A Review on Combined Techniques of Cryptography and Steganography using Color QR code

In the internet eras, where security is main concern and access to any service is quite easy, the issue of cyber security aimed at protecting customer data and thus this leads to creation of such a safe environment where user can be ensured of safety and security of all fields which aftereffect the usage of cryptography and steganography has increased. Cryptography encrypts a message so it cannot be understood while the Steganography hides the message inside a cover medium so that it?s concealed. In this paper we use color QR (Quick Response) Codes which are 2-dimensional bar codes that encode data or text strings and color QR code for increase QR code capacity. They are able to encode the information in both vertical and horizontal direction, thus able to encode more information, for secret communication we combine the concepts of Cryptography and Steganography and color QR codes. We use Cryptography side for encrypting the message by a color QR code encoder and thus creating a color QR code, whereas steganography hides the color QR code inside a cover image, after the encryption process, the color QR code image which has the original data is watermarked over a cover image using Spatial domain (LSB) and transform domain (DCT& DWT). In reverse, De-Watermarking extracts and decrypts the color QR coded data image from the Stego- image to recover the original image

AirCode: Unobtrusive Physical Tags for Digital Fabrication

We present AirCode, a technique that allows the user to tag physically fabricated objects with given information. An AirCode tag consists of a group of carefully designed air pockets placed beneath the object surface. These air pockets are easily produced during the fabrication process of the object, without any additional material or postprocessing. Meanwhile, the air pockets affect only the scattering light transport under the surface, and thus are hard to notice to our naked eyes. But, by using a computational imaging method, the tags become detectable. We present a tool that automates the design of air pockets for the user to encode information. AirCode system also allows the user to retrieve the information from captured images via a robust decoding algorithm. We demonstrate our tagging technique with applications for metadata embedding, robotic grasping, as well as conveying object affordances.Comment: ACM UIST 2017 Technical Paper

An Illustrative Review on Steganography Techniques Using QR Code Images

This review paper concentrates on the concept of QR code steganography and its de-noising filters. The goal of this review paper is to explore and analyze QR Code generation, QR code versions, Steganography techniques and Problems of QR code. In this paper, we present review on two challenges of the work i.e. first one is QR code steganography and its major problem noise, noise creates a problem to read the QR code, and reduce the readability of QR code. The literature review is done on QR code steganography technique and filters that basically reduce the noise of Image of QR code and as well as performance parameters PSNR and MSE. We have also discussed various Error correction levels of the QR code, steganography techniques and de-noising filters. Error Correction and noise removal from Cover image is challenging task and calculating the PSNR and MSE values for QR Code images with different image file format

Printed document integrity verification using barcode

Printed documents are still relevant in our daily life and information in it must be protected from threats and attacks such as forgery, falsification or unauthorized modification. Such threats make the document lose its integrity and authenticity. There are several techniques that have been proposed and used to ensure authenticity and originality of printed documents. But some of the techniques are not suitable for public use due to its complexity, hard to obtain special materials to secure the document and expensive. This paper discuss several techniques for printed document security such as watermarking and barcode as well as the usability of two dimensional barcode in document authentication and data compression with the barcode. A conceptual solution that are simple and efficient to secure the integrity and document sender's authenticity is proposed that uses two dimensional barcode to carry integrity and authenticity information in the document. The information stored in the barcode contains digital signature that provides sender's authenticity and hash value that can ensure the integrity of the printed document

QR code based two-factor authentication to verify paper-based documents

Important paper-based documents Exposed to forgery such as: official certificates, birth, marriage, death certificates, selling and buying documents and other legal documents is more and more serious and sophisticated. With the purposes of fraud, appropriation of property, job application and assignment in order to swindle public authorities, this forgery has led to material loss, belief deterioration as well as social instability. There are many techniques has been proposed to overcome this issues such as: ink stamps, live signatures, documented the transaction in third party like the court or notary. In this paper, it’s proposed a feasible solution for forgery prevention for paper-based documents using cloud computing application. With the application of Quick Response bidirectional barcode and the usage of hash algorithm. The study aims at developing an electronic verification system for official and issued books (documents, endorsements, and other official books) to/from different sections of the Institute using QR technology

