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

Robust Audio Watermarks in Frequency Domain, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2014, nr 2

In this paper an audio watermarking technique is presented, using log-spectrum, dirty paper codes and LDPC for watermark embedding. This technique may be used as a digital communication channel, transmitting data at about 40 b/s. It may be also applied for hiding a digital signature, e.g., for copyright protection purposes. Robustness of the watermarks against audio signal compression, resampling and transmitting through an acoustic channel is tested. In this paper an audio watermarking technique ispresented, using log-spectrum, dirty paper codes and LDPCfor watermark embedding. This technique may be used asa digital communication channel, transmitting data at about40 b/s. It may be also applied for hiding a digital signature,e.g., for copyright protection purposes. Robustness of the watermarks against audio signal compression, resampling andtransmitting through an acoustic channel is tested

Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2014, nr 2

kwartalni

Recent Advances in Signal Processing

The signal processing task is a very critical issue in the majority of new technological inventions and challenges in a variety of applications in both science and engineering fields. Classical signal processing techniques have largely worked with mathematical models that are linear, local, stationary, and Gaussian. They have always favored closed-form tractability over real-world accuracy. These constraints were imposed by the lack of powerful computing tools. During the last few decades, signal processing theories, developments, and applications have matured rapidly and now include tools from many areas of mathematics, computer science, physics, and engineering. This book is targeted primarily toward both students and researchers who want to be exposed to a wide variety of signal processing techniques and algorithms. It includes 27 chapters that can be categorized into five different areas depending on the application at hand. These five categories are ordered to address image processing, speech processing, communication systems, time-series analysis, and educational packages respectively. The book has the advantage of providing a collection of applications that are completely independent and self-contained; thus, the interested reader can choose any chapter and skip to another without losing continuity

Wavelet Domain Watermark Detection and Extraction using the Vector-based Hidden Markov Model

Multimedia data piracy is a growing problem in view of the ease and simplicity provided by the internet in transmitting and receiving such data. A possible solution to preclude unauthorized duplication or distribution of digital data is watermarking. Watermarking is an identifiable piece of information that provides security against multimedia piracy. This thesis is concerned with the investigation of various image watermarking schemes in the wavelet domain using the statistical properties of the wavelet coefficients. The wavelet subband coefficients of natural images have significantly non-Gaussian and heavy-tailed features that are best described by heavy-tailed distributions. Moreover the wavelet coefficients of images have strong inter-scale and inter-orientation dependencies. In view of this, the vector-based hidden Markov model is found to be best suited to characterize the wavelet coefficients. In this thesis, this model is used to develop new digital image watermarking schemes. Additive and multiplicative watermarking schemes in the wavelet domain are developed in order to provide improved detection and extraction of the watermark. Blind watermark detectors using log-likelihood ratio test, and watermark decoders using the maximum likelihood criterion to blindly extract the embedded watermark bits from the observation data are designed. Extensive experiments are conducted throughout this thesis using a number of databases selected from a wide variety of natural images. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed image watermarking scheme and their superiority over some of the state-of-the-art techniques. It is shown that in view of the use of the hidden Markov model characterize the distributions of the wavelet coefficients of images, the proposed watermarking algorithms result in higher detection and decoding rates both before and after subjecting the watermarked image to various kinds of attacks

Error-Correction Coding and Decoding: Bounds, Codes, Decoders, Analysis and Applications

Coding; Communications; Engineering; Networks; Information Theory; Algorithm

Contribution des filtres LPTV et des techniques d'interpolation au tatouage numérique

