253 research outputs found
Spread Spectrum Watermarking: Principles and Applications in Fading Channel
ISBN 978-953-51-0618-
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
Spread Spectrum Based High Embedding Capacity Watermarking Method for Audio Signals
Audio watermarking is a promising technology for copyright protection of audio data. Built upon the concept of spread spectrum (SS), many SS-based audio watermarking methods have been developed, where a pseudonoise (PN) sequence is usually used to introduce security. A major drawback of the existing SS-based audio watermarking methods is their low embedding capacity. In this paper, we propose a new SS-based audio watermarking method which possesses much higher embedding capacity while ensuring satisfactory imperceptibility and robustness. The high embedding capacity is achieved through a set of mechanisms: embedding multiple watermark bits in one audio segment, reducing host signal interference on watermark extraction, and adaptively adjusting PN sequence amplitude in watermark embedding based on the property of audio segments. The effectiveness of the proposed audio watermarking method is demonstrated by simulation examples
Audio watermarking using transformation techniques
Watermarking is a technique, which is used in protecting digital information like images, videos and audio as it provides copyrights and ownership. Audio watermarking is more challenging than image watermarking due to the dynamic supremacy of hearing capacity over the visual field. This thesis attempts to solve the quantization based audio watermarking technique based on both the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). The underlying system involves the statistical characteristics of the signal. This study considers different wavelet filters and quantization techniques. A comparison is performed on diverge algorithms and audio signals to help examine the performance of the proposed method. The embedded watermark is a binary image and different encryption techniques such as Arnold Transform and Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR) are considered. The watermark is distributed uniformly in the areas of low frequencies i.e., high energy, which increases the robustness of the watermark. Further, spreading of watermark throughout the audio signal makes the technique robust against desynchronized attacks. Experimental results show that the signals generated by the proposed algorithm are inaudible and robust against signal processing techniques such as quantization, compression and resampling. We use Matlab (version 2009b) to implement the algorithms discussed in this thesis. Audio transformation techniques for compression in Linux (Ubuntu 9.10) are applied on the signal to simulate the attacks such as re-sampling, re-quantization, and mp3 compression; whereas, Matlab program for de-synchronized attacks like jittering and cropping. We envision that the proposed algorithm may work as a tool for securing intellectual properties of the musicians and audio distribution companies because of its high robustness and imperceptibility
Digital watermark technology in security applications
With the rising emphasis on security and the number of fraud related crimes
around the world, authorities are looking for new technologies to tighten
security of identity. Among many modern electronic technologies, digital
watermarking has unique advantages to enhance the document authenticity.
At the current status of the development, digital watermarking technologies
are not as matured as other competing technologies to support identity authentication
systems. This work presents improvements in performance of
two classes of digital watermarking techniques and investigates the issue of
watermark synchronisation.
Optimal performance can be obtained if the spreading sequences are designed
to be orthogonal to the cover vector. In this thesis, two classes of
orthogonalisation methods that generate binary sequences quasi-orthogonal
to the cover vector are presented. One method, namely "Sorting and Cancelling"
generates sequences that have a high level of orthogonality to the
cover vector. The Hadamard Matrix based orthogonalisation method, namely
"Hadamard Matrix Search" is able to realise overlapped embedding, thus the
watermarking capacity and image fidelity can be improved compared to using
short watermark sequences. The results are compared with traditional
pseudo-randomly generated binary sequences. The advantages of both classes
of orthogonalisation inethods are significant.
Another watermarking method that is introduced in the thesis is based
on writing-on-dirty-paper theory. The method is presented with biorthogonal
codes that have the best robustness. The advantage and trade-offs of
using biorthogonal codes with this watermark coding methods are analysed
comprehensively. The comparisons between orthogonal and non-orthogonal
codes that are used in this watermarking method are also made. It is found
that fidelity and robustness are contradictory and it is not possible to optimise
them simultaneously.
Comparisons are also made between all proposed methods. The comparisons
are focused on three major performance criteria, fidelity, capacity and
robustness. aom two different viewpoints, conclusions are not the same. For
fidelity-centric viewpoint, the dirty-paper coding methods using biorthogonal
codes has very strong advantage to preserve image fidelity and the advantage
of capacity performance is also significant. However, from the power
ratio point of view, the orthogonalisation methods demonstrate significant
advantage on capacity and robustness. The conclusions are contradictory
but together, they summarise the performance generated by different design
considerations.
The synchronisation of watermark is firstly provided by high contrast
frames around the watermarked image. The edge detection filters are used
to detect the high contrast borders of the captured image. By scanning
the pixels from the border to the centre, the locations of detected edges
are stored. The optimal linear regression algorithm is used to estimate the
watermarked image frames. Estimation of the regression function provides
rotation angle as the slope of the rotated frames. The scaling is corrected by
re-sampling the upright image to the original size. A theoretically studied
method that is able to synchronise captured image to sub-pixel level accuracy
is also presented. By using invariant transforms and the "symmetric
phase only matched filter" the captured image can be corrected accurately
to original geometric size. The method uses repeating watermarks to form an
array in the spatial domain of the watermarked image and the the array that
the locations of its elements can reveal information of rotation, translation
and scaling with two filtering processes
Data hiding in multimedia - theory and applications
Multimedia data hiding or steganography is a means of communication using subliminal channels. The resource for the subliminal communication scheme is the distortion of the original content that can be tolerated. This thesis addresses two main issues of steganographic communication schemes:
1. How does one maximize the distortion introduced without affecting fidelity of the content?
2. How does one efficiently utilize the resource (the distortion introduced) for communicating as many bits of information as possible? In other words, what is a good signaling strategy for the subliminal communication scheme?
Close to optimal solutions for both issues are analyzed. Many techniques for the issue for maximizing the resource, viz, the distortion introduced imperceptibly in images and video frames, are proposed. Different signaling strategies for steganographic communication are explored, and a novel signaling technique employing a floating signal constellation is proposed. Algorithms for optimal choices of the parameters of the signaling technique are presented.
Other application specific issues like the type of robustness needed are taken into consideration along with the established theoretical background to design optimal data hiding schemes. In particular, two very important applications of data hiding are addressed - data hiding for multimedia content delivery, and data hiding for watermarking (for proving ownership). A robust watermarking protocol for unambiguous resolution of ownership is proposed
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