Machine Learning in Image Steganalysis

Preface

Books are conceived with pleasure and completed with pain. Sometimes the result is not quite the book which was planned.

This is also the case for this book. I have learnt a lot from writing this book, and I have discovered a lot which I originally hoped to include, but which simply could not be learnt from the literature and will require a substantial future research effort. If the reader learns half as much as the author, the book will have been a great success.

The book was written largely as a tutorial for new researchers in the field, be they postgraduate research students or people who have earned their spurs in a different field. Therefore, brief introductions to much of the basic theory have been included. However, the book should also serve as a survey of the recent research in steganalysis. The survey is not complete, but since there has been no other book¹ dedicated to steganalysis, and very few longer survey papers, I hope it will be useful for many.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my many colleagues in the Computing Department at the University of Surrey, UK and the Engineering departments at Ålesund University College, Norway for all the inspiring discussions. Joint research with Dr Johann Briffa, Dr Stephan Wesemeyer and Mr (now Dr) Ainuddin Abdul Wahab has been essential to reach this point, and I owe them a lot. Most of all, thanks to my wife and son for their patience over the last couple of months. My wife has also been helpful with some ...