The Non-Zero-Sum Game of Steganography in Heterogeneous Environments

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68407700%3A21230%2F23%3A00369371" target="_blank" >RIV/68407700:21230/23:00369371 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/TIFS.2023.3295945" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1109/TIFS.2023.3295945</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TIFS.2023.3295945" target="_blank" >10.1109/TIFS.2023.3295945</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The Non-Zero-Sum Game of Steganography in Heterogeneous Environments

Original language description

The highly heterogeneous nature of images found in real-world environments, such as online sharing platforms, has been one of the long-standing obstacles to the transition of steganalysis techniques outside the laboratory. Recent advances in identifying the properties of images relevant to steganalysis as well as the effectiveness of deep neural networks on highly heterogeneous datasets have laid some groundwork for resolving this problem. Despite this progress, we argue that the way the game played between the steganographer and the steganalyst is currently modeled lacks some important features expected in a real-world environment: 1) the steganographer can adapt her cover source choice to the environment and/or to the steganalyst's classifier, 2) the distribution of cover sources in the environment impacts the optimal threshold for a given classifier, and 3) the steganalyst and steganographer have different goals, hence different utilities. We propose to take these facts into account using a two-player non-zero-sum game constrained by an environment composed of multiple cover sources. We then show how to convert this non-zero-sum game into an equivalent zero-sum game, allowing us to propose two methods to find Nash equilibria for this game: a standard method using the double oracle algorithm and a minimum regret method based on approximating a set of atomistic classifiers. Applying these methods to contemporary steganography and steganalysis in a realistic environment, we show that classifiers which do not adapt to the environment severely underperform when the steganographer is allowed to select into which cover source to embed.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10201 - Computer sciences, information science, bioinformathics (hardware development to be 2.2, social aspect to be 5.8)

Project

<a href="/en/project/EF16_019%2F0000765" target="_blank" >EF16_019/0000765: Research Center for Informatics</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2023

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security

ISSN

1556-6013

e-ISSN

1556-6021

Volume of the periodical

18

Issue of the periodical within the volume

July

Country of publishing house

US - UNITED STATES

Number of pages

13

Pages from-to

4436-4448

UT code for WoS article

001042073700003

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85165245073