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

A Data Hiding Method Based on Partition Variable Block Size with Exclusive-or Operation on Binary Image

In this paper, we propose a high capacity data hiding method applying in binary images. Since a binary image has only two colors, black or white, it is hard to hide data imperceptible. The capacities and imperception are always in a trade-off problem. Before embedding we shuffle the secret data by a pseudo-random number generator to keep more secure. We divide the host image into several non-overlapping (2n+1) by (2n+1) sub-blocks in an M by N host image as many as possible, where n can equal 1, 2, 3 , …, or min(M,N). Then we partition each sub-block into four overlapping (n+1) by (n+1) sub-blocks. We skip the all blacks or all whites in each (2n+1) by (2n+1) sub-blocks. We consider all four (n+1) by (n+1) sub-blocks to check the XOR between the non overlapping parts and center pixel of the (2n+1) by (2n+1) sub-block, it embed n 2 bits in each (n+1) by (n+1) sub-block, totally are 4*n 2 . The entire host image can be embedded 4×n 2×M/(2n+1)×N/(2n+1) bits. The extraction way is simply to test the XOR between center pixel with their non-overlapping part of each sub-block. All embedding bits are collected and shuffled back to the original order. The adaptive means the partitioning sub-block may affect the capacities and imperception that we want to select. The experimental results show that the method provides the large embedding capacity and keeps imperceptible and reveal the host image lossless

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

A Review on Image mosaicing for secure Transmission of University Exam Question Paper

The rapid spread of the digital world nowadays which is powered by ever faster system demands greater speed and security. Real time to secure an image is a challenging task due to the processing time and computational requirement for RGB image. So, to cope with these concerns, many innovative techniques of image processing for data hiding are required. In this paper new data hiding scheme is proposed which is known as image mosaicing. Image mosaicing is the process of merging split images to produce a single and complete image of the document. For this technique two input images are required one is secret image and second is target image, by merging these two a new image is made called as a mosaic image. So, the creation of mosaic image and lossless recovery of secret input image for question paper security is presented in this paper

High Capacity Analog Channels for Smart Documents

Widely-used valuable hardcopy documents such as passports, visas, driving licenses, educational certificates, entrance-passes for entertainment events etc. are conventionally protected against counterfeiting and data tampering attacks by applying analog security technologies (e.g. KINEGRAMS®, holograms, micro-printing, UV/IR inks etc.). How-ever, easy access to high quality, low price modern desktop publishing technology has left most of these technologies ineffective, giving rise to high quality false documents. The higher price and restricted usage are other drawbacks of the analog document pro-tection techniques. Digital watermarking and high capacity storage media such as IC-chips, optical data stripes etc. are the modern technologies being used in new machine-readable identity verification documents to ensure contents integrity; however, these technologies are either expensive or do not satisfy the application needs and demand to look for more efficient document protection technologies. In this research three different high capacity analog channels: high density data stripe (HD-DataStripe), data hiding in printed halftone images (watermarking), and super-posed constant background grayscale image (CBGI) are investigated for hidden com-munication along with their applications in smart documents. On way to develop high capacity analog channels, noise encountered from printing and scanning (PS) process is investigated with the objective to recover the digital information encoded at nearly maximum channel utilization. By utilizing noise behaviour, countermeasures against the noise are taken accordingly in data recovery process. HD-DataStripe is a printed binary image similar to the conventional 2-D barcodes (e.g. PDF417), but it offers much higher data storage capacity and is intended for machine-readable identity verification documents. The capacity offered by the HD-DataStripe is sufficient to store high quality biometric characteristics rather than extracted templates, in addition to the conventional bearer related data contained in a smart ID-card. It also eliminates the need for central database system (except for backup record) and other ex-pensive storage media, currently being used. While developing novel data-reading tech-nique for HD-DataStripe, to count for the unavoidable geometrical distortions, registra-tion marks pattern is chosen in such a way so that it results in accurate sampling points (a necessary condition for reliable data recovery at higher data encoding-rate). For more sophisticated distortions caused by the physical dot gain effects (intersymbol interfer-ence), the countermeasures such as application of sampling theorem, adaptive binariza-tion and post-data processing, each one of these providing only a necessary condition for reliable data recovery, are given. Finally, combining the various filters correspond-ing to these countermeasures, a novel Data-Reading technique for HD-DataStripe is given. The novel data-reading technique results in superior performance than the exist-ing techniques, intended for data recovery from printed media. In another scenario a small-size HD-DataStripe with maximum entropy is used as a copy detection pattern by utilizing information loss encountered at nearly maximum channel capacity. While considering the application of HD-DataStripe in hardcopy documents (contracts, official letters etc.), unlike existing work [Zha04], it allows one-to-one contents matching and does not depend on hash functions and OCR technology, constraints mainly imposed by the low data storage capacity offered by the existing analog media. For printed halftone images carrying hidden information higher capacity is mainly attributed to data-reading technique for HD-DataStripe that allows data recovery at higher printing resolution, a key requirement for a high quality watermarking technique in spatial domain. Digital halftoning and data encoding techniques are the other factors that contribute to data hiding technique given in this research. While considering security aspects, the new technique allows contents integrity and authenticity verification in the present scenario in which certain amount of errors are unavoidable, restricting the usage of existing techniques given for digital contents. Finally, a superposed constant background grayscale image, obtained by the repeated application of a specially designed small binary pattern, is used as channel for hidden communication and it allows up to 33 pages of A-4 size foreground text to be encoded in one CBGI. The higher capacity is contributed from data encoding symbols and data reading technique

