An enhanced method based on intermediate significant bit technique for watermark images

Intermediate Significant Bit digital watermarking technique (ISB) is a new approved technique of embedding a watermark by replacing the original image pixels with new pixels. This is done by ensuring a close connection between the new pixels and the original, and at the same time, the watermark data can be protected against possible damage. One of the most popular methods used in watermarking is the Least Significant Bit (LSB). It uses a spatial domain that includes the insertion of the watermark in the LSB of the image. The problem with this method is it is not resilient to common damage, and there is the possibility of image distortion after embedding a watermark. LSB may be used through replacing one bit, two bits, or three bits; this is done by changing the specific bits without any change in the other bits in the pixel. The objective of this thesis is to formulate new algorithms for digital image watermarking with enhanced image quality and robustness by embedding two bits of watermark data into each pixel of the original image based on ISB technique. However, to understand the opposite relationship between the image quality and robustness, a tradeoff between them has been done to create a balance and to acquire the best position for the two embedding bits. Dual Intermediate Significant Bits (DISB) technique has been proposed to solve the existing LSB problem. Trial results obtained from this technique are better compared with the LSB based on the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Normalized Cross Correlation (NCC). The work in this study also contributes new mathematical equations that can study the change on the other six bits in the pixel after embedding two bits

Towards Optimal Copyright Protection Using Neural Networks Based Digital Image Watermarking

In the field of digital watermarking, digital image watermarking for copyright protection has attracted a lot of attention in the research community. Digital watermarking contains varies techniques for protecting the digital content. Among all those techniques,Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) provides higher image imperceptibility and robustness. Over the years, researchers have been designing watermarking techniques with robustness in mind, in order for the watermark to be resistant against any image processing techniques. Furthermore, the requirements of a good watermarking technique includes a tradeoff between robustness, image quality (imperceptibility) and capacity. In this paper, we have done an extensive literature review for the existing DWT techniques and those combined with other techniques such as Neural Networks. In addition to that, we have discuss the contribution of Neural Networks in copyright protection. Finally we reached our goal in which we identified the research gaps existed in the current watermarking schemes. So that, it will be easily to obtain an optimal techniques to make the watermark object robust to attacks while maintaining the imperceptibility to enhance the copyright protection

Hiding data in images using steganography techniques with compression algorithms

Steganography is the science and art of secret communication between two sides that attempt to hide the content of the message. It is the science of embedding information into the cover image without causing a loss in the cover image after embedding.Steganography is the art and technology of writing hidden messages in such a manner that no person, apart from the sender and supposed recipient, suspects the lifestyles of the message. It is gaining huge attention these days as it does now not attract attention to its information's existence. In this paper, a comparison of two different techniques is given. The first technique used Least Significant Bit (LSB) with no encryption and no compression. In the second technique, the secret message is encrypted first then LSB technique is applied. Moreover, Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) is used to transform the image into the frequency domain. The LSB algorithm is implemented in spatial domain in which the payload bits are inserted into the least significant bits of cover image to develop the stego-image while DCT algorithm is implemented in frequency domain in which the stego-image is transformed from spatial domain to the frequency domain and the payload bits are inserted into the frequency components of the cover image.The performance of these two techniques is evaluated on the basis of the parameters MSE and PSNR

A Novel Block-based Watermarking Scheme Using the SVD Transform

In this paper, a block-based watermarking scheme based on the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is proposed. Our watermark, a pseudo-random Gaussian sequence, is embedded by modifying the angles formed by the right singular vectors of each block of the original image. The orthogonality property of the right singular vector matrix is preserved during the embedding process. Several experiments have been carried out to test the performance of the proposed scheme against different attack scenarios. We conclude that the proposed scheme is resistant against common signal processing operations and attacks, while it preserves the quality of the original image

A novel multipurpose watermarking scheme capable of protecting and authenticating images with tamper detection and localisation abilities

