Unified Description for Network Information Hiding Methods

TL;DR

This paper introduces a unified description framework for network steganography hiding methods, enabling easier comparison, categorization, and evaluation of new and existing techniques.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive, standardized description method for network steganography hiding techniques, facilitating better comparison and future research.

Findings

Enables consistent categorization of hiding methods

Facilitates comparison of different steganography techniques

Serves as a basis for evaluating new hiding methods

Abstract

Until now hiding methods in network steganography have been described in arbitrary ways, making them difficult to compare. For instance, some publications describe classical channel characteristics, such as robustness and bandwidth, while others describe the embedding of hidden information. We introduce the first unified description of hiding methods in network steganography. Our description method is based on a comprehensive analysis of the existing publications in the domain. When our description method is applied by the research community, future publications will be easier to categorize, compare and extend. Our method can also serve as a basis to evaluate the novelty of hiding methods proposed in the future.