International Journal of Computer Engineering and Information Technology VOL. 10, NO. 2, February 2018, 20–29 Available online at: www.ijceit.org E-ISSN 2412-8856 (Online) Efficiency of LSB and PVD Algorithms Used in Steganography Applications Blerim Rexha 1 , Petrit Rama 2 , Bujar Krasniqi 3* and Gentiana Seferi 4 1, 2, 3, 4 Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Prishtina, Kodra e Diellit p.n.10000 - Prishtina, Kosovo 1 blerim.rexha@uni-pr.edu, 2 petrit.rama@uni-pr.edu, 3 bujar.krasnqi@uni-pr.edu, 4 gentiana.seferi@uni-pr.edu ABSTRACT Steganography is the science of hiding secret information in other non-suspicious information allowing secret communication between parties. The steganographic process consists of secret information, the carrier file and steganographic algorithm. Each carrier has its own characteristics which affects the steganographic algorithm. However, what differentiates a steganographic algorithm from another is the efficiency for data hiding in the carrier. An algorithm is more efficient if it hides more secret information while maintaining the quality of the carrier. This paper compares different parameters that affect efficiency of LSB and PVD algorithms, impact of carrier type, format, and size. All these analyzes were done using SteganoFIEK application, developed in the framework of this paper, for experimental purposes. Furthermore, SteganoFIEK implementation of LSB is compared against other open-source applications. Keywords: Steganography, Steganalysis, LSB, PVD, Efficiency, Security. 1. INTRODUCTION Long time ago, when people began to communicate, there was a need for secret communication. Secret communication can be established in one of the two forms: steganography or cryptography. Comparing the two, steganography is older and it first appeared in primitive forms. Then, some more advanced forms of secret communication appeared, in form of cryptography. While cryptography scrambles the content of secret information, making it available only for the intended recipient, it does not hide the existence of secret communication. Steganography on the other hand, hides the existence of the secret message in a specific medium. Steganography is the art of secret writing or the science of hiding secret information in harmless information. Steganography through various algorithms conceals secret information in carrier file of types, such as text, images, video, audio, and even software. Whereas steganalysis is the science which tries to detect secret information in a stegano object. Steganalysis has a big impact in development of new algorithms as well as improving existing techniques in steganography. The word steganography comes from Greek, steganos “covered” and graphein “writing.” The German author Johannes Trithemius is the first to use this term, in his work “Steganographia” in 1499 [1]. The ancient Greeks were the first to use steganographic methods to hide secret messages, Herodotus among them. He shaved the head of his slaves and tattooed a message on it and as soon as the hair had grown back, the slave was sent to the recipient [2]. Many steganographic methods were used during World Wars, using invisible inks, microdots, null ciphers using Morse Code or other textual methods [3]. Before the 1990s, digital steganography was not considered as a science, but only as a set of methods for hiding secret messages for personal purposes. After this period, the number of scientific research and application about steganography and steganalysis has increased, culminating in 2001-2002, due to 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States of America. At that time, it was rumored that terrorists had used steganographic methods to plan these attacks [4]. In Fig. 1 is shown the growing number of scientific research about steganography and steganalysis, from 1996 to 2016 in the IEEE digital library.