Spectrally stable ink variability in a multi-primary printer

It was shown previously that a multi-ink printer can reproduce spectral reflectances within a specified tolerance range using many distinct ink combinations. An algorithm was developed to systematically analyze a printer to determine the amount of multi-ink variability throughout its spectral gamut. The advantage of this algorithm is that any spectral difference metric can be used as the objective function. Based on the results of the analysis for one spectral difference metric, six-dimensional density map displays were constructed to illustrate the amount of spectral redundancy throughout the ink space. One CMYKGO ink-jet printer was analyzed using spectral reflectance factor RMS as the spectral difference metric and selecting 0.02 RMS as the tolerance limit. For these parameters, the degree of spectral matching freedom for the printer reduced to five inks because the chromatic inks were able to reproduce spectra within the 0.02 tolerance limit throughout the printer\u27s gamut. Experiments were designed to exploit spectrally stable multi-ink variability within the analyzed printer. The first experiment used spectral redundancy to visually evaluate spectral difference metrics. Using the developed database of spectrally similar samples allows any spectral difference metric to be compared to a visual response. The second experiment demonstrated the impact of spectral redundancy on spectral color management. Typical color image processing techniques use profiles consisting of sparse multi-dimensional lookup tables that interpolate between adjacent nodes to prepare an image for rendering. It was shown that colorimetric error resulted when interpolating between lookup table nodes that were inconsistent in digital count space although spectrally similar. Finally, the analysis was used to enable spectral watermarking of images. To illustrate the significance of this watermarking technique, information was embedded into three images with varying levels of complexity. Prints were made verifying that information could be hidden while preserving the visual and spectral integrity of the original image

Currency security and forensics: a survey

By its definition, the word currency refers to an agreed medium for exchange, a nation’s currency is the formal medium enforced by the elected governing entity. Throughout history, issuers have faced one common threat: counterfeiting. Despite technological advancements, overcoming counterfeit production remains a distant future. Scientific determination of authenticity requires a deep understanding of the raw materials and manufacturing processes involved. This survey serves as a synthesis of the current literature to understand the technology and the mechanics involved in currency manufacture and security, whilst identifying gaps in the current literature. Ultimately, a robust currency is desire

Development of Visual Cryptography Technique for Authentication Using Facial Images

Security in the real world is an important issue to be taken care and to be encountered with various aspects and preventive measures. In the present era, whole major security concerns is the protection of this multimedia web is coming closer from text data to multimedia data, one of the data. Image, which covers the highest percentage of the multimedia data, its protection is very important. These might include Military Secrets, Commercial Secrets and Information of individuals. This can be achieved by visual Cryptography. It is one kind of image encryption. Incurrent technology, most of visual cryptography areembedded a secret using multiple shares. Visual is secret sharing technique used in visual cryptography which divides the secret image into multiple shares and by superimposing those shares the original secret image is going to be revealed, but it create a threat when an intruder get shares with which the image is going to be decrypted easily. However in these project work, an extremely useful bitwise operation is perform on every pixel with the help of key. The key is provided by new concept of sterilization algorithm. Initially Red, Green and Blue channels get separated from image and are going to be encrypted on multiple levels using multiple shares, convert an image into unreadable format and by combining all the shares in proper sequence the original secret image revealed

ID Photograph hashing : a global approach

This thesis addresses the question of the authenticity of identity photographs, part of the documents required in controlled access. Since sophisticated means of reproduction are publicly available, new methods / techniques should prevent tampering and unauthorized reproduction of the photograph. This thesis proposes a hashing method for the authentication of the identity photographs, robust to print-and-scan. This study focuses also on the effects of digitization at hash level. The developed algorithm performs a dimension reduction, based on independent component analysis (ICA). In the learning stage, the subspace projection is obtained by applying ICA and then reduced according to an original entropic selection strategy. In the extraction stage, the coefficients obtained after projecting the identity image on the subspace are quantified and binarized to obtain the hash value. The study reveals the effects of the scanning noise on the hash values of the identity photographs and shows that the proposed method is robust to the print-and-scan attack. The approach focusing on robust hashing of a restricted class of images (identity) differs from classical approaches that address any imageCette thèse traite de la question de l’authenticité des photographies d’identité, partie intégrante des documents nécessaires lors d’un contrôle d’accès. Alors que les moyens de reproduction sophistiqués sont accessibles au grand public, de nouvelles méthodes / techniques doivent empêcher toute falsification / reproduction non autorisée de la photographie d’identité. Cette thèse propose une méthode de hachage pour l’authentification de photographies d’identité, robuste à l’impression-lecture. Ce travail met ainsi l’accent sur les effets de la numérisation au niveau de hachage. L’algorithme mis au point procède à une réduction de dimension, basée sur l’analyse en composantes indépendantes (ICA). Dans la phase d’apprentissage, le sous-espace de projection est obtenu en appliquant l’ICA puis réduit selon une stratégie de sélection entropique originale. Dans l’étape d’extraction, les coefficients obtenus après projection de l’image d’identité sur le sous-espace sont quantifiés et binarisés pour obtenir la valeur de hachage. L’étude révèle les effets du bruit de balayage intervenant lors de la numérisation des photographies d’identité sur les valeurs de hachage et montre que la méthode proposée est robuste à l’attaque d’impression-lecture. L’approche suivie en se focalisant sur le hachage robuste d’une classe restreinte d’images (d’identité) se distingue des approches classiques qui adressent une image quelconqu