GenSTEG: A Light and Scalable Trinary-Based Encryption With Multimodal Generative Steganography

The increasing demand for robust and scalable encryption algorithms is driven by rapid advancements in computing technology, and emerging technologies like quantum cryptanalysis pose significant threats to information security. This paper presents a novel trinary-based multistage encryption algorithm designed for scalability and enhanced security through the use of the less-explored trinary number system. By leveraging a dynamically adapting, pseudo-random, multi-dimensional key space and high diffusion transform, the algorithm introduces significant resistance to common attacks. Additionally, two innovative generative steganography schemes are proposed that algorithmically generate unique musical compositions or chess positions directly from the ciphertext. The overall algorithm operates at linear complexity, which ensures optimal performance. To contextualize practicality, the system is benchmarked against established lightweight cryptographic baselines, and a dataset of 1000 plaintext–ciphertext pairs has been publicly released to support independent analysis. Ultimately, this work presents a complete and flexible framework that uniquely combines a novel cipher with generative steganography, offering a robust and efficient system.