Robust Object-Based Watermarking Using SURF Feature Matching and DFT Domain

In this paper we propose a robust object-based watermarking method, in which the watermark is embedded into the middle frequencies band of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) magnitude of the selected object region, altogether with the Speeded Up Robust Feature (SURF) algorithm to allow the correct watermark detection, even if the watermarked image has been distorted. To recognize the selected object region after geometric distortions, during the embedding process the SURF features are estimated and stored in advance to be used during the detection process. In the detection stage, the SURF features of the distorted image are estimated and match them with the stored ones. From the matching result, SURF features are used to compute the Affine-transformation parameters and the object region is recovered. The quality of the watermarked image is measured using the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) and the Visual Information Fidelity (VIF). The experimental results show the proposed method provides robustness against several geometric distortions, signal processing operations and combined distortions. The receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves also show the desirable detection performance of the proposed method. The comparison with a previously reported methods based on different techniques is also provided

Digital watermarking in medical images

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University, 05/12/2005.This thesis addresses authenticity and integrity of medical images using watermarking. Hospital Information Systems (HIS), Radiology Information Systems (RIS) and Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (P ACS) now form the information infrastructure for today's healthcare as these provide new ways to store, access and distribute medical data that also involve some security risk. Watermarking can be seen as an additional tool for security measures. As the medical tradition is very strict with the quality of biomedical images, the watermarking method must be reversible or if not, region of Interest (ROI) needs to be defined and left intact. Watermarking should also serve as an integrity control and should be able to authenticate the medical image. Three watermarking techniques were proposed. First, Strict Authentication Watermarking (SAW) embeds the digital signature of the image in the ROI and the image can be reverted back to its original value bit by bit if required. Second, Strict Authentication Watermarking with JPEG Compression (SAW-JPEG) uses the same principal as SAW, but is able to survive some degree of JPEG compression. Third, Authentication Watermarking with Tamper Detection and Recovery (AW-TDR) is able to localise tampering, whilst simultaneously reconstructing the original image

Copyright Protection of Color Imaging Using Robust-Encoded Watermarking

In this paper we present a robust-encoded watermarking method applied to color images for copyright protection, which presents robustness against several geometric and signal processing distortions. Trade-off between payload, robustness and imperceptibility is a very important aspect which has to be considered when a watermark algorithm is designed. In our proposed scheme, previously to be embedded into the image, the watermark signal is encoded using a convolutional encoder, which can perform forward error correction achieving better robustness performance. Then, the embedding process is carried out through the discrete cosine transform domain (DCT) of an image using the image normalization technique to accomplish robustness against geometric and signal processing distortions. The embedded watermark coded bits are extracted and decoded using the Viterbi algorithm. In order to determine the presence or absence of the watermark into the image we compute the bit error rate (BER) between the recovered and the original watermark data sequence. The quality of the watermarked image is measured using the well-known indices: Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Visual Information Fidelity (VIF) and Structural Similarity Index (SSIM). The color difference between the watermarked and original images is obtained by using the Normalized Color Difference (NCD) measure. The experimental results show that the proposed method provides good performance in terms of imperceptibility and robustness. The comparison among the proposed and previously reported methods based on different techniques is also provided

A Localized Geometric-Distortion Resilient Digital Watermarking Scheme Using Two Kinds of Complementary Feature Points

With the rapid development of digital multimedia and internet techniques in the last few years, more and more digital images are being distributed to an ever-growing number of people for sharing, studying, or other purposes. Sharing images digitally is fast and cost-efficient thus highly desirable. However, most of those digital products are exposed without any protection. Thus, without authorization, such information can be easily transferred, copied, and tampered with by using digital multimedia editing software. Watermarking is a popular resolution to the strong need of copyright protection of digital multimedia. In the image forensics scenario, a digital watermark can be used as a tool to discriminate whether original content is tampered with or not. It is embedded on digital images as an invisible message and is used to demonstrate the proof by the owner. In this thesis, we propose a novel localized geometric-distortion resilient digital watermarking scheme to embed two invisible messages to images. Our proposed scheme utilizes two complementary watermarking techniques, namely, local circular region (LCR)-based techniques and block discrete cosine transform (DCT)-based techniques, to hide two pseudo-random binary sequences in two kinds of regions and extract these two sequences from their individual embedding regions. To this end, we use the histogram and mean statistically independent of the pixel position to embed one watermark in the LCRs, whose centers are the scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) feature points themselves that are robust against various affine transformations and common image processing attacks. This watermarking technique combines the advantages of SIFT feature point extraction, local histogram computing, and blind watermark embedding and extraction in the spatial domain to resist geometric distortions. We also use Watson’s DCT-based visual model to embed the other watermark in several rich textured 80×80 regions not covered by any embedding LCR. This watermarking technique combines the advantages of Harris feature point extraction, triangle tessellation and matching, the human visual system (HVS), the spread spectrum-based blind watermark embedding and extraction. The proposed technique then uses these combined features in a DCT domain to resist common image processing attacks and to reduce the watermark synchronization problem at the same time. These two techniques complement each other and therefore can resist geometric and common image processing attacks robustly. Our proposed watermarking approach is a robust watermarking technique that is capable of resisting geometric attacks, i.e., affine transformation (rotation, scaling, and translation) attacks and other common image processing (e.g., JPEG compression and filtering operations) attacks. It demonstrates more robustness and better performance as compared with some peer systems in the literature

Preventing Unauthorized AI Over-Analysis by Medical Image Adversarial Watermarking

