Protection of medical images and patient related information in healthcare: Using an intelligent and reversible watermarking technique

This work presents an intelligent technique based on reversible watermarking for protecting patient and medical related information. In the proposed technique ‘IRW-Med’, the concept of companding function is exploited for reducing embedding distortion, while Integer Wavelet Transform (IWT) is used as an embedding domain for achieving reversibility. Histogram processing is employed to avoid underflow/overflow. In addition, the learning capabilities of Genetic Programming (GP) are exploited for intelligent wavelet coefficient selection. In this context, GP is used to evolve models that not only make an optimal tradeoff between imperceptibility and capacity of the watermark, but also exploit the wavelet coefficient hidden dependencies and information related to the type of sub band. The novelty of the proposed IRW-Med technique lies in its ability to generate a model that can find optimal wavelet coefficients for embedding, and also acts as a companding factor for watermark embedding. The proposed IRW-Med is thus able to embed watermark with low distortion, take out the hidden information, and also recovers the original image. The proposed IRW-Med technique is effective with respect to capacity and imperceptibility and effectiveness is demonstrated through experimental comparisons with existing techniques using standard images as well as a publically available medical image dataset

Integrasi Discrete Wavelet Transform dan Singular Value Decomposition pada Watermarking Citra untuk Perlindungan Hak Cipta

Tren masalah watermarking pada sekarang ini adalah bagaimana mengoptimalkan trade-off antara imperceptibility (visibilitas) citra ter-watermark terhadap pengaruh distorsi dan robustness terhadap penyisipan watermark. Masalah menggunakan kekuatan penyisipan berdasarkan Single Scaling Factor (SSF) atau Multiple Scaling Factor (MSF) juga ditemukan. Penelitian ini mengusulkan metode penyisipan watermark untuk perlindungan hak cipta pada citra dan algoritma ekstraksi citra ter-watermark yang dioptimalkan dengan penggabungan Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) dan Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). Nilai-nilai singular dari LL3 koefisien sub-band dari citra host dimodifikasi menggunakan nilai tunggal citra watermark biner menggunakan MSFs. Kontribusi utama dari skema yang diusulkan adalah aplikasi DWT-SVD untuk mengidentifikasi beberapa faktor skala yang optimal. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa skema yang diusulkan menghasilkan nilai Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) yang tinggi, yang menunjukkan bahwa kualitas visual gambar yang baik pada masalah citra watermarking telah mengoptimalkan trade-off. Trade-off antara imperceptibility (visibilitas) citra ter-watermark terhadap pengaruh distorsi dan robustness citra ter-watermark terhadap operasi pengolahan citra. Nilai PSNR yang didapat pada citra yang diujikan: baboon=53,184; boat=53,328; cameraman=53,700; lena=53,668; man=53,328; dan pepper sebesar 52,662. Delapan perlakuan khusus pada hasil citra ter-watermark diujikan dan diekstraksi kembali yaitu JPEG 5%, Noise 5%, Gaussian filter 3x3, Sharpening, Histogram Equalization, Scaling 512-256, Gray Quantitation 1bit, dan Cropping 1/8. Hasil dari perlakuan khusus kemudian diukur nilai Normalized Cross-Correlation (NC) yang menghasilkan rata-rata semua citra diperoleh sebesar 0,999 dari satu. Hasil penelitian dari metode yang diusulkan lebih unggul nilai PSNR dan NC dari penelitian sebelumnya. Jadi dapat disimpulkan bahwa penerapan dengan metode DWT-SVD ini mampu menghasilkan citra yang robust namun memiliki tingkat imperceptibility yang cukup tinggi

Reversible Image Watermarking Using Modified Quadratic Difference Expansion and Hybrid Optimization Technique

With increasing copyright violation cases, watermarking of digital images is a very popular solution for securing online media content. Since some sensitive applications require image recovery after watermark extraction, reversible watermarking is widely preferred. This article introduces a Modified Quadratic Difference Expansion (MQDE) and fractal encryption-based reversible watermarking for securing the copyrights of images. First, fractal encryption is applied to watermarks using Tromino's L-shaped theorem to improve security. In addition, Cuckoo Search-Grey Wolf Optimization (CSGWO) is enforced on the cover image to optimize block allocation for inserting an encrypted watermark such that it greatly increases its invisibility. While the developed MQDE technique helps to improve coverage and visual quality, the novel data-driven distortion control unit ensures optimal performance. The suggested approach provides the highest level of protection when retrieving the secret image and original cover image without losing the essential information, apart from improving transparency and capacity without much tradeoff. The simulation results of this approach are superior to existing methods in terms of embedding capacity. With an average PSNR of 67 dB, the method shows good imperceptibility in comparison to other schemes

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

Performance Analysis on Text Steganalysis Method Using A Computational Intelligence Approach

In this paper, a critical view of the utilization ofcomputational intelligence approach from the text steganalysisperspective is presented. This paper proposes a formalization ofgenetic algorithm method in order to detect hidden message on ananalyzed text. Five metric parameters such as running time, fitnessvalue, average mean probability, variance probability, and standarddeviation probability were used to measure the detection performancebetween statistical methods and genetic algorithm methods.Experiments conducted using both methods showed that geneticalgorithm method performs much better than statistical method,especially in detecting short analyzed texts. Thus, the findings showedthat the genetic algorithm method on analyzed stego text is verypromising. For future work, several significant factors such as datasetenvironment, searching process and types of fitness values throughother intelligent methods of computational intelligence should beinvestigated

A review and open issues of multifarious image steganography techniques in spatial domain

Nowadays, information hiding is becoming a helpful technique and fetch more attention due fast growth of using internet, it is applied for sending secret information by using different techniques. Steganography is one of major important technique in information hiding. Steganography is science of concealing the secure information within a carrier object to provide the secure communication though the internet, so that no one can recognize and detect it’s except the sender & receiver. In steganography, many various carrier formats can be used such as an image, video, protocol, audio. The digital image is most popular used as a carrier file due its frequency on internet. There are many techniques variable for image steganography, each has own strong and weak points. In this study, we conducted a review of image steganography in spatial domain to explore the term image steganography by reviewing, collecting, synthesizing and analyze the challenges of different studies which related to this area published from 2014 to 2017. The aims of this review is provides an overview of image steganography and comparison between approved studies are discussed according to the pixel selection, payload capacity and embedding algorithm to open important research issues in the future works and obtain a robust method