A robust video watermarking using simulated block based spatial domain technique

A digital watermark embeds an imperceptible signal into data such as audio, video and images, for different purposes including authentication and tamper detection. Tamper detection techniques for video watermarking play a major role of forensic evidence in court. The existing techniques for concealing information in the multimedia host are mostly based on spatial domain rather than frequency domain. The spatial domain techniques are not as robust as frequency domain techniques. In order to improve the robustness of spatial domain, a watermark can be embedded several times repeatedly. In order for spatial domain techniques to be more efficient, more payload is needed to embed additional information. The additional information would include the redundant watermarks to ensure the achievable robustness and more metadata of pixels to ensure achievable efficiency to detect more attacks. All these required additional information will degrade the imperceptibility. This research focuses on video watermarking, particularly with respect to Audio Video Interleaved (AVI) form of video file format. The block-wise method is used to determine which block exactly altered. A high imperceptible and efficient tamper detection watermarking technique is proposed which embeds in first and second Least Significant Bits (LSB). The proposed technique divides the video stream to 2*2 nonoverlapping simulated blocks. Nine common attacks to video have been applied to the proposed technique. An imperceptible and efficient tamper detection technique with a novel method of video segmentation to comprise more pixels watermarked is proposed. Experimental results show the technique is able to detect the attacks with the average of Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) as 47.87dB. The results illustrate the proposed technique improves imperceptibility and efficiency of tamper detection

Robust color image watermarking using Discrete Wavelet Transform, Discrete Cosine Transform and Cat Face Transform

The primary concern in color image watermarking is to have an effective watermarking method that can be robust against common image processing attacks such as JPEG compression, rotation, sharpening, blurring, and salt and pepper attacks for copyright protection purposes. This research examined the existing color image watermarking methods to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and then proposed a new method and the best embedding place in the host image to enhance and overcome the existing gap in the color image watermarking methods. This research proposed a new robust color image watermarking method using Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), and Cat Face Transform. In this method, both host and watermark images decomposed into three color channels: red, green, and blue. The second level DWT was applied to each color channel of the host image. DWT decomposed the image into four sub-band coefficients: Low-pass filter in the row, Low-pass filter in the column (LL) signifies approximation coefficient, High-pass filter in the row, Low-pass filter in the column (HL) signifies horizontal coefficient, Low-pass filter in the row, High-pass filter in the column (LH) signifies vertical coefficient, and High-pass filter in the row, High-pass filter in the column (HH) signifies diagonal coefficient. Then, HL2 and LH2 were chosen as the embedding places to improve the robustness and security, and they were divided into 4×4 non-overlapping blocks, then DCT was applied on each block. DCT turned a signal into the frequency domain, which is effective in image processing, specifically in JPEG compression due to good performance. On the other hand, the Cat Face Transform method with a private key was used to enhance the robustness of the proposed method by scrambling the watermark image before embedding. Finally, the second private key was used to embed the watermark in the host image. The results show enhanced robustness against common image processing attacks: JPEG compression (3.37%), applied 2% salt and pepper (0.4%), applied 10% salt and pepper (2%), applied 1.0 radius sharpening (0.01%), applied 1.0 radius blurring (8.1%), and can withstand rotation attack. In sum, the proposed color image watermarking method indicates better robustness against common image processing attacks compared to other reviewed methods

Optimization of medical image steganography using n-decomposition genetic algorithm

