Embedding Rate
Definition
The payload size divided by the carrier capacity, usually expressed as bits per pixel. Detection difficulty decreases sharply at low embedding rates because the statistical disturbance is proportionally smaller.
- Formula
- Payload size divided by carrier capacity
- Unit
- Bits per pixel
- Effect on detection
- Lower rate makes detection harder
Common questions
Why does a low embedding rate defeat many steganalysis tools?+
The statistical disturbance a hidden payload introduces scales with its size, so a small payload produces changes too subtle for many statistical detectors to flag reliably.
Does embedding rate alone determine detectability?+
No. The embedding algorithm and the carrier image's own content also matter, since some techniques hide the same amount of data more efficiently, per bit, than others.
Related terms
- Blind Steganalysis
- Detection without prior knowledge of the embedding algorithm. A classifier trained on images with and without payloads generalises across multiple tools.
- False Positive Rate (FPR)
- The proportion of true non-matches (or true negatives) that a classification method declares as matches (or positives). Also called the type I...
- Rich Model Steganalysis (SRM)
- A feature-extraction approach that computes hundreds of statistical features from pixel-residual co-occurrence matrices and feeds them to an ensemble classifier such as...
- Steganalysis
- The forensic discipline of detecting the presence of hidden data in a carrier file. Steganalysis uses statistical tests (chi-squared, RS analysis, sample...
- Targeted Steganalysis
- Detection methods designed against a specific steganography tool or algorithm. Effective when the tool is known but fails against novel or unknown...