Steganographic Embeddings as an Effective Data Augmentation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: DiSalvo, Nicholas
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author DiSalvo, Nicholas
author_facet DiSalvo, Nicholas
contents Image Steganography is a cryptographic technique that embeds secret information into an image, ensuring the hidden data remains undetectable to the human eye while preserving the image's original visual integrity. Least Significant Bit (LSB) Steganography achieves this by replacing the k least significant bits of an image with the k most significant bits of a secret image, maintaining the appearance of the original image while simultaneously encoding the essential elements of the hidden data. In this work, we shift away from conventional applications of steganography in deep learning and explore its potential from a new angle. We present experimental results on CIFAR-10 showing that LSB Steganography, when used as a data augmentation strategy for downstream computer vision tasks such as image classification, can significantly improve the training efficiency of deep neural networks. It can also act as an implicit, uniformly discretized piecewise linear approximation of color augmentations such as (brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation), without introducing additional training overhead through a new joint image training regime that disregards the need for tuning sensitive augmentation hyperparameters.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_15245
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Steganographic Embeddings as an Effective Data Augmentation
DiSalvo, Nicholas
Cryptography and Security
Machine Learning
Multimedia
Image Steganography is a cryptographic technique that embeds secret information into an image, ensuring the hidden data remains undetectable to the human eye while preserving the image's original visual integrity. Least Significant Bit (LSB) Steganography achieves this by replacing the k least significant bits of an image with the k most significant bits of a secret image, maintaining the appearance of the original image while simultaneously encoding the essential elements of the hidden data. In this work, we shift away from conventional applications of steganography in deep learning and explore its potential from a new angle. We present experimental results on CIFAR-10 showing that LSB Steganography, when used as a data augmentation strategy for downstream computer vision tasks such as image classification, can significantly improve the training efficiency of deep neural networks. It can also act as an implicit, uniformly discretized piecewise linear approximation of color augmentations such as (brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation), without introducing additional training overhead through a new joint image training regime that disregards the need for tuning sensitive augmentation hyperparameters.
title Steganographic Embeddings as an Effective Data Augmentation
topic Cryptography and Security
Machine Learning
Multimedia
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.15245