Protecting patients' confidential information is a critical concern in medical image steganography. The Least Significant Bits (LSB) technique has been widely used for secure communication. However, it is susceptible to imperceptibility and security risks due to the direct manipulation of pixels, and ASCII patterns present limitations. Consequently, sensitive medical information is subject to loss or alteration. Despite attempts to optimize LSB, these issues persist due to (1) the formulation of the optimization suffering from non-valid implicit constraints, causing inflexibility in reaching optimal embedding, (2) lacking convergence in the searching process, where the message length significantly affects the size of the solution space, and (3) issues of application customizability where different data require more flexibility in controlling the embedding process. To overcome these limitations, this study proposes a technique known as an n-decomposition genetic algorithm. This algorithm uses a variable-length search to identify the best location to embed the secret message by incorporating constraints to avoid local minimum traps. The methodology consists of five main phases: (1) initial investigation, (2) formulating an embedding scheme, (3) constructing a decomposition scheme, (4) integrating the schemes' design into the proposed technique, and (5) evaluating the proposed technique's performance based on parameters using medical datasets from kaggle.com. The proposed technique showed resistance to statistical analysis evaluated using Reversible Statistical (RS) analysis and histogram. It also demonstrated its superiority in imperceptibility and security measured by MSE and PSNR to Chest and Retina datasets (0.0557, 0.0550) and (60.6696, 60.7287), respectively. Still, compared to the results obtained by the proposed technique, the benchmark outperforms the Brain dataset due to the homogeneous nature of the images and the extensive black background. This research has contributed to genetic-based decomposition in medical image steganography and provides a technique that offers improved security without compromising efficiency and convergence. However, further validation is required to determine its effectiveness in real-world applications

Audio Encryption Framework Using the Laplace Transformation

Digital information, especially multimedia and its applications, has grown exponentially in recent years. It is important to strengthen sophisticated encryption algorithms due to the security needs of these innovative systems. The security of real-time audio applications is ensured in the present study through a framework for encryption. The design framework protects the confidentiality and integrity of voice communications by encrypting audio applications. A modern method of securing communication and protecting data is cryptography. Using cryptography is one of the most important techniques for protecting data and ensuring the security of messaging. The main purpose of this paper is to present a novel encryption scheme that can be used in real-time audio applications. We encrypt the sound using a combination of an infinite series of hyperbolic functions and the Laplace transform, and then decrypt it using the inverse Laplace transform. The modular arithmetic rules are used to generate the key for the coefficients acquired from the transformation. There is no loss of data or noise in the decryption sound. We also put several sound examples to the tes

Adversarial Deep Learning and Security with a Hardware Perspective

Adversarial deep learning is the field of study which analyzes deep learning in the presence of adversarial entities. This entails understanding the capabilities, objectives, and attack scenarios available to the adversary to develop defensive mechanisms and avenues of robustness available to the benign parties. Understanding this facet of deep learning helps us improve the safety of the deep learning systems against external threats from adversaries. However, of equal importance, this perspective also helps the industry understand and respond to critical failures in the technology. The expectation of future success has driven significant interest in developing this technology broadly. Adversarial deep learning stands as a balancing force to ensure these developments remain grounded in the real-world and proceed along a responsible trajectory. Recently, the growth of deep learning has begun intersecting with the computer hardware domain to improve performance and efficiency for resource constrained application domains. The works investigated in this dissertation constitute our pioneering efforts in migrating adversarial deep learning into the hardware domain alongside its parent field of research

Digital Watermarking for Verification of Perception-based Integrity of Audio Data

In certain application fields digital audio recordings contain sensitive content. Examples are historical archival material in public archives that preserve our cultural heritage, or digital evidence in the context of law enforcement and civil proceedings. Because of the powerful capabilities of modern editing tools for multimedia such material is vulnerable to doctoring of the content and forgery of its origin with malicious intent. Also inadvertent data modification and mistaken origin can be caused by human error. Hence, the credibility and provenience in terms of an unadulterated and genuine state of such audio content and the confidence about its origin are critical factors. To address this issue, this PhD thesis proposes a mechanism for verifying the integrity and authenticity of digital sound recordings. It is designed and implemented to be insensitive to common post-processing operations of the audio data that influence the subjective acoustic perception only marginally (if at all). Examples of such operations include lossy compression that maintains a high sound quality of the audio media, or lossless format conversions. It is the objective to avoid de facto false alarms that would be expectedly observable in standard crypto-based authentication protocols in the presence of these legitimate post-processing. For achieving this, a feasible combination of the techniques of digital watermarking and audio-specific hashing is investigated. At first, a suitable secret-key dependent audio hashing algorithm is developed. It incorporates and enhances so-called audio fingerprinting technology from the state of the art in contentbased audio identification. The presented algorithm (denoted as ”rMAC” message authentication code) allows ”perception-based” verification of integrity. This means classifying integrity breaches as such not before they become audible. As another objective, this rMAC is embedded and stored silently inside the audio media by means of audio watermarking technology. This approach allows maintaining the authentication code across the above-mentioned admissible post-processing operations and making it available for integrity verification at a later date. For this, an existent secret-key ependent audio watermarking algorithm is used and enhanced in this thesis work. To some extent, the dependency of the rMAC and of the watermarking processing from a secret key also allows authenticating the origin of a protected audio. To elaborate on this security aspect, this work also estimates the brute-force efforts of an adversary attacking this combined rMAC-watermarking approach. The experimental results show that the proposed method provides a good distinction and classification performance of authentic versus doctored audio content. It also allows the temporal localization of audible data modification within a protected audio file. The experimental evaluation finally provides recommendations about technical configuration settings of the combined watermarking-hashing approach. Beyond the main topic of perception-based data integrity and data authenticity for audio, this PhD work provides new general findings in the fields of audio fingerprinting and digital watermarking. The main contributions of this PhD were published and presented mainly at conferences about multimedia security. These publications were cited by a number of other authors and hence had some impact on their works