The advancement of deep learning has facilitated the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into clinical practices, particularly in computer-aided diagnosis. Given the pivotal role of medical images in various diagnostic procedures, it becomes imperative to ensure the responsible and secure utilization of AI techniques. However, the unauthorized utilization of AI for image analysis raises significant concerns regarding patient privacy and potential infringement on the proprietary rights of data custodians. Consequently, the development of pragmatic and cost-effective strategies that safeguard patient privacy and uphold medical image copyrights emerges as a critical necessity. In direct response to this pressing demand, we present a pioneering solution named Medical Image Adversarial watermarking (MIAD-MARK). Our approach introduces watermarks that strategically mislead unauthorized AI diagnostic models, inducing erroneous predictions without compromising the integrity of the visual content. Importantly, our method integrates an authorization protocol tailored for legitimate users, enabling the removal of the MIAD-MARK through encryption-generated keys. Through extensive experiments, we validate the efficacy of MIAD-MARK across three prominent medical image datasets. The empirical outcomes demonstrate the substantial impact of our approach, notably reducing the accuracy of standard AI diagnostic models to a mere 8.57% under white box conditions and 45.83% in the more challenging black box scenario. Additionally, our solution effectively mitigates unauthorized exploitation of medical images even in the presence of sophisticated watermark removal networks. Notably, those AI diagnosis networks exhibit a meager average accuracy of 38.59% when applied to images protected by MIAD-MARK, underscoring the robustness of our safeguarding mechanism

A NOVEL JOINT PERCEPTUAL ENCRYPTION AND WATERMARKING SCHEME (JPEW) WITHIN JPEG FRAMEWORK

Due to the rapid growth in internet and multimedia technologies, many new commercial applications like video on demand (VOD), pay-per-view and real-time multimedia broadcast etc, have emerged. To ensure the integrity and confidentiality of the multimedia content, the content is usually watermarked and then encrypted or vice versa. If the multimedia content needs to be watermarked and encrypted at the same time, the watermarking function needs to be performed first followed by encryption function. Hence, if the watermark needs to be extracted then the multimedia data needs to be decrypted first followed by extraction of the watermark. This results in large computational overhead. The solution provided in the literature for this problem is by using what is called partial encryption, in which media data are partitioned into two parts - one to be watermarked and the other is encrypted. In addition, some multimedia applications i.e. video on demand (VOD), Pay-TV, pay-per-view etc, allow multimedia content preview which involves „perceptual‟ encryption wherein all or some selected part of the content is, perceptually speaking, distorted with an encryption key. Up till now no joint perceptual encryption and watermarking scheme has been proposed in the literature. In this thesis, a novel Joint Perceptual Encryption and Watermarking (JPEW) scheme is proposed that is integrated within JPEG standard. The design of JPEW involves the design and development of both perceptual encryption and watermarking schemes that are integrated in JPEG and feasible within the „partial‟ encryption framework. The perceptual encryption scheme exploits the energy distribution of AC components and DC components bitplanes of continuous-tone images and is carried out by selectively encrypting these AC coefficients and DC components bitplanes. The encryption itself is based on a chaos-based permutation reported in an earlier work. Similarly, in contrast to the traditional watermarking schemes, the proposed watermarking scheme makes use of DC component of the image and it is carried out by selectively substituting certain bitplanes of DC components with watermark bits. vi ii Apart from the aforesaid JPEW, additional perceptual encryption scheme, integrated in JPEG, has also been proposed. The scheme is outside of joint framework and implements perceptual encryption on region of interest (ROI) by scrambling the DCT blocks of the chosen ROI. The performances of both, perceptual encryption and watermarking schemes are evaluated and compared with Quantization Index modulation (QIM) based watermarking scheme and reversible Histogram Spreading (RHS) based perceptual encryption scheme. The results show that the proposed watermarking scheme is imperceptible and robust, and suitable for authentication. Similarly, the proposed perceptual encryption scheme outperforms the RHS based scheme in terms of number of operations required to achieve a given level of perceptual encryption and provides control over the amount of perceptual encryption. The overall security of the JPEW has also been evaluated. Additionally, the performance of proposed separate perceptual encryption scheme has been thoroughly evaluated in terms of security and compression efficiency. The scheme is found to be simpler in implementation, have insignificant effect on compression ratios and provide more options for the selection of control factor

Watermarking-Based Inpainting Under Data Transmition Environment

[[abstract]]This studyb proposes a novel image inpainting technique based on watermarking and halftoning. This technique use LSB method to embed error diffusion halftone image into original image for protecting the image. In image repair process, we use LSB method to extract the halftone information, and the reference image is achieved from LUT inverse halftone. Finally we use the reference imageto finish the image inpainting work. Experiment shows the performance of our method is very excellent in image inpainting.[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20101206~20101208[[booktype]]電子版[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Chengdu, Chin

Digital watermarking in medical images

This thesis addresses authenticity and integrity of medical images using watermarking. Hospital Information Systems (HIS), Radiology Information Systems (RIS) and Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (P ACS) now form the information infrastructure for today's healthcare as these provide new ways to store, access and distribute medical data that also involve some security risk. Watermarking can be seen as an additional tool for security measures. As the medical tradition is very strict with the quality of biomedical images, the watermarking method must be reversible or if not, region of Interest (ROI) needs to be defined and left intact. Watermarking should also serve as an integrity control and should be able to authenticate the medical image. Three watermarking techniques were proposed. First, Strict Authentication Watermarking (SAW) embeds the digital signature of the image in the ROI and the image can be reverted back to its original value bit by bit if required. Second, Strict Authentication Watermarking with JPEG Compression (SAW-JPEG) uses the same principal as SAW, but is able to survive some degree of JPEG compression. Third, Authentication Watermarking with Tamper Detection and Recovery (AW-TDR) is able to localise tampering, whilst simultaneously reconstructing the original image.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo