Video Stream Authentication Research Articles

Robust and efficient authentication of video stream broadcasting

We present a novel video stream authentication scheme which combines signature amortization by means of hash chains and an advanced watermarking technique. We propose a new hash chain construction, the Duplex Hash Chain, which allows us to achieve bit-by-bit authentication that is robust to low bit error rates. This construction is well suited for wireless broadcast communications characterized by low packet losses such as in satellite networks. Moreover, neither hardware upgrades nor specific end-user equipment are needed to enjoy the authentication services. The computation overhead experienced on the receiver only sums to two hashes per block of pictures and one digital signature verification for the whole received stream. This overhead introduces a provably negligible decrease in video quality. A thorough analysis of the proposed solution is provided in conjunction with extensive simulations.

An automated system for monitoring the visual quality and authenticity of satellite video streams using a fragile watermarking approach

This study presents an automatic, fragile-watermarking-based scheme for monitoring the visual quality and authenticity of video streams broadcast by a communications satellite. In the proposed approach, watermark information is embedded in designated motion vectors within the frames of the original video stream prior to it encryption, modulation and transmission to the satellite. Following the reception of the video stream at a terrestrial monitoring system, the watermark information is extracted and compared to that embedded in the original frames. It is shown that by monitoring the mean square error (MSE) of the extracted watermark relative to the original version, reliable estimates of the visual quality of the transmitted video stream can be obtained. Furthermore, the experimental results indicate that the watermarking scheme successfully identifies various common forms of interference, namely recompression attacks, frame removals, frame substitutions, and so forth. Therefore, by monitoring the watermark extraction results on a continuous basis, the degree of signal interference can be automatically determined and an appropriate alarm signal generated to prompt the necessary response.

Generalized Butterfly Graph and Its Application to Video Stream Authentication

This paper presents the generalized butterfly graph (GBG) and its application to video stream authentication. Compared with the original butterfly graph, the proposed GBG provides significantly increased flexibility, which is necessary for streaming applications, including supporting arbitrary bit-rate budget for authentication and arbitrary number of video packets. Within the GBG design, the problem of constructing an authentication graph is defined as follows: given the total number of packets to protect, the expected packet loss rate for the network, and the available overhead budget, how should one design the authentication graph to maximize the probability that the received packets are verifiable? Furthermore, given the fact that media packets are typically of unequal importance, we explore two variants of the GBG authentication, packet sorting and unequal authentication protection, which apply unequal treatment to different packets based on their importance. Lastly, we examine how the proposed GBG authentication can be applied within the context of rate-distortion-authentication (R-D-A) optimized streaming: given a media stream protected by GBG authentication, the R-D-A optimized streaming technique computes an optimized transmission schedule by recognizing and accounting for the authentication dependencies in the GBG authentication graph.