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

Optimization of medical image steganography using n-decomposition genetic algorithm

Protecting patients' confidential information is a critical concern in medical image steganography. The Least Significant Bits (LSB) technique has been widely used for secure communication. However, it is susceptible to imperceptibility and security risks due to the direct manipulation of pixels, and ASCII patterns present limitations. Consequently, sensitive medical information is subject to loss or alteration. Despite attempts to optimize LSB, these issues persist due to (1) the formulation of the optimization suffering from non-valid implicit constraints, causing inflexibility in reaching optimal embedding, (2) lacking convergence in the searching process, where the message length significantly affects the size of the solution space, and (3) issues of application customizability where different data require more flexibility in controlling the embedding process. To overcome these limitations, this study proposes a technique known as an n-decomposition genetic algorithm. This algorithm uses a variable-length search to identify the best location to embed the secret message by incorporating constraints to avoid local minimum traps. The methodology consists of five main phases: (1) initial investigation, (2) formulating an embedding scheme, (3) constructing a decomposition scheme, (4) integrating the schemes' design into the proposed technique, and (5) evaluating the proposed technique's performance based on parameters using medical datasets from kaggle.com. The proposed technique showed resistance to statistical analysis evaluated using Reversible Statistical (RS) analysis and histogram. It also demonstrated its superiority in imperceptibility and security measured by MSE and PSNR to Chest and Retina datasets (0.0557, 0.0550) and (60.6696, 60.7287), respectively. Still, compared to the results obtained by the proposed technique, the benchmark outperforms the Brain dataset due to the homogeneous nature of the images and the extensive black background. This research has contributed to genetic-based decomposition in medical image steganography and provides a technique that offers improved security without compromising efficiency and convergence. However, further validation is required to determine its effectiveness in real-world applications

Additional information delivery to image content via improved unseen–visible watermarking

In a practical watermark scenario, watermarks are used to provide auxiliary information; in this way, an analogous digital approach called unseen–visible watermark has been introduced to deliver auxiliary information. In this algorithm, the embedding stage takes advantage of the visible and invisible watermarking to embed an owner logotype or barcodes as watermarks; in the exhibition stage, the equipped functions of the display devices are used to reveal the watermark to the naked eyes, eliminating any watermark exhibition algorithm. In this paper, a watermark complement strategy for unseen–visible watermarking is proposed to improve the embedding stage, reducing the histogram distortion and the visual degradation of the watermarked image. The presented algorithm exhibits the following contributions: first, the algorithm can be applied to any class of images with large smooth regions of low or high intensity; second, a watermark complement strategy is introduced to reduce the visual degradation and histogram distortion of the watermarked image; and third, an embedding error measurement is proposed. Evaluation results show that the proposed strategy has high performance in comparison with other algorithms, providing a high visual quality of the exhibited watermark and preserving its robustness in terms of readability and imperceptibility against geometric and processing attacks

High capacity data embedding schemes for digital media

High capacity image data hiding methods and robust high capacity digital audio watermarking algorithms are studied in this thesis. The main results of this work are the development of novel algorithms with state-of-the-art performance, high capacity and transparency for image data hiding and robustness, high capacity and low distortion for audio watermarking.En esta tesis se estudian y proponen diversos métodos de data hiding de imágenes y watermarking de audio de alta capacidad. Los principales resultados de este trabajo consisten en la publicación de varios algoritmos novedosos con rendimiento a la altura de los mejores métodos del estado del arte, alta capacidad y transparencia, en el caso de data hiding de imágenes, y robustez, alta capacidad y baja distorsión para el watermarking de audio.En aquesta tesi s'estudien i es proposen diversos mètodes de data hiding d'imatges i watermarking d'àudio d'alta capacitat. Els resultats principals d'aquest treball consisteixen en la publicació de diversos algorismes nous amb rendiment a l'alçada dels millors mètodes de l'estat de l'art, alta capacitat i transparència, en el cas de data hiding d'imatges, i robustesa, alta capacitat i baixa distorsió per al watermarking d'àudio.Societat de la informació i el coneixemen

A Framework for Multimedia Data Hiding (Security)

With the proliferation of multimedia data such as images, audio, and video, robust digital watermarking and data hiding techniques are needed for copyright protection, copy control, annotation, and authentication. While many techniques have been proposed for digital color and grayscale images, not all of them can be directly applied to binary document images. The difficulty lies in the fact that changing pixel values in a binary document could introduce Irregularities that is very visually noticeable. We have seen but limited number of papers proposing new techniques and ideas for document image watermarking and data hiding. In this paper, we present an overview and summary of recent developments on this important topic, and discuss important issues such as robustness and data hiding capacity of the different techniques

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

Robust image steganography method suited for prining = Robustna steganografska metoda prilagođena procesu tiska

