Abstract This paper presents a separable Reversible Data Hiding Algorithm for Encrypted Images (RDHEI) that consists of three phases. The encryption phase in the algorithm circularly shifts the columns in the image by a random amount, blocks the image into equal and regular blocks and maps them to irregular blocks generated based on Hilbert filling curve, and finally complements a random subset of the blocks. The embedding phase is essentially an adapted version of the modification of the prediction errors algorithm that is applied to each block in the encrypted image independently. In the decryption phase, and since the algorithm is separable, the user can extract the data only, decrypt the image only, or can perform both actions depending on the type of keys he has. When compared to a very similar and recent algorithm, performance evaluation proved the ability of the proposed algorithm in increasing the embedding capacity with reasonable quality of the directly decrypted image. In terms of the security, the analytical and quantitative assessment showed the superiority of the proposed algorithm in protecting the encrypted image.

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[24] Zhang X., Qian Z., Feng G., and Ren Y., “Efficient Reversible Data Hiding in Encrypted Images,” Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 322-328, 2014. Iyad Jafar received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from The University of Jordan in 2001, the M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2004, and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from Wayne State University in 2008. He is currently working as a professor and acting chair in the Department of Computer Engineering at the University of Jordan. His research interests are in signal and image processing, pattern recognition, and computer networks. Khalid Darabkh Received the PhD degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2007 with honors. He is currently a professor in the Computer Engineering Department at the University of Jordan. He authored and co-authored of at least a hundred eighty highly esteemed research articles. He is among World’s Top 2% Scientists List compiled by Stanford University in 2020 and 2021. He serves on the Editorial Board of Telecommunication Systems, published by Springer, Computer Applications in Engineering Education, published by John Wiley & Sons, and Journal of High Speed Networks, published by IOS Press. Additionally, he serves as a TPC member of highly reputable IEEE conferences such as GLOBECOM, ICC, LCN, VTC- Fall, PIMRC, ISWCS, ATC, ICT, and IAEAC. He is engaged in research mainly on Internet of things, Software-defined networks, vehicular networks, flying ad-hoc networks, Fog networking, Full duplex cognitive radio networks, queuing systems and networks, multimedia transmission, channel coding, steganography and watermarking, as well as innovative and interactive learning environments. Fahed Jubair graduated from Purdue University in 2014 with a Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received his B.Sc. degree from the University of Jordan in 2007. Dr. Jubair is currently an assistant professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Jordan. His main research interests include optimizing compilers, parallel computing, heuristic algorithms, and machine learning.