Sensor Data Integrity Verification for Real-time and Resource Constrained Systems

Sensors are used in multiple applications that touch our lives and have become an integral part of modern life. They are used in building intelligent control systems in various industries like healthcare, transportation, consumer electronics, military, etc. Many mission-critical applications require sensor data to be secure and authentic. Sensor data security can be achieved using traditional solutions like cryptography and digital signatures, but these techniques are computationally intensive and cannot be easily applied to resource constrained systems. Low complexity data hiding techniques, on the contrary, are easy to implement and do not need substantial processing power or memory. In this applied research, we use and configure the established low complexity data hiding techniques from the multimedia forensics domain. These techniques are used to secure the sensor data transmissions in resource constrained and real-time environments such as an autonomous vehicle. We identify the areas in an autonomous vehicle that require sensor data integrity and propose suitable water-marking techniques to verify the integrity of the data and evaluate the performance of the proposed method against different attack vectors. In our proposed method, sensor data is embedded with application specific metadata and this process introduces some distortion. We analyze this embedding induced distortion and its impact on the overall sensor data quality to conclude that watermarking techniques, when properly configured, can solve sensor data integrity verification problems in an autonomous vehicle.Ph.D.College of Engineering & Computer ScienceUniversity of Michigan-Dearbornhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/167387/3/Raghavendar Changalvala Final Dissertation.pdfDescription of Raghavendar Changalvala Final Dissertation.pdf : Dissertatio

Verifying RADAR Data Using Two-Dimensional QIM-based Data Hiding

Modern vehicles have evolved into supporting advanced internal networks and connecting System Based Chips (SBC), System in a Package (SiP) solutions or traditional micro controllers to foster an electronic ecosystem for high speed data transfers, precision and real-time control. The use of Controller Area Networks (CAN) is widely adopted as the backbone of internal vehicle communication infrastructure. Automotive applications such as ADAS, autonomous driving, battery management systems, power train systems, telematics and infotainment, all utilize CAN transmissions directly or through gateway management. The network transmissions lack robust integrity verification mechanisms to validate authentic data payloads, making it vulnerable to packet replay, spoofing, insertion, deletion and denial of service attacks. Additional methods exist to secure network data such as traditional cryptography. Utilizing this method will increase the computational complexity, processing latency and increase overall system cost. This thesis proposes a robust, light and adaptive solution to validate the authenticity of automotive sensor data using CAN network protocol. We propose using a two-dimensional Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) data hiding technique, to create a means of verification. Analysis of the proposed framework will be conducted in a sensor transmission scenario for RADAR sensors in an autonomous vehicle setting. The detection and effects of distortion on the application are tested through the implementation of sensor fusion algorithms and the results are observed and analyzed. The proposed framework offers a needed capability to maintain transmission integrity without the compromise of data quality and low design complexity. This framework could also be applied to different network architectures, as well as its operational scope could be modified to operate with more abstract types of data.MSEElectrical Engineering, College of Engineering & Computer ScienceUniversity of Michigan-Dearbornhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/167354/1/Brandon Fedoruk - Final Thesis.pd

Symmetry-Adapted Machine Learning for Information Security

Symmetry-adapted machine learning has shown encouraging ability to mitigate the security risks in information and communication technology (ICT) systems. It is a subset of artificial intelligence (AI) that relies on the principles of processing future events by learning past events or historical data. The autonomous nature of symmetry-adapted machine learning supports effective data processing and analysis for security detection in ICT systems without the interference of human authorities. Many industries are developing machine-learning-adapted solutions to support security for smart hardware, distributed computing, and the cloud. In our Special Issue book, we focus on the deployment of symmetry-adapted machine learning for information security in various application areas. This security approach can support effective methods to handle the dynamic nature of security attacks by extraction and analysis of data to identify hidden patterns of data. The main topics of this Issue include malware classification, an intrusion detection system, image watermarking, color image watermarking, battlefield target aggregation behavior recognition model, IP camera, Internet of Things (IoT) security, service function chain, indoor positioning system, and crypto-analysis

Contextual biometric watermarking of fingerprint images

This research presents contextual digital watermarking techniques using face and demographic text data as multiple watermarks for protecting the evidentiary integrity of fingerprint image. The proposed techniques embed the watermarks into selected regions of fingerprint image in MDCT and DWT domains. A general image watermarking algorithm is developed to investigate the application of MDCT in the elimination of blocking artifacts. The application of MDCT has improved the performance of the watermarking technique compared to DCT. Experimental results show that modifications to fingerprint image are visually imperceptible and maintain the minutiae detail. The integrity of the fingerprint image is verified through high matching score obtained from the AFIS system. There is also a high degree of correlation between the embedded and extracted watermarks. The degree of similarity is computed using pixel-based metrics and human visual system metrics. It is useful for personal identification and establishing digital chain of custody. The results also show that the proposed watermarking technique is resilient to common image modifications that occur during electronic fingerprint transmission

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

New Digital Audio Watermarking Algorithms for Copyright Protection

This thesis investigates the development of digital audio watermarking in addressing issues such as copyright protection. Over the past two decades, many digital watermarking algorithms have been developed, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. The main aim of this thesis was to develop a new watermarking algorithm within an existing Fast Fourier Transform framework. This resulted in the development of a Complex Spectrum Phase Evolution based watermarking algorithm. In this new implementation, the embedding positions were generated dynamically thereby rendering it more difficult for an attacker to remove, and watermark information was embedded by manipulation of the spectral components in the time domain thereby reducing any audible distortion. Further improvements were attained when the embedding criteria was based on bin location comparison instead of magnitude, thereby rendering it more robust against those attacks that interfere with the spectral magnitudes. However, it was discovered that this new audio watermarking algorithm has some disadvantages such as a relatively low capacity and a non-consistent robustness for different audio files. Therefore, a further aim of this thesis was to improve the algorithm from a different perspective. Improvements were investigated using an Singular Value Decomposition framework wherein a novel observation was discovered. Furthermore, a psychoacoustic model was incorporated to suppress any audible distortion. This resulted in a watermarking algorithm which achieved a higher capacity and a more consistent robustness. The overall result was that two new digital audio watermarking algorithms were developed which were complementary in their performance thereby opening more opportunities for further research

Exploring Terms and Taxonomies Relating to the Cyber International Relations Research Field: or are "Cyberspace" and "Cyber Space" the same?

This project has at least two facets to it: (1) advancing the algorithms in the sub-field of bibliometrics often referred to as "text mining" whereby hundreds of thousands of documents (such as journal articles) are scanned and relationships amongst words and phrases are established and (2) applying these tools in support of the Explorations in Cyber International Relations (ECIR) research effort. In international relations, it is important that all the parties understand each other. Although dictionaries, glossaries, and other sources tell you what words/phrases are supposed to mean (somewhat complicated by the fact that they often contradict each other), they do not tell you how people are actually using them. As an example, when we started, we assumed that "cyberspace" and "cyber space" were essentially the same word with just a minor variation in punctuation (i.e., the space, or lack thereof, between "cyber" and "space") and that the choice of the punctuation was a rather random occurrence. With that assumption in mind, we would expect that the taxonomies that would be constructed by our algorithms using "cyberspace" and "cyber space" as seed terms would be basically the same. As it turned out, they were quite different, both in overall shape and groupings within the taxonomy. Since the overall field of cyber international relations is so new, understanding the field and how people think about (as evidenced by their actual usage of terminology, and how usage changes over time) is an important goal as part of the overall ECIR project