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

An Adaptive Spread Spectrum (SS) Synchronous Data Hiding Strategy for Scalable 3D Terrain Visualization

International audienceThe diversity of clients in today's network environment compels us to think about solutions that more than satisfy their needs according to their resources. For 3D terrain visualization this translates into two main requirements, namely the scalability and synchronous unification of a disparate data that requires at least two files, the texture image and its corresponding digital elevation model (DEM). In this work the scalability is achieved through the multiresolution discrete wavelet transform (DWT) of the JPEG2000 codec. For the unification of data, a simple DWT-domain spread spectrum (SS) strategy is employed in order to synchronously hide the DEM in the corresponding texture while conserving the JPEG2000 standard file format. Highest possible quality texture is renderable due to the reversible nature of the SS data hiding. As far as DEM quality is concerned, it is ensured through the adaptation of synchronization in embedding that would exclude some highest frequency subbands. To estimate the maximum tolerable error in the DEM according to a given viewpoint, a human visual system (HVS) based psycho-visual analysis is being presented. This analysis is helpful in determining the degree of adaptation in synchronization

Protecting Ownership Rights of Videos Against Digital Piracy: An Efficient Digital Watermarking Scheme

Violation of one’s intellectual ownership rights by the others is a common problem which entertainment industry frequently faces now-a-days. Sharing of information over social media platforms such as Instagram, WhatsApp and twitter without giving credit the owner causes huge financial losses to the owner and hence needs an immediate attention. Digital watermarking is a promising technique to protect owners’ right against digital piracy. Most of the state-of-the-art techniques does not provides adequate level of resilience against majority of video specific attacks and other commonly applied attacks. Therefore, this paper proposes a highly transparent and robust video watermarking solution to protect the owners rights by first convert each video frame into YCbCr color components and then select twenty five strongest speeded-up robust features (SURF) points of the normalized luminance component as points for both watermark embedding and extraction. After applying variety of geometric, simple signal processing and video specific attacks on the watermarked video meticulous analysis is performed using popular metrics which reveals that the proposed scheme possesses high correlation value which makes it superior for practical applications against these attacks. The scheme also proposes a novel three-level impairment scale for subjective analysis which gives stable results to derive correct conclusions

Digital Watermarking of Images towards Content Protection.

With the rapid growth of the internet and digital media techniques over the last decade, multimedia data such as images, video and audio can easily be copied, altered and distributed over the internet without any loss in quality. Therefore, protection of ownership of multimedia data has become a very significant and challenging issue. Three novel image watermarking algorithms have been designed and implemented for copyright protection. The first proposed algorithm is based on embedding multiple watermarks in the blue channel of colour images to achieve more robustness against attacks. The second proposed algorithm aims to achieve better trade-offs between imperceptibility and robustness requirements of a digital watermarking system. It embeds a watermark in adaptive manner via classification of DCT blocks with three levels: smooth, edges and texture, implemented in the DCT domain by analyzing the values of AC coefficients. The third algorithm aims to achieve robustness against geometric attacks, which can desynchronize the location of the watermark and hence cause incorrect watermark detection. It uses geometrically invariant feature points and image normalization to overcome the problem of synchronization errors caused by geometric attacks. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms are robust and outperform related techniques found in literature

Adaptive Image Watermarking based on K-NN Clustering

The key challenge faced by researchers is the rise in the use of social media communication to prove ownership rights  to  multimedia  material  such  as  video,  audio,  text,  graphics,  etc.  Watermarking  is  the  method  of multimedia concealment of digital content that can be used later to prove ownership credentials. The researchers in this field contribute a lot of work, but there is still a need for more robust methods. In this paper, we use the KNN clustering method to find the features in the image, which are then used to embed the content of the watermark.  Later,  the  KNN  clustering  approach  is  again  used  for  watermark  extraction  to  classify  the characteristics where the watermark is embedded and extraction is performed from those characteristics

Adaptive digital watermarking scheme based on support vector machines and optimized genetic algorithm

Digital watermarking is an effective solution to the problem of copyright protection, thus maintaining the security of digital products in the network. An improved scheme to increase the robustness of embedded information on the basis of discrete cosine transform (DCT) domain is proposed in this study. The embedding process consisted of two main procedures. Firstly, the embedding intensity with support vector machines (SVMs) was adaptively strengthened by training 1600 image blocks which are of different texture and luminance. Secondly, the embedding position with the optimized genetic algorithm (GA) was selected. To optimize GA, the best individual in the first place of each generation directly went into the next generation, and the best individual in the second position participated in the crossover and the mutation process. The transparency reaches 40.5 when GA’s generation number is 200. A case study was conducted on a 256 × 256 standard Lena image with the proposed method. After various attacks (such as cropping, JPEG compression, Gaussian low-pass filtering (3, 0. 5), histogram equalization, and contrast increasing (0.5, 0.6)) on the watermarked image, the extracted watermark was compared with the original one. Results demonstrate that the watermark can be effectively recovered after these attacks. Even though the algorithm is weak against rotation attacks, it provides high quality in imperceptibility and robustness and hence it is a successful candidate for implementing novel image watermarking scheme meeting real timelines

Survey on 2D-DCT Based Image Watermarking with High Implanting Limit and Robustness

The proposed strategy displays a novel rank-based image watermarking. In watermark installing process, the host picture is separated into squares, trailed by 2-D Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT). For every picture block, a mystery key is produced utilizing RFC 2898, which incorporates techniques for making a key and introduction vector (IV) from a secret word and salt. The inserting of watermark bits is completed by adjusting the arrangement of DCT coefficients utilizing a rank-based installing rule.The created mystery key is imparted to the receiver while sending the picture.On watermark location process, with the utilization of accessible mystery key, the watermarked bits are distinguished and are extricated inview of positions of discovery lattices. The pictures transferred for general visibility is shown by DCT which assumes a vital part in keeping up the measure of the picture amid this procedure. Since the proposed watermarking strategy just uses two DCT coefficients to shroud one watermark bit, high installing limit can be accomplished. Also, this strategy is free of host signalinterference. This sought component andthe use of a blunder cushion in watermarkinserting can bring about high vigor against assaults. Hypothetical examination and trial results will exhibit the adequacy of the proposed strategy

Local Geometric Distortions Resilient Watermarking Scheme Based on Symmetry

As an efficient watermark attack method, geometric distortions destroy the synchronization between watermark encoder and decoder. And the local geometric distortion is a famous challenge in the watermark field. Although a lot of geometric distortions resilient watermarking schemes have been proposed, few of them perform well against local geometric distortion like random bending attack (RBA). To address this problem, this paper proposes a novel watermark synchronization process and the corresponding watermarking scheme. In our scheme, the watermark bits are represented by random patterns. The message is encoded to get a watermark unit, and the watermark unit is flipped to generate a symmetrical watermark. Then the symmetrical watermark is embedded into the spatial domain of the host image in an additive way. In watermark extraction, we first get the theoretically mean-square error minimized estimation of the watermark. Then the auto-convolution function is applied to this estimation to detect the symmetry and get a watermark units map. According to this map, the watermark can be accurately synchronized, and then the extraction can be done. Experimental results demonstrate the excellent robustness of the proposed watermarking scheme to local geometric distortions, global geometric distortions, common image processing operations, and some kinds of combined attacks

Integration and optimization of collusion secure fingerprinting in image watermarking

Estágio realizado na Fraunhofer SIT - e orientado pelo Dr. Huajian Liu e pelo Dr. Marcel SchäferTese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201