Secure digital documents using Steganography and QR Code

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University LondonWith the increasing use of the Internet several problems have arisen regarding the processing of electronic documents. These include content filtering, content retrieval/search. Moreover, document security has taken a centre stage including copyright protection, broadcast monitoring etc. There is an acute need of an effective tool which can find the identity, location and the time when the document was created so that it can be determined whether or not the contents of the document were tampered with after creation. Owing the sensitivity of the large amounts of data which is processed on a daily basis, verifying the authenticity and integrity of a document is more important now than it ever was. Unsurprisingly document authenticity verification has become the centre of attention in the world of research. Consequently, this research is concerned with creating a tool which deals with the above problem. This research proposes the use of a Quick Response Code as a message carrier for Text Key-print. The Text Key-print is a novel method which employs the basic element of the language (i.e. Characters of the alphabet) in order to achieve authenticity of electronic documents through the transformation of its physical structure into a logical structured relationship. The resultant dimensional matrix is then converted into a binary stream and encapsulated with a serial number or URL inside a Quick response Code (QR code) to form a digital fingerprint mark. For hiding a QR code, two image steganography techniques were developed based upon the spatial and the transform domains. In the spatial domain, three methods were proposed and implemented based on the least significant bit insertion technique and the use of pseudorandom number generator to scatter the message into a set of arbitrary pixels. These methods utilise the three colour channels in the images based on the RGB model based in order to embed one, two or three bits per the eight bit channel which results in three different hiding capacities. The second technique is an adaptive approach in transforming domain where a threshold value is calculated under a predefined location for embedding in order to identify the embedding strength of the embedding technique. The quality of the generated stego images was evaluated using both objective (PSNR) and Subjective (DSCQS) methods to ensure the reliability of our proposed methods. The experimental results revealed that PSNR is not a strong indicator of the perceived stego image quality, but not a bad interpreter also of the actual quality of stego images. Since the visual difference between the cover and the stego image must be absolutely imperceptible to the human visual system, it was logically convenient to ask human observers with different qualifications and experience in the field of image processing to evaluate the perceived quality of the cover and the stego image. Thus, the subjective responses were analysed using statistical measurements to describe the distribution of the scores given by the assessors. Thus, the proposed scheme presents an alternative approach to protect digital documents rather than the traditional techniques of digital signature and watermarking

A Pattern Classification Based approach for Blur Classification

Blur type identification is one of the most crucial step of image restoration. In case of blind restoration of such images, it is generally assumed that the blur type is known prior to restoration of such images. However, it is not practical in real applications. So, blur type identification is extremely desirable before application of blind restoration technique to restore a blurred image. An approach to categorize blur in three classes namely motion, defocus, and combined blur is presented in this paper. Curvelet transform based energy features are utilized as features of blur patterns and a neural network is designed for classification. The simulation results show preciseness of proposed approach

Covert QR codes: How to hide in the crowd

This paper investigates a novel approach of distributing a hidden message via public channels. The proposed approach employs visual subterfuge to conceal secret information within a QR code. Using a QR code reader, any individual can decode the public information contained in the QR code. However, only authorized users who have the necessary credentials will be able to obtain the secret message, which is encoded in the form of a secret QR code. We call this a Covert QR (CQR) code scheme. To embed the secret information, this approach exploits the error correction mechanism inherent in the QR code structure. By using QR codes to conceal information, the proposed scheme has the advantage of reducing the likelihood of attracting the attention of potential adversaries. In addition, the information in QR codes can be scanned and decoded through the visual channel. As such, the secret information can be distributed on printed media and is not restricted to an electronic form