded Speech using Support Vector Machines.” In: (I. Habernal, V. Matoušek, eds.) Proc 14th Int Conf Text, Speech and Dialogue (TSD 2011), Lecture Notes on Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) 6836, Springer-Verlag, pp. 291–298.10.1007/978-3-642-23538-2_37Search in Google Scholar
Janicki, A., W. Mazurczyk and K. Szczypiorski (2015) “Influence of Speech Codecs Selection on Transcoding Steganography.” Accepted for publication in Telecommunication Systems: Modelling, Analysis, Design and Management, to be published, ISSN: 1018-4864 (print version), ISSN: 1572-9451 (electronic version), Springer US, Journal no. 11235.10.1007/s11235-014-9937-9Search in Google Scholar
Jankowski, B., W. Mazurczyk and K. Szczypiorski (2011) “PadSteg: Introducing Inter-Protocol Steganography.” In: Telecommunication Systems: Modelling, Analysis, Design and Management, Vol. 52, no. 2, February 2013, pp. 1101–1111.10.1007/s11235-011-9616-zSearch in Google Scholar
Kabal, P. (2002) TSP Speech Database, Tech Rep, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: McGill University.Search in Google Scholar
Krätzer, C., J. Dittmann, T. Vogel and R. Hillert (2006) “Design and Evaluation of Steganography for Voice-over-IP.” In: Proc IEEE Int Symp Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Kos, Greece.Search in Google Scholar
Lubacz, J., W. Mazurczyk and K. Szczypiorski (2010) “Vice Over IP.” In: IEEE Spectrum, ISSN: 0018-9235, Feb, pp. 40–45.10.1109/MSPEC.2010.5397787Search in Google Scholar
Mazurczyk, W. (2014) “VoIP Steganography and Its Detection – A Survey.” ACM Computing Surveys, 46(2), Article No. 20. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470612279.app1/summary.10.1145/2543581.2543587Search in Google Scholar
Mazurczyk, W. and Z. Kotulski (2006) “New Security and Control Protocol for VoIP Based on Steganography and Digital Watermarking.” In: Proc 5th Int Conf Computer Science – Research and Applications (IBIZA 2006), Poland, Kazimierz Dolny, Feb. 9–11.Search in Google Scholar
Mazurczyk, W. and J. Lubacz (2010) “LACK – A VoIP Steganographic Method.” Telecommun Syst: Model Anal Des Manag 45(2/3) ISSN: 1018-4864 (print version), ISSN: 1572-9451 (electronic version), pp. 153–163.10.1007/s11235-009-9245-ySearch in Google Scholar
Mazurczyk, W. and S. Szczypiorski (2008a) “Covert channels in SIP for VoIP signaling.” In: (H. Jahankhani, K. Revett and D. Palmer-Brown, eds.) ICGeS 2008 – Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) 12, Springer Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, Proc 4th Int Conf Global E-security 2008, London, United Kingdom, June 23–25, pp. 65–70.Search in Google Scholar
Mazurczyk, W. and S. Szczypiorski (2008b) “Steganography of VoIP Streams.” In: (R. Meersman and Z. Tari, eds.) OTM 2008, Part II – Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) 5332, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, Proc OnTheMove Federated Conferences and Workshops: 3rd Int Symp Information Security (IS’08), Monterrey, Mexico, Nov. 9–14, pp. 1001–1018.10.1007/978-3-540-88873-4_6Search in Google Scholar
Mazurczyk, W., M. Smolarczyk and K. Szczypiorski (2011) “On Information Hiding in Retransmissions.” In: Telecommunication Systems: Modelling, Analysis, Design and Management, Vol. 52, no. 2, February 2013, pp. 1113–1121.10.1007/s11235-011-9617-ySearch in Google Scholar
Mazurczyk, W., P. Szaga and K. Szczypiorski (2012) “Using Transcoding for Hidden Communication in IP Telephony.” In: Multimedia Tools and Applications, Vol. 70, no. 3, June 2014, pp. 2139–2165.Search in Google Scholar
Miao, R. and Y. Huang (2011) “An Approach of Covert Communication Based on the Adaptive Steganography Scheme on Voice over IP.” IEEE Int. Conf. Communications (ICC 2011).10.1109/icc.2011.5962657Search in Google Scholar
Murdoch, S. and S. Lewis (2005) “Embedding Covert Channels into TCP/IP.” Inf Hiding, 247–266.10.1007/11558859_19Search in Google Scholar
Mykowiecka, A. and J. Waszczuk (2009) “Semantic Annotation of City Transportation Information Dialogues using CRF Method.” Text, Speech and Dialog, TSD 2009 Conf, Pilsen, Czech Republic, LNAI 5729, Springer-Verlag, pp. 411–419.10.1007/978-3-642-04208-9_56Search in Google Scholar
Nishimura, A. (2009) “Steganographic Band width Extension for the AMR Codec of Low-bit-rate Modes.” In: Proc Interspeech 2009, Brighton, UK, Sept 6–10, pp. 2611–2614.10.21437/Interspeech.2009-687Search in Google Scholar
Rosenberg, J., H. Schulzrinne, G. Camarillo and A. Johnston (2002) SIP: Session Initiation Protocol. IETF, RFC 3261, June.10.17487/rfc3261Search in Google Scholar
Sanchez, J. and M. Thioune (2010) AMR Codec in UMTS, ISTE, London, UK. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470612279.app1/summary.Search in Google Scholar
Schulzrinne, H., S. Casner, R. Frederick and V. Jacobson (2003) RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-time Applications. IETF, RFC 3550, July.10.17487/rfc3550Search in Google Scholar
Takahashi, T. and W. Lee (2007) “An Assessment of VoIP Covert Channel Threats.” In: Proc 3rd Int Conf Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (SecureComm 2007), Nice, France.10.1109/SECCOM.2007.4550357Search in Google Scholar
Tian, H., K. Zhou, H. Jiang, J. Liu, Y. Huang and D. Feng (2009a) “An Adaptive Steganography Scheme for Voice over IP.” IEEE Int Symp Circuits and Systems (ISCAS 2009), Taipei, Taiwan, May 24–27.10.1109/ISCAS.2009.5118414Search in Google Scholar
Tian, H., K. Zhou, H. Jiang, J. Liu, Y. Huang and D. Feng (2009b) “An M-sequence Based Steganography Model for Voice over IP.” IEEE Int Conf Communications (ICC 2009), Dresden, Germany, June 14–18, pp. 1–5.10.1109/ICC.2009.5198737Search in Google Scholar
TrendMicro (2014) “Sunsets and Cats Can Be Hazardous to Your Online Bank Account.” Available at: http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/sunsets-and-cats-can-be-hazardous-to-your-online-bank-account/.Search in Google Scholar
Wang, C. and W. Wu (2007) “Information Hiding in Real-time VoIP Streams.” In: 9th IEEE Int Symp Multimedia (ISM 2007), Taichung, Taiwan, Dec 10–12, pp. 255–262.10.1109/ISM.2007.4412381Search in Google Scholar
Xu, T. and Z. Yang (2009) “Simple and Effective Speech Steganography in G.723.1 Low-rate Codes.” In: Proc Int Conf Wireless Communications & Signal Processing WCSP 2009, Nanjing, China, Nov 13–15, pp. 1–4.10.1109/WCSP.2009.5371745Search in Google Scholar
Zander, S., G. Armitage and P. Branch (2007) “A Survey of Covert Channels and Countermeasures in Computer Network Protocols.” IEEE Commun Surv Tutor 9(3):44–57, ISSN: 1553-877X.10.1109/COMST.2007.4317620Search in Google Scholar
©2014 by De Gruyter