Watermarking for multimedia security using complex wavelets

This paper investigates the application of complex wavelet transforms to the field of digital data hiding. Complex wavelets offer improved directional selectivity and shift invariance over their discretely sampled counterparts allowing for better adaptation of watermark distortions to the host media. Two methods of deriving visual models for the watermarking system are adapted to the complex wavelet transforms and their performances are compared. To produce improved capacity a spread transform embedding algorithm is devised, this combines the robustness of spread spectrum methods with the high capacity of quantization based methods. Using established information theoretic methods, limits of watermark capacity are derived that demonstrate the superiority of complex wavelets over discretely sampled wavelets. Finally results for the algorithm against commonly used attacks demonstrate its robustness and the improved performance offered by complex wavelet transforms

A secure image steganography based on JND model

Minimizing distortion produced by embedding process is very important to improve the security of hidden message and maintain the high visual quality of stego images. To achieve these objectives, an effective strategy is to perform pixel selection which is well-known as a channel selection rule. In this approach, a pixel associated with the smallest image degradation is chosen to carry secret bits. From these facts, in this paper, a new secure channel selection rule for digital images in spatial domain is designed and proposed. In this new approach, the modified matrix embedding method is utilized as data hiding method because it introduces more than one embedding change to be performed. This enables us to select a suitable pixel to embed message bits with less degradation yielded in a stego-image. In pixel selection of the proposed method, a just noticeable difference value and gradient value of a considering pixel are employed together. The experimental results (which were conducted on 10,000 uncompressed images) indicate that stego images of the proposed approach achieve a higher perceptual quality and security than those of the stego-images created by the previous approaches

Spread spectrum-based video watermarking algorithms for copyright protection

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/2263 on 14.03.2017 by CS (TIS)Digital technologies know an unprecedented expansion in the last years. The consumer can now benefit from hardware and software which was considered state-of-the-art several years ago. The advantages offered by the digital technologies are major but the same digital technology opens the door for unlimited piracy. Copying an analogue VCR tape was certainly possible and relatively easy, in spite of various forms of protection, but due to the analogue environment, the subsequent copies had an inherent loss in quality. This was a natural way of limiting the multiple copying of a video material. With digital technology, this barrier disappears, being possible to make as many copies as desired, without any loss in quality whatsoever. Digital watermarking is one of the best available tools for fighting this threat. The aim of the present work was to develop a digital watermarking system compliant with the recommendations drawn by the EBU, for video broadcast monitoring. Since the watermark can be inserted in either spatial domain or transform domain, this aspect was investigated and led to the conclusion that wavelet transform is one of the best solutions available. Since watermarking is not an easy task, especially considering the robustness under various attacks several techniques were employed in order to increase the capacity/robustness of the system: spread-spectrum and modulation techniques to cast the watermark, powerful error correction to protect the mark, human visual models to insert a robust mark and to ensure its invisibility. The combination of these methods led to a major improvement, but yet the system wasn't robust to several important geometrical attacks. In order to achieve this last milestone, the system uses two distinct watermarks: a spatial domain reference watermark and the main watermark embedded in the wavelet domain. By using this reference watermark and techniques specific to image registration, the system is able to determine the parameters of the attack and revert it. Once the attack was reverted, the main watermark is recovered. The final result is a high capacity, blind DWr-based video watermarking system, robust to a wide range of attacks.BBC Research & Developmen

Estimating Watermarking Capacity in Gray Scale Images Based on Image Complexity

Capacity is one of the most important parameters in image watermarking. Different works have been done on this subject with different assumptions on image and communication channel. However, there is not a global agreement to estimate watermarking capacity. In this paper, we suggest a method to find the capacity of images based on their complexities. We propose a new method to estimate image complexity based on the concept of Region Of Interest (ROI). Our experiments on 2000 images showed that the proposed measure has the best adoption with watermarking capacity in comparison with other complexity measures. In addition, we propose a new method to calculate capacity using proposed image complexity measure. Our proposed capacity estimation method shows better robustness and image quality in comparison with recent works in this field

Improved content based watermarking for images

Due to improvements in imaging technologies and the ease with which digital content can be created and manipulated, there is need for the copyright protection of digital content. It is also essential to have techniques for authentication of the content as well as the owner. To this end, this thesis proposes a robust and transparent scheme of watermarking that exploits the human visual systems’ sensitivity to frequency, along with local image characteristics obtained from the spatial domain, improving upon the content based image watermarking scheme of Kay and Izquierdo. We implement changes in this algorithm without much distortion to the image, while making it possible to extract the watermark by use of correlation. The underlying idea is generating a visual mask based on the human visual systems’ perception of image content. This mask is used to embed a decimal sequence, while keeping its amplitude below the distortion sensitivity of the image pixel. We consider texture, luminance, corner and the edge information in the image to generate a mask that makes the addition of the watermark less perceptible to the human eye. The operation of embedding and extraction of the watermark is done in the frequency domain thereby providing robustness against common frequency-based attacks including image compression and filtering. We use decimal sequences for watermarking instead of pseudo random sequences, providing us with a greater flexibility in the choice of sequence. Weighted Peak Signal to Noise Ratio is used to evaluate the perceptual change between the original and the watermarked image