Reversible visible watermarking for H.264/AVC encoded video

Visible watermarked images and videos are generally used to convey ownership information. However, the visible watermark is generally irreversible and thus authenticated users cannot recover the original image or video quality after watermark extraction. This poses a limitation in various scenarios including military, law and medical applications. This paper presents a novel reversible visible watermarking scheme for H.264/AVC encoded video sequences. The proposed approach reversibly embeds the residual information that will then be used by the decoder to recover the original image. The residual information is losslessly compressed using the ZLib Deflector algorithm to minimize the information to be embedded. The compressed information is then encrypted using the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Simulation results clearly demonstrate the superiority of the proposed scheme to current state of the art where Peak Signal-to-Noise Ration (PSNR) gains of up to 7 dB were achieved.peer-reviewe

A contrast-sensitive reversible visible image watermarking technique

A reversible (also called lossless, distortion-free, or invertible) visible watermarking scheme is proposed to satisfy the applications, in which the visible watermark is expected to combat copyright piracy but can be removed to losslessly recover the original image. We transparently reveal the watermark image by overlapping it on a user-specified region of the host image through adaptively adjusting the pixel values beneath the watermark, depending on the human visual system-based scaling factors. In order to achieve reversibility, a reconstruction/ recovery packet, which is utilized to restore the watermarked area, is reversibly inserted into non-visibly-watermarked region. The packet is established according to the difference image between the original image and its approximate version instead of its visibly watermarked version so as to alleviate its overhead. For the generation of the approximation, we develop a simple prediction technique that makes use of the unaltered neighboring pixels as auxiliary information. The recovery packet is uniquely encoded before hiding so that the original watermark pattern can be reconstructed based on the encoded packet. In this way, the image recovery process is carried out without needing the availability of the watermark. In addition, our method adopts data compression for further reduction in the recovery packet size and improvement in embedding capacity. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed scheme compared to the existing methods

Preventing Unauthorized AI Over-Analysis by Medical Image Adversarial Watermarking

The advancement of deep learning has facilitated the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into clinical practices, particularly in computer-aided diagnosis. Given the pivotal role of medical images in various diagnostic procedures, it becomes imperative to ensure the responsible and secure utilization of AI techniques. However, the unauthorized utilization of AI for image analysis raises significant concerns regarding patient privacy and potential infringement on the proprietary rights of data custodians. Consequently, the development of pragmatic and cost-effective strategies that safeguard patient privacy and uphold medical image copyrights emerges as a critical necessity. In direct response to this pressing demand, we present a pioneering solution named Medical Image Adversarial watermarking (MIAD-MARK). Our approach introduces watermarks that strategically mislead unauthorized AI diagnostic models, inducing erroneous predictions without compromising the integrity of the visual content. Importantly, our method integrates an authorization protocol tailored for legitimate users, enabling the removal of the MIAD-MARK through encryption-generated keys. Through extensive experiments, we validate the efficacy of MIAD-MARK across three prominent medical image datasets. The empirical outcomes demonstrate the substantial impact of our approach, notably reducing the accuracy of standard AI diagnostic models to a mere 8.57% under white box conditions and 45.83% in the more challenging black box scenario. Additionally, our solution effectively mitigates unauthorized exploitation of medical images even in the presence of sophisticated watermark removal networks. Notably, those AI diagnosis networks exhibit a meager average accuracy of 38.59% when applied to images protected by MIAD-MARK, underscoring the robustness of our safeguarding mechanism

Additional information delivery to image content via improved unseen–visible watermarking

In a practical watermark scenario, watermarks are used to provide auxiliary information; in this way, an analogous digital approach called unseen–visible watermark has been introduced to deliver auxiliary information. In this algorithm, the embedding stage takes advantage of the visible and invisible watermarking to embed an owner logotype or barcodes as watermarks; in the exhibition stage, the equipped functions of the display devices are used to reveal the watermark to the naked eyes, eliminating any watermark exhibition algorithm. In this paper, a watermark complement strategy for unseen–visible watermarking is proposed to improve the embedding stage, reducing the histogram distortion and the visual degradation of the watermarked image. The presented algorithm exhibits the following contributions: first, the algorithm can be applied to any class of images with large smooth regions of low or high intensity; second, a watermark complement strategy is introduced to reduce the visual degradation and histogram distortion of the watermarked image; and third, an embedding error measurement is proposed. Evaluation results show that the proposed strategy has high performance in comparison with other algorithms, providing a high visual quality of the exhibited watermark and preserving its robustness in terms of readability and imperceptibility against geometric and processing attacks

