IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - September 2018 - 33

3 bits of target data are hidden within each sample of audio,
indicating that the average embedding capacity of the pro-
posed technique is 3 bpp. Approximately 14.29% of extra
capacity is added by considering 6 bits instead of seven for
representing a character.

STEGANOGRAPHIC STRENGTH
OF THE PROPOSED TECHNIQUE
High robustness is the strength of this proposed technique. Gen-
erally, most state-of-the-art works always use the same layer for
embedding target data repeatedly, which helps an attacker to
extract data just by knowing the fixed LSB positions, resulting
in the loss of both security and robustness.
The proposed audio steganography technique increases the
robustness and strength of security by considering randomly
chosen multiple LSB layers for embedding 3 bits of encrypted
target data. This makes a fool of the intruders and their efforts
to get steal the target data simply by knowing of its existence.
The intruders would need to know the concept of permutation,
the rule for choosing arrangements, the ASCII feature
(described in this article) for representing characters, and the
reversible nature of 2's complement arithmetic to get the actu-
al target data from the stego audio file.

STRENGTH OF DIGITAL SIGNATURES
Digital signature techniques ensure the authentication of the
medical center and, at the same time, confidentiality and
nonrepudiation as well as the integrity of stego audio for the
correct extraction of the target data. The encryption done at
the medical center by the center's private key (which is
known only by the medical center itself) ensures authentic-
ity as well as nonrepudiation. During transit, if any unwant-
ed recipient is able to decrypt the message by using the
center's public key (which is known by all), this may com-
promise the confidentiality and cause modifications as well
as damage the integrity; however, the tampered message
will not be sent because it has not been encrypted with the
medical center's actual private key. So when the embassy
receives this tampered message, it will be unable to decrypt
it with the corresponding public key of the medical center;
therefore, the embassy will discard the message due to the
false authentication.

CONCLUSION
The proposed system of secured medical-report transmis-
sion not only reduces the spread of communicable diseases
but also makes visa processing faster as well as more trans-
parent, which indirectly helps legitimate visa applicants.
The system is already proven as secure, in addition to being
robust. It provides multiple layers of security through prop-
er authentication, encryption, and steganography. But it is
not the aim of this method to limit the movement of travel-
ers; rather, its goal is to prevent the spread of communicable
diseases, thereby protecting a country's overall health, which,
when attacked by such grave diseases, gives rise to eco-
nomic crises.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Biswajita Datta (biswa.jita@gmail.com) is an assistant pro-
fessor of computer science and engineering at St. Thomas's
College of Engineering and Technology, Kolkata, India.
Prithwish Kumar Pal (palprithwish9@gmail.com) is a
security analyst working with ITC Infotech Ltd., Bengaluru,
India, as a security tester.
Samir Kumar Bandyopadhyay (1954samir@gmail.com)
is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and
Engineering at the University of Calcutta, India.

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http://www-03.ibm.com/security/data-breach https://www.securityforum.org/research/threat-horizon-2017-dangers-accelerate https://www.securityforum.org/research/threat-horizon-2017-dangers-accelerate http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/when-outbreaks-go-global-migration-and-public-health-time-zika http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/when-outbreaks-go-global-migration-and-public-health-time-zika http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/12/28/67604/how-dangerous-really-is-zika-for-babies/ http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/12/28/67604/how-dangerous-really-is-zika-for-babies/ https://dir.indiamart.com/amritsar/international-visa-service.html https://dir.indiamart.com/amritsar/international-visa-service.html

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - September 2018