A new steganographic method based on information sharing via PNG images

A new steganographic method via PNG images based on the information sharing technique is proposed. The coefficients of the polynomial functions of the Shamir´s (k, n)-threshold secret sharing method are utilized as carriers of a given secret data string to be hidden to generate shares. The shares then are embedded into the alpha-channel plane of a cover PNG image. The resulting stego-image with perceptible white noise is further removed by mapping computed share values into suitable ranges. Appropriate measures for enhancing the security of the proposed method are also described. Experimental results show the effect of the proposed method.