System and method for digital steganography purification

A method for removing steganography from digital data, comprising:

• receiving, in a receiving device digital data including at least one of image data and audio data;
• scaling, in at least one processing device which having an encoder of a steganography purifier model, a magnitude of individual data elements of the digital data from a first value range to a second value range;
• downsampling, in the encoder architecture of the at least one processing device, the scaled data elements to remove steganography data embedded in the digital data and produce a purified version of the digital data;
• upsampling, in the at least one processing device having a decoder of a steganography purifier model, the purified version of the digital data by interpolating new data elements between one or more adjacent data elements to provide an upsampled purified version of the digital data;
• and
• scaling, in the decoder architecture of the at least one processing device, the data elements of the upsampled purified version of the digital data from the second value range to the first value range to generate a purified output version of the received digital data.

A method of training a system for removing steganography from digital data, the system having a receiving device and at least one processing device accessing a steganography purifier model having at least a generator for generating purified digital data and a discriminator for distinguishing between the purified digital data and cover data, the method comprising:

• receiving, in the receiving device, a plurality of digital datasets including steganography, each digital datasets including one of image data and audio data;
• scaling, via the generator of the at least one processing device, a magnitude of individual data elements of the digital dataset from a first value range to a second value range;
• downsampling, via the generator of the at least one processing device, the digital dataset with the scaled elements to remove steganography data embedded in the digital data and producing a purified version of the digital dataset;
• upsampling, via the generator of the at least one processing device, the purified version of the digital dataset by interpolating data between one or more adjacent data elements to provide an upsampled purified version of the digital dataset;
• scaling, via the generator of the at least one processing device, the data elements of the upsampled purified version from the second value range to the first value range to generate a purified output version of the received digital dataset;
• receiving, in the discriminator of the at least one processing device, the purified output version of the received digital dataset and a reference digital dataset, which corresponds to the digital dataset received by the receiving device;
• and
• determining, via the discriminator of the at least one processing device, which of the purified version of the received digital dataset and the reference digital dataset contained steganography.