Les Changements d'Horloge Périodiques (PCC) et les filtres Linéaires Variant Périodiquement dans le Temps (LPTV) sont utilisés dans le domaine des télécommunications multi-utilisateurs. Dans cette thèse, nous montrons que, dans l'ensemble des techniques de tatouage par étalement de spectre, ils peuvent se substituer à la modulation par code pseudo-aléatoire. Les modules de décodage optimal, de resynchronisation, de pré-annulation des interférences et de quantification de la transformée d'étalement s'appliquent également aux PCC et aux filtres LPTV. Pour le modèle de signaux stationnaires blancs gaussiens, ces techniques présentent des performances identiques à l'étalement à Séquence Directe (DS) classique. Cependant, nous montrons que, dans le cas d'un signal corrélé localement, la luminance d'une image naturelle notamment, la périodicité des PCC et des filtres LPTV associée à un parcours d'image de type Peano-Hilbert conduit à de meilleures performances. Les filtres LPTV sont en outre un outil plus puissant qu'une simple modulation DS. Nous les utilisons pour effectuer un masquage spectral simultanément à l'étalement, ainsi qu'un rejet des interférences de l'image dans le domaine spectral. Cette dernière technique possède de très bonnes performances au décodage. Le second axe de cette thèse est l'étude des liens entre interpolation et tatouage numérique. Nous soulignons d'abord le rôle de l'interpolation dans les attaques sur la robustesse du tatouage. Nous construisons ensuite des techniques de tatouage bénéficiant des propriétés perceptuelles de l'interpolation. La première consiste en des masques perceptuels utilisant le bruit d'interpolation. Dans la seconde, un schéma de tatouage informé est construit autour de l'interpolation. Cet algorithme, qu'on peut relier aux techniques de catégorisation aléatoire, utilise des règles d'insertion et de décodage originales, incluant un masquage perceptuel intrinsèque. Outre ces bonnes propriétés perceptuelles, il présente un rejet des interférences de l'hôte et une robustesse à diverses attaques telles que les transformations valumétriques. Son niveau de sécurité est évalué à l'aide d'algorithmes d'attaque pratiques. ABSTRACT : Periodic Clock Changes (PCC) and Linear Periodically Time Varying (LPTV) filters have previously been applied to multi-user telecommunications in the Signal and Communications group of IRIT laboratory. In this thesis, we show that in each digital watermarking scheme involving spread-spectrum, they can be substituted to modulation by a pseudo-noise. The additional steps of optimal decoding, resynchronization, pre-cancellation of interference and quantization of a spread transform apply also to PCCs and LPTV filters. For white Gaussian stationary signals, these techniques offer similar performance as classical Direct Sequence (DS) spreading. However we show that, in the case of locally correlated signals such as image luminance, the periodicity of PCCs and LPTV filters associated to a Peano-Hilbert scan leads to better performance. Moreover, LPTV filters are a more powerful tool than simple DS modulation. We use LPTV filters to conduct spectrum masking simultaneous to spreading, as well as image interference cancellation in the spectral domain. The latter technique offers good decoding performance. The second axis of this thesis is the study of the links between interpolation and digital watermarking.We stress the role of interpolation in attacks on the watermark.We propose then watermarking techniques that benefit from interpolation perceptual properties. The first technique consists in constructing perceptualmasks proportional to an interpolation error. In the second technique, an informed watermarking scheme derives form interpolation. This scheme exhibits good perceptual properties, host-interference rejection and robustness to various attacks such as valumetric transforms. Its security level is assessed by ad hoc practical attack algorithms

Informed watermarking by means of orthogonal and quasi-orthogonal dirty paper coding

A new dirty paper coding technique that is robust against the gain attack is presented. Such a robustness is obtained by adopting a set of (orthogonal) equi-energetic codewords and a correlation-based decoder. Due to the simple structure of orthogonal codes, we developed a simple yet powerful technique to embed the hidden message within the host signal. The proposed technique is an optimal one, in that the embedding distortion is minimized for a given robustness level, where robustness is measured through the maximum pairwise error probability in the presence of an additive Gaussian attack of given strength. The performance of the dirty coding algorithm is further improved by replacing orthogonal with quasi- orthogonal codes, namely, Gold sequences, and by concatenating them with an outer turbo code. To this aim, the inner decoder is modified to produce a soft estimate of the embedded message. Performance analysis is carried out by means of extensive simulations proving the validity of the novel watermarking scheme

Stinging the Predators: A collection of papers that should never have been published

This ebook collects academic papers and conference abstracts that were meant to be so terrible that nobody in their right mind would publish them. All were submitted to journals and conferences to expose weak or non-existent peer review and other exploitative practices. Each paper has a brief introduction. Short essays round out the collection