Invisible Watermarking Research Articles

Invisible Watermarking on Grayscale Image

Digital watermarking is a procedure to embedded watermark or logo into an image to avoid copyright and protect the image from being manipulated by others without owner approval. In the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector, the main challenge in watermarking is how to achieve high imperceptibility or visual quality and robustness without sacrificing the capacity of the cover image. In addition, the watermark should be ably extracted without any distortion. As for that, spiral scan embedding technique is used to overcome this issue. The performance of the proposed project is evaluated by comparing the results of extracting process using spiral scan technique with sequence technique, while the imperceptibility of the cover image is measured using Peak Signal Ratio (PSNR) and robustness of the watermarked image is measured using Normalized Cross Correlation (NCC). The eesult shows that the proposed technique obtains high imperceptibility and robustness.

Greyscale image encoding and watermarking based on optical asymmetric cryptography and variational image decomposition

ABSTRACTIn this paper, a novel greyscale image encoding and a watermarking scheme based on optical asymmetric cryptography and variational image decomposition (VID) are proposed. In this proposed scheme, the greyscale watermark is encoded into a noise-like pattern by the phase-truncated Fresnel transform (PT-FrT)-based optical asymmetric cryptography. The greyscale host image is decomposed into its cartoon part and texture part by the VID technique. After that, the encoded watermark is embedded into the host image’s texture part by a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) based fusion approach. The proposed scheme can achieve a better watermark invisibility and a higher robustness by embedding the watermark into the host image’s texture part. Additionally, the proposed scheme can achieve a high security, because the PT-FrT-based optical asymmetric cryptography can resist some common cryptographic attacks. The feasibility, robustness and security of the proposed scheme have been demonstrated by extensive experiments and comparison with other relevant image encoding and watermarking schemes.

Multipurpose Watermarking Based on SWT and SVD

Dual digital watermarking has emerged as a successful solution for copyright protection, tamper detection and localization. However, several problems related to the robustness, capacity, tampered area detection still mystifying. This paper presents a high capacity dual watermarking mechanism for digital color image. An invisible robust watermark is embedded in the Green component of the host image by using a hybrid combination of Stationary Wavelet Transform (SWT) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) for copyright protection. A fragile invisible watermark based on the Least Significant Bit (LSB) replacement approach is embedded in the Blue component of the image for tamper detection and localization. The proposed technique focuses on robustness and imperceptibility while maximizing embedding capacity that makes this technique a multipurpose watermarking scheme.

Survey on network flow watermarking: model, interferences, applications, technologies and security

Compared with passive flow correlation technologies based on flow