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The paper can be accepted. Congratulations.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Vicente Alarcon-Aquino, a PeerJ Computer Science Section Editor covering this Section #]
All comments have been incorporated in satisfactory level. The paper is revised perfect. Recommend ACCEPTANCE.
All comments have been incorporated in satisfactory level. The paper is revised perfect. Recommend ACCEPTANCE.
All comments have been incorporated in satisfactory level. The paper is revised perfect. Recommend ACCEPTANCE.
All comments have been incorporated in satisfactory level. The paper is revised perfect. Recommend ACCEPTANCE.
In this paper the authors propose a novel blind image steganography scheme using sparse approximation and Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) to embed up to four secret images in single cover image with block wise DCT sparsification method. The proposed method can achieve state-of-the-art performance and can perform hiding multiple images in a single cover image.
In general correctness is up to the mark and suggested changes in earlier review have been taken care of.
The proposed work is analyzed in different possible ways and compared with the recent research too. Sharing of multiple secret images is achieved successfully using transform domain embedding method. The suggested references have been cited and analyzed up to the mark.
Conclusion is well elaborated highlighting the strengths as well as weaknesses of the proposed work. A sufficient number of statistical measures are used to evaluate the performance of the image steganography scheme developed in the proposed work. The paper represents a well defined and detailed research in the field of image steganography using DCT. The method for analyzing is interesting.
The article is well written and can be accepted as the following suggestions have been incorporated in the revised manuscript.
4. 1. Execution time analysis is added.
2. Comparative analysis is elaborated with the existing
methods available in literature and is compared with the
proposed work.
3. Justification on the claimed payload capacity is incorporated.
The reviewers identified some merits of the paper but a revision is needed. Please note that I do not expect you to cite any recommended reference unless crucial. Please provide a detailed response letter. Thanks.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should only be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful #]
This paper presents an interesting image steganography system of hiding grayscale secret images into another grayscale cover image. The embedding of secret data is done to enhance embedding capacity while preserving the visual quality of the stego-image to be ensuring that the stego-image is resistant to steganographic attacks. The tests quantitatively and qualitatively experimental results claimed efficacy of the proposed method over others. The evaluation and comparison results provided interesting remarks very much pioneering, but needs to be improved and justified compared to others, in order to be ready as publication, as noted within the following points that have to be fulfilled:
--The abstract needs to be briefed a bit stressing more on specific key contribution and originality trying to attract the reader to select the paper to read and refer to as well as get motivated toward the work to continue research in similar direction.
--Give more elaboration on the real need for utilizing this proposal. What is wrong in the normal other stego hiding methods requiring this kind of complex security research. Try to support your explanation via real-life examples.
--The implementation needs more elaboration in different ways. You need to add a numerical example to make the reader grasp the proposed model and its applicability thoroughly. The example must be simple arranged in a convincing manner to allow further research improvement to build upon.
-- Try showing more possible scenarios with details where your work can give less efficient remarks.
-- Figure 8 is strange representing the average NAE value relating between the four original secret images and their corresponding extracted secret images when using correct and wrong secret-keys in a very consistent manner. This needs checking and further explanation ?
--The work lack reasoning and comparisons. The work needs many reasoning and comparison to others proofing its real applicability. It also needs elaboration proofing fairness in the results and comparison, especially testing the schemes on the different images. It needs some indication with more justification of these results. Explain more the opposite observations feedback of the proposed work vs. others, i.e. as showing different results of evaluation with other the results.
-- The image stego research needs it work coverage to be completed by involving some supplementary related image hiding researches as well as counting-based secret sharing. Accordingly, the work must involve the stego current topics, in order to be ready:
== Increasing Participants Using Counting-Based Secret Sharing via Involving Matrices and Practical Steganography
== Enhancing Medical Data Security via Combining Elliptic Curve Cryptography with 1-LSB and 2-LSB Image Steganography
== Refining image steganography distribution for higher security multimedia counting-based secret-sharing
== Hiding Shares by Multimedia Image Steganography for Optimized Counting-Based Secret Sharing
== Securing Matrix Counting-Based Secret-Sharing Involving Crypto Steganography
== Image Steganography to Facilitate Online Students Account System
== 3-Layer PC Text Security via Combining Compression, AES Cryptography 2LSB Image Steganography
== Image Based Steganography to Facilitate Improving Counting-Based Secret Sharing
== Multi-Bits Stego-System For Hiding Text in Multimedia Images Based on User Security Priority
== Vibrant Color Image Steganography using Channel Differences and Secret Data Distribution
== Pixel Indicator Technique for RGB Image Steganography
-- Conclusion needs reconsideration. It needs to highlight more of the research main contributions with some brief indications and numerical improvement percentages to keep with the reader. Also, the conclusion needs to present some additional specific ideas of open research and future work for researchers to build upon for further advancements.
In this paper the authors propose a novel blind image steganography scheme using sparse approximation and Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) to embed upto four secret images in single cover image with block wise DCT sparsification method. The proposed method can achieve state-of-the-art performance and can perform hiding multiple images in a single cover image. The manuscript is clearly written in professional language.
Correctness: In general correctness is up to the mark. However it is claimed that there is no other steganography method available in literature which can embed four secret images into a single secret image. The authors should search the literature thoroughly since such a scheme to hide four secret images into one cover image was available in 2006 itself. (Kindly refer: Yu-Chen Hu, Multiple Images Embedding Scheme Based on Moment Preserving Block Truncation Coding, Fundamenta Informaticae 73 (2006) 373–387 373 IOS Press).
Strengths: In this paper the authors have generated the stego image using the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) to solve the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) formulation which is quite interesting. A sufficient number of statistical measures are used to evaluate the performance of the image steganography scheme developed in the proposed work. The paper represents a well defined and detailed research in the field of image steganography using DCT. The method for analyzing is interesting.
Weaknesses: The authors should incorporate execution time analysis to support the strengths claimed in the manuscript. In addition the authors have mentioned that the payload capacity is higher in the proposed work and at the same time it is questionable that there is a limitation of having the cover image size double of the secret image size.
The article is well written and can be accepted with few corrections as detailed below.
1. Execution time analysis should be added.
2. Comparative analysis should be elaborated since there are existing methods available in literature which can be compared with the proposed work.
3. Justification on the claimed payload capacity is required.
The manuscript proposes a blind multi-image steganography scheme utilizing sparse approximation and novel embedding rule claiming to improve the embedding capacity and enhance security too. The manuscript has a well-written introduction and very recent relevant literature has all been cited and authors could relate their work with these recent works and put it in proper perspective. All the figures and data reported through the analysis are optimum.
At some places, the discussion appears disconnected and that, I believe, is due to inefficient use of language. Therefore the language part could have been improved a bit.
The manuscript reports an original piece of work by the authors and attempts a contemporary research problem that provides a better solution. The objectives and motivation behind the proposed work and its strategy are well explained. The algorithm and its steps of embedding the secret image, generating the stego-image and extraction of the secret images have been clearly explained with sufficient details. Authors could highlight their own contribution while discussing their algorithm in line with the recent works too.
For assessing the security of the proposed algorithm, the authors have used the images from well-known image databases and analysed all essential parameters like embedding capacity, stego-image quality and metrics like PSNR, MSSIM, NCC, NAE etc and the results prove the superiority of the proposed algorithm.
However, in the security analysis part, the authors claim that their algorithm is secure against the steganographic attacks just with the help of some arguments and through analysis by computing the NAE for the correct and wrong set of keys which appear a little incomplete or do not justify their claim fully. This part requires some improvement with some more technical details and supporting analysis.
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