U ovoj doktorskoj dizertaciji prezentirana je robustna steganografska metoda razvijena i prilagođena za tisak. Osnovni cilj metode je pružanje zaštite od krivotvorenja ambalaže. Zaštita ambalaže postiže se umetanjem više bitova informacije u sliku pri enkoderu, a potom maskiranjem informacije kako bi ona bila nevidljiva ljudskom oku. Informacija se pri dekoderu detektira pomoću infracrvene kamere. Preliminarna istraživanja pokazala su da u relevantnoj literaturi nedostaje metoda razvijenih za domenu tiska. Razlog za takav nedostatak jest činjenica da razvijanje steganografskih metoda za tisak zahtjeva veću količinu resursa i materijala, u odnosu na razvijanje sličnih domena za digitalnu domenu. Također, metode za tisak često zahtijevaju višu razinu kompleksnosti, budući da se tijekom reprodukcije pojavljuju razni oblici procesiranja koji mogu kompromitirati informaciju u slici [1]. Da bi se sačuvala skrivena informacija, metoda mora biti otporna na procesiranje koje se događa tijekom reprodukcije. Kako bi se postigla visoka razina otpornosti, informacija se može umetnuti unutar frekvencijske domene slike [2], [3]. Frekvencijskoj domeni slike možemo pristupiti pomoću matematičkih transformacija. Najčešće se koriste diskretna kosinusna transformacija (DCT), diskretna wavelet transformacija (DWT) i diskretna Fourierova transformacija (DFT) [2], [4]. Korištenje svake od navedenih transformacija ima određene prednosti i nedostatke, ovisno o kontekstu razvijanja metode [5]. Za metode prilagođene procesu tiska, diskretna Fourierova transformacija je optimalan odabir, budući da metode bazirane na DFT-u pružaju otpornost na geometrijske transformacije koje se događaju tijekom reprodukcije [5], [6]. U ovom istraživanju korištene su slike u cmyk prostoru boja. Svaka slika najprije je podijeljena u blokove, a umetanje informacije vrši se za svaki blok pojedinačno. Pomoću DFT-a, ???? kanal slikovnog bloka se transformira u frekvencijsku domenu, gdje se vrši umetanje informacije. Akromatska zamjena koristi se za maskiranje vidljivih artefakata nastalih prilikom umetanja informacije. Primjeri uspješnog korištenja akromatske zamjene za maskiranje artefakata mogu se pronaći u [7] i [8]. Nakon umetanja informacije u svaki slikovni blok, blokovi se ponovno spajaju u jednu, jedinstvenu sliku. Akromatska zamjena tada mijenja vrijednosti c, m i y kanala slike, dok kanal k, u kojemu se nalazi umetnuta informacija, ostaje nepromijenjen. Time nakon maskiranja akromatskom zamjenom označena slika posjeduje ista vizualna svojstva kao i slika prije označavanja. U eksperimentalnom dijelu rada koristi se 1000 slika u cmyk prostoru boja. U digitalnom okruženju provedeno je istraživanje otpornosti metode na slikovne napade specifične za reprodukcijski proces - skaliranje, blur, šum, rotaciju i kompresiju. Također, provedeno je istraživanje otpornosti metode na reprodukcijski proces, koristeći tiskane uzorke. Objektivna metrika bit error rate (BER) korištena je za evaluaciju. Mogućnost optimizacije metode testirala se procesiranjem slike (unsharp filter) i korištenjem error correction kodova (ECC). Provedeno je istraživanje kvalitete slike nakon umetanja informacije. Za evaluaciju su korištene objektivne metrike peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) i structural similarity index measure (SSIM). PSNR i SSIM su tzv. full-reference metrike. Drugim riječima, potrebne su i neoznačena i označena slika istovremeno, kako bi se mogla utvrditi razina sličnosti između slika [9], [10]. Subjektivna analiza provedena je na 36 ispitanika, koristeći ukupno 144 uzorka slika. Ispitanici su ocijenjivali vidljivost artefakata na skali od nula (nevidljivo) do tri (vrlo vidljivo). Rezultati pokazuju da metoda posjeduje visoku razinu otpornosti na reprodukcijski proces. Također, metoda se uistinu optimizirala korištenjem unsharp filtera i ECC-a. Kvaliteta slike ostaje visoka bez obzira na umetanje informacije, što su potvrdili rezultati eksperimenata s objektivnim metrikama i subjektivna analiza

A dual watermarking scheme for identity protection

A novel dual watermarking scheme with potential applications in identity protection, media integrity maintenance and copyright protection in both electronic and printed media is presented. The proposed watermarking scheme uses the owner’s signature and fingerprint as watermarks through which the ownership and validity of the media can be proven and kept intact. To begin with, the proposed watermarking scheme is implemented on continuous-tone/greyscale images, and later extended to images achieved via multitoning, an advanced version of halftoning-based printing. The proposed watermark embedding is robust and imperceptible. Experimental simulations and evaluations of the proposed method show excellent results from both objective and subjective view-points