A new partial image encryption method for document images using variance based quad tree decomposition

The proposed method partially and completely encrypts the gray scale Document images. The complete image encryption is also performed to compare the performance with the existing encryption methods. The partial encryption is carried out by segmenting the image using the Quad-tree decomposition method based on the variance of the image block. The image blocks with uniform pixel levels are considered insignificant blocks and others the significant blocks. The pixels in the significant blocks are permuted by using 1D Skew tent chaotic map. The partially encrypted image blocks are further permuted using 2D Henon map to increase the security level and fed as input to complete encryption. The complete encryption is carried out by diffusing the partially encrypted image. Two levels of diffusion are performed. The first level simply modifies the pixels in the partially encrypted image with the Bernoulli’s chaotic map. The second level establishes the interdependency between rows and columns of the first level diffused image. The experiment is conducted for both partial and complete image encryption on the Document images. The proposed scheme yields better results for both partial and complete encryption on Speed, statistical and dynamical attacks. The results ensure better security when compared to existing encryption schemes

Secure and Robust Fragile Watermarking Scheme for Medical Images

Over the past decade advances in computer-based communication and health services, the need for image security becomes urgent to address the requirements of both safety and non-safety in medical applications. This paper proposes a new fragile watermarking based scheme for image authentication and self-recovery for medical applications. The proposed scheme locates image tampering as well as recovers the original image. A host image is broken into 4×4 blocks and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is applied by inserting the traces of block wise SVD into the Least Significant Bit (LSB) of the image pixels to figure out the transformation in the original image. Two authentication bits namely block authentication and self-recovery bits were used to survive the vector quantization attack. The insertion of self-recovery bits is determined with Arnold transformation, which recovers the original image even after a high tampering rate. SVD-based watermarking information improves the image authentication and provides a way to detect different attacked area. The proposed scheme is tested against different types of attacks such are text removal attack, text insertion attack, and copy and paste attack

Classification of novel selected region of interest for color image encryption

Securing digital image in exchanging huge multimedia data over internet with limited bandwidth is a significant and sensitive issue. Selective image encryption being an effective method for reducing the amount of encrypted data can achieve adequate security enhancement. Determining and selecting the region of interest in digital color images is challenging for selective image encryption due to their complex structure and distinct regions of varying importance. We propose a new feature in acquiring and selecting Region of Interest (ROI) for the color images to develop a selective encryption scheme. The hybrid domain is used to encrypt regions based on chaotic map approach which automatically generates secret key. This new attribute is a vitality facet representing the noteworthy part of the color image. The security performance of selective image encryption is found to enhance considerably based on the rates of encrypted area selection. Computation is performed using MATLAB R2008a codes on eight images (Lena, Pepper, Splash, Airplane, House, Tiffany, Baboon and Sailboat) each of size 512*512 pixels obtained from standard USC-SIPI Image Database. A block size of 128*128 pixels with threshold levels 0.0017 and 0.48 are employed. Results are analyzed and compared with edge detection method using the same algorithm. Encrypted area, entropy and correlation coefficients performances reveal that the proposed scheme achieves good alternative in the confined region of interest, fulfills the desired confidentiality and protects image privacy

Robust Watermarking Schemes for Digital Images

With the rapid development of multimedia and the widespread distribution of digital data over the internet networks, it has become easy to obtain the intellectual properties. Consequently, the multimedia owners need more than ever before to protect their data and to prevent their unauthorized use. Digital watermarking has been proposed as an effective method for copyright protection and an unauthorized manipulation of the multimedia. Watermarking refers to the process of embedding an identification code or some other information called watermark into digital multimedia without affecting the visual quality of the host multimedia. Such a watermark can be used for several purposes including copyright protection and fingerprinting of the multimedia for tracing and data authentication. The goal in a watermarking scheme is to embed a watermark that is robust against various types of attacks while preserving the perceptual quality of the cover image. A variety of schemes have been proposed in the literature to achieve these goals for watermarking of images. These schemes either provide good imperceptibility of the watermark without sufficient resilience to certain types of attacks or provide good robustness against attacks at the expense of degraded perceptual quality of the cover images. The objective of this work is to develop image watermarking schemes with performance that is superior to those of existing schemes in terms of their robustness against various types of attacks while preserving the perceptual of the cover image. In this thesis, two new digital image watermarking schemes are proposed. In the first scheme, an Arnold transform integrated DCT-SVD based image watermarking scheme is developed. The main idea in this scheme is to improve the robustness of the watermarking further by scrambling the watermark data using the Arnold transform while still preserving the good perceptibility of the watermarked image furnished by a DCT-SVD based embedding. Also, it is shown that considerable savings in the computation time to recover the original watermark image can be provided by using the anti-Arnold transform in the watermark extraction process. In the second scheme, a DWT-SVD digital image watermarking scheme that makes use of visual cryptography to embed and extract a binary watermark image is developed. The use of visual cryptography in the proposed watermarking scheme is intended to provide improved robustness against attacks along with furnishing security to the content of the embedded data. Extensive experiments are conducted throughout this investigation in order to examine the performance of the proposed watermarking schemes. It is shown that the two proposed watermarking schemes developed in this thesis provide a performance superior to that of the existing schemes in terms of robustness against various types of attacks while preserving the perceptual quality of the cover image

Hybrid multiple watermarking technique for securing medical images of modalities MRI, CT scan, and X-ray

In order to contribute to the security of sharing and transferring medical images, we had presented a multiple watermarking technique for multiple protections; it was based on the combination of three transformations: the discrete wavelet transform (DWT), the fast Walsh-Hadamard transform (FWHT) and, the singular value decomposition (SVD). In this paper, three watermark images of sizes 512x 512 were inserted into a single medical image of various modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), and X-Radiation (X-ray). After applying DWT up to the third level on the original image, the high-resolution sub-bands were being selected subsequently to apply FWHT and then SVD. The singular values of the three watermark images were inserted into the singular values of the cover medical image. The experimental results showed the effectiveness of the proposed method in terms of quality and robustness compared to other reported techniques cited in the literature

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

On the Eigenstructures of Functional K-Potent Matrices and Their Integral Forms

In this paper, a functional k-potent matrix satisfies the equation, where k and r are positive integers, and are real numbers. This class of matrices includes idempotent, Nilpotent, and involutary matrices, and more. It turns out that the matrices in this group are best distinguished by their associated eigen-structures. The spectral properties of the matrices are exploited to construct integral k-potent matrices, which have special roles in digital image encryption

Steganography Approach to Image Authentication Using Pulse Coupled Neural Network

This paper introduces a model for the authentication of large-scale images. The crucial element of the proposed model is the optimized Pulse Coupled Neural Network. This neural network generates position matrices based on which the embedding of authentication data into cover images is applied. Emphasis is placed on the minimalization of the stego image entropy change. Stego image entropy is consequently compared with the reference entropy of the cover image. The security of the suggested solution is granted by the neural network weights initialized with a steganographic key and by the encryption of accompanying steganographic data using the AES-256 algorithm. The integrity of the images is verified through the SHA-256 hash function. The integration of the accompanying and authentication data directly into the stego image and the authentication of the large images are the main contributions of the work