Abstract
This paper introduces a new steganographic technique in which a set of concurrent hidden channels are established between a sender and multiple receivers. Each channel is protected by a separate key. The method can work with JPEC blocks in which an 8 x 8 block is divided into four non-overlapping sets, each consisting a covert channel that hides a single bit of information. A receiver can decode its independent hidden data using its dedicated key. The distortion of the covert channel data is controlled by minimizing the round-off error of the JPEG image. The method tries to keep the coefficients of the original histogram intact while carrying hidden bits. The method is immune against first order statistical detection.