Technologies that fall under the umbrella of Industry 4.0 can be classified into one of its four significant components: cyber-physical systems, the internet of things (IoT), on-demand availability of computer system resources, and cognitive computing. The success of this industrial revolution lies in how well these components can communicate with each other, and work together in finding the most optimised solution for an assigned task. It is achieved by sharing data collected from a network of sensors. This data is communicated via images, videos, and a variety of other signals, attracting unwanted attention of hackers. The protection of such data is therefore pivotal, as is maintaining its integrity. To this end, this paper proposes a novel image watermarking scheme with potential applications in Industry 4.0. The strategy presented is multipurpose; one such purpose is authenticating the transmitted image, another is curtailing the illegal distribution of the image by providing copyright protection. To this end, two new watermarking methods are introduced, one of which is for embedding the robust watermark, and the other is related to the fragile watermark. The robust watermark's embedding is achieved in the frequency domain, wherein the frequency coefficients are selected using a novel mean-based coefficient selection procedure. Subsequently, the selected coefficients are manipulated in equal proportion to embed the robust watermark. The fragile watermark's embedding is achieved in the spatial domain, wherein self-generated fragile watermark(s) is embedded by directly altering the pixel bits of the host image. The effective combination of two domains results in a hybrid scheme and attains the vital balance between the watermarking requirements of imperceptibility, security and capacity. Moreover, in the case of tampering, the proposed scheme not only authenticates and provides copyright protection to images but can also detect tampering and localise the tampered regions. An extensive evaluation of the proposed scheme on typical images has proven its superiority over existing state-of-the-art methods

Application of Stochastic Diffusion for Hiding High Fidelity Encrypted Images

Cryptography coupled with information hiding has received increased attention in recent years and has become a major research theme because of the importance of protecting encrypted information in any Electronic Data Interchange system in a way that is both discrete and covert. One of the essential limitations in any cryptography system is that the encrypted data provides an indication on its importance which arouses suspicion and makes it vulnerable to attack. Information hiding of Steganography provides a potential solution to this issue by making the data imperceptible, the security of the hidden information being a threat only if its existence is detected through Steganalysis. This paper focuses on a study methods for hiding encrypted information, specifically, methods that encrypt data before embedding in host data where the ‘data’ is in the form of a full colour digital image. Such methods provide a greater level of data security especially when the information is to be submitted over the Internet, for example, since a potential attacker needs to first detect, then extract and then decrypt the embedded data in order to recover the original information. After providing an extensive survey of the current methods available, we present a new method of encrypting and then hiding full colour images in three full colour host images with out loss of fidelity following data extraction and decryption. The application of this technique, which is based on a technique called ‘Stochastic Diffusion’ are wide ranging and include covert image information interchange, digital image authentication, video authentication, copyright protection and digital rights management of image data in general

Color image steganography in YCbCr space

Steganography is a best method for in secret communicating information during the transference of data. Images are an appropriate method that used in steganography can be used to protection the simple bits and pieces. Several systems, this one as color scale images steganography and grayscale images steganography, are used on color and store data in different techniques. These color images can have very big amounts of secret data, by using three main color modules. The different color modules, such as HSV-(hue, saturation, and value), RGB-(red, green, and blue), YCbCr-(luminance and chrominance), YUV, YIQ, etc. This paper uses unusual module to hide data: an adaptive procedure that can increase security ranks when hiding a top secret binary image in a RGB color image, which we implement the steganography in the YCbCr module space. We performed Exclusive-OR (XOR) procedures between the binary image and the RGB color image in the YCBCR module space. The converted byte stored in the 8-bit LSB is not the actual bytes; relatively, it is obtained by translation to another module space and applies the XOR procedure. This technique is practical to different groups of images. Moreover, we see that the adaptive technique ensures good results as the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and stands for mean square error (MSE) are good. When the technique is compared with our previous works and other existing techniques, it is shown to be the best in both error and message capability. This technique is easy to model and simple to use and provides perfect security with unauthorized

Visual secret sharing and related Works -A Review

The accelerated development of network technology and internet applications has increased the significance of protecting digital data and images from unauthorized access and manipulation. The secret image-sharing network (SIS) is a crucial technique used to protect private digital photos from illegal editing and copying. SIS can be classified into two types: single-secret sharing (SSS) and multi-secret sharing (MSS). In SSS, a single secret image is divided into multiple shares, while in MSS, multiple secret images are divided into multiple shares. Both SSS and MSS ensure that the original secret images cannot be reconstructed without the correct combination of shares. Therefore, several secret image-sharing methods have been developed depending on these two methods for example visual cryptography, steganography, discrete wavelet transform, watermarking, and threshold. All of these techniques are capable of randomly dividing the secret image into a large number of shares, each of which cannot provide any information to the intrusion team.  This study examined various visual secret-sharing schemes as unique examples of participant secret-sharing methods. Several structures that generalize and enhance VSS were also discussed in this study on covert image-sharing protocols and also this research also gives a comparative analysis of several methods based on various attributes in order to better concentrate on the future directions of the secret image. Generally speaking, the image quality generated employing developed methodologies is preferable to the image quality achieved through using the traditional visual secret-sharing methodology