New watermarking methods for digital images.

The phenomenal spread of the Internet places an enormous demand on content-ownership-validation. In this thesis, four new image-watermarking methods are presented. One method is based on discrete-wavelet-transformation (DWT) only while the rest are based on DWT and singular-value-decomposition (SVD) ensemble. The main target for this thesis is to reach a new blind-watermarking-method. Method IV presents such watermark using QR-codes. The use of QR-codes in watermarking is novel. The choice of such application is based on the fact that QR-Codes have errors self-correction-capability of 5% or higher which satisfies the nature of digital-image-processing. Results show that the proposed-methods introduced minimal distortion to the watermarked images as compared to other methods and are robust against JPEG, resizing and other attacks. Moreover, watermarking-method-II provides a solution to the detection of false watermark in the literature. Finally, method IV presents a new QR-code guided watermarking-approach that can be used as a steganography as well. --Leaf ii.The original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b183575

Discrete Wavelet Transforms

The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) algorithms have a firm position in processing of signals in several areas of research and industry. As DWT provides both octave-scale frequency and spatial timing of the analyzed signal, it is constantly used to solve and treat more and more advanced problems. The present book: Discrete Wavelet Transforms: Algorithms and Applications reviews the recent progress in discrete wavelet transform algorithms and applications. The book covers a wide range of methods (e.g. lifting, shift invariance, multi-scale analysis) for constructing DWTs. The book chapters are organized into four major parts. Part I describes the progress in hardware implementations of the DWT algorithms. Applications include multitone modulation for ADSL and equalization techniques, a scalable architecture for FPGA-implementation, lifting based algorithm for VLSI implementation, comparison between DWT and FFT based OFDM and modified SPIHT codec. Part II addresses image processing algorithms such as multiresolution approach for edge detection, low bit rate image compression, low complexity implementation of CQF wavelets and compression of multi-component images. Part III focuses watermaking DWT algorithms. Finally, Part IV describes shift invariant DWTs, DC lossless property, DWT based analysis and estimation of colored noise and an application of the wavelet Galerkin method. The chapters of the present book consist of both tutorial and highly advanced material. Therefore, the book is intended to be a reference text for graduate students and researchers to obtain state-of-the-art knowledge on specific applications

Intelligent Circuits and Systems

ICICS-2020 is the third conference initiated by the School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at Lovely Professional University that explored recent innovations of researchers working for the development of smart and green technologies in the fields of Energy, Electronics, Communications, Computers, and Control. ICICS provides innovators to identify new opportunities for the social and economic benefits of society.　 This conference bridges the gap between academics and R&D institutions, social visionaries, and experts from all strata of society to present their ongoing research activities and foster research relations between them. It provides opportunities for the exchange of new ideas, applications, and experiences in the field of smart technologies and finding global partners for future collaboration. The ICICS-2020 was conducted in two broad categories, Intelligent Circuits & Intelligent Systems and Emerging Technologies in Electrical Engineering