Abordando fatores humanos no projeto de soluções criptográficas : dois estudos de caso em validação de itens e autenticação

Orientador: Ricardo DahabTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: O projeto de soluções criptográficas seguras a partir de uma perspectiva puramente teórica não é suficiente para garantir seu sucesso em cenários realistas. Diversas vezes, as premissas sob as quais estas soluções são propostas não poderiam estar mais longe das necessidades do mundo real. Um aspecto frequentemente esquecido, que pode influenciar em como a solução se sai ao ser integrada, é a forma como o usuário final interage com ela (i.e., fatores humanos). Neste trabalho, estudamos este problema através da análise de dois cenários de aplicação bem conhecidos da pesquisa em Segurança da Informação: O comércio eletrônico de itens digitais e Internet banking. Protocolos de trocas justas tem sido amplamente estudados, mas continuam não sendo implementados na maioria das transações de comércio eletrônico disponíveis. Para diversos tipos de itens digitais (e-goods), o modelo de negócios atual para comércio eletrônico falha em garantir justiça aos clientes. A validação de itens é um passo crítico em trocas justas, e recebeu pouca atenção dos pesquisadores. Nós acreditamos que estes problemas devam ser abordados de forma integrada, para que os protocolos de trocas justas possam ser efetivamente implementados no mercado. De forma geral, acreditamos também que isso seja um reflexo de paradigmas de projeto orientado a sistemas para soluções de segurança, que são centrados em dados em vez de usuários, o que resulta em métodos e técnicas que frequentemente desconsideram os requisitos de usuários. Contextualizamos como, ao subestimar as sutilezas do problema da validação de itens, o modelo atual para compra e venda de itens digitais falha em garantir sucesso, na perspectiva dos compradores, para as transações ¿ sendo, portanto, injusto por definição. Também introduzimos o conceito de Degradação Reversível, um método que inerentemente inclui o passo de validação de itens em transações de compra e venda com a finalidade de mitigar os problemas apresentados. Como prova-de-conceito, produzimos uma implementação de Degradação Reversível baseada em códigos corretores de erros sistemáticos (SECCs), destinada a conteúdo multimídia. Este método é também o subproduto de uma tentativa de incluir os requisitos do usuário no processo de construção de métodos criptográficos, uma abordagem que, em seguida, evoluímos para o denominado projeto de protocolos orientado a itens. De uma perspectiva semelhante, também propomos um método inovador para a autenticação de usuários e de transações para cenários de Internet Banking. O método proposto, baseado em Criptografia Visual, leva em conta tanto requisitos técnicos quanto de usuário, e cabe como um componente seguro ¿ e intuitivo ¿ para cenários práticos de autenticação de transaçõesAbstract: Designing secure cryptographic solutions from a purely theoretical perspective is not enough to guarantee their success in a realistic scenario. Many times, the assumptions under which these solutions are designed could not be further from real-world necessities. One particular, often-overlooked aspect that may impact how the solution performs after deployment is how the final user interacts with it (i.e., human factors). In this work, we take a deeper look into this issue by analyzing two well known application scenarios from Information Security research: The electronic commerce of digital items and Internet banking. Fair exchange protocols have been widely studied, but are still not implemented on most e-commerce transactions available. For several types of digital items (e-goods), the current e-commerce business model fails to provide fairness to customers. A critical step in fair exchange is item validation, which still lacks proper attention from researchers. We believe this issue should be addressed in a comprehensive and integrated fashion before fair exchange protocols can be effectively deployed in the marketplace. More generally, we also believe this to be the consequence of ongoing system-oriented security solution design paradigms that are data-centered, as opposed to user-centered, thus leading to methods and techniques that often disregard users¿ requirements. We contextualize how, by overlooking the subtleties of the item validation problem, the current model for buying and selling digital items fails to provide guarantees of a successful transaction outcome to customers, thus being unfair by design. We also introduce the concept of Reversible Degradation, a method for enhancing buy-sell transactions concerning digital items that inherently includes the item validation step in the purchase protocol in order to tackle the discussed problems. As a proof-of-concept, we produce a deliverable instantiation of Reversible Degradation based on systematic error correction codes (SECCs), suitable for multimedia content. This method is also the byproduct of an attempt to include users¿ requirements into the cryptographic method construction process, an approach that we further develop into a so-called item-aware protocol design. From a similar perspective, we also propose a novel method for user and transaction authentication for Internet Banking scenarios. The proposed method, which uses Visual Cryptography, takes both technical and user requirements into account, and is suitable as a secure ¿ yet intuitive ¿ component for practical transaction authentication scenariosDoutoradoCiência da ComputaçãoDoutor em Ciência da Computaçã

E-commerce And Fair Exchange - The Problem Of Item Validation

Fair exchange protocols have been widely studied since their proposal, but are still not implemented on most ecommerce transactions available. For several types of digital items (e-goods), the current e-commerce business models fail to provide fairness to customers. The item validation problem is a critical step in fair exchange, and is yet to receive the proper attention from researchers. We believe these issues should be addressed in a comprehensive and integrated fashion before fair exchange protocols can be effectively deployed in the marketplace. This is the aim of our research, and drawing attention to these problems and possible solutions is the goal of this paper.317324 Inst. Syst. Technol. Inf., Control Commun. (INSTICC)Asokan, N., Fairness in electronic commerce (1998) Research Report RZ3027Bottoni, A., Dini, G., Stabell-Kulø, T., A methodology for verification of digital items in fair exchange protocols with active trustee (2007) Electronic Commerce Research, 7, p. 2Cheng, H., Li, X., Partial encryption of compressed images and videos (2000) Signal Processing, IEEE Transactions on, 48 (8), pp. 2439-2451Gartner, F.C., Pagnia, H., Vogt, H., Approaching a formal definition of fairness in electronic commerce (1999) SRDSKremer, S., Markowitch, O., Zhou, J., An intensive survey of fair non-repudiation protocols (2002) Computer Communications, 25 (17), pp. 1606-1621Kwong, S., An algorithm for removable visible watermarking (2006) IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, 16 (1), pp. 129-133Lacoste, G., Pfitzmann, B., Steiner, M., Waidner, M., SEMPER - Secure electronic marketplace for europe (2000) Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), 1854Lian, S., (2009) Multimedia Content Encryption: Techniques and ApplicationsLoytynoja, M., Cvejic, N., Seppanen, T., Audio protection with removable watermarking (2007) 2007 6th International Conference on Information, Communications & Signal Processing, pp. 1-4. , IEEEMarkowitch, O., Roggeman, Y., Probabilistic non-repudiation without trusted third party (1999) Second Workshop on Security in Communication Network ̃ 99Minder, L., Cryptography based on error correcting codes (2007) Algo.epfl.chNenadic, A., Zhang, N., Barton, S., FIDES -A middleware ECommerce security solution (2004) The 3rd European Conference on Information Warfare and Security (ECIW), pp. 295-304Piva, F.R., (2009) Verificação Formal de Protocolos de Trocas Justas Utilizando O Método de Espaços de Fitas, , Master's thesis, UNICAMPPiva, F.R., Monteiro, J.R.M., Dahab, R., Strand spaces and fair exchange: More on how to trace attacks and security problems (2007) Anais Do VII SBSeg, Simpósio Brasileiro em Segurança da Informação e de Sistemas ComputacionaisPiva, F.R., Monteiro, J.R.M., Dahab, R., Regarding timeliness in the context of fair exchange (2009) Network and Service Security, 2009. N2S 09. International Conference on, pp. 1-6Piva, F.R., Monteiro, J.R.M., Devegili, A.J., Dahab, R., Applying strand spaces to certified delivery proofs (2006) Anais Do VI SBSeg, Simpósio Brasileiro em Segurança da Informação e de Sistemas ComputacionaisServetti, A., Testa, C., Martin, J.D., Frequency-selective partial encryption of compressed audio (2003) IEEE International Conference on AucousticsThayer, F.J., Herzog, J.C., Guttman, J.D., Strand spaces: Proving security protocols correct (1999) Journal of Computer Security, 7 (2-3), pp. 191-230Valimaki, M., Oksanen, V., (2006) DRM Interoperability and Intellectual Property Policy in EuropeVogt, H., Asynchronous optimistic fair exchange based on revocable items (2003) Financial Cryptography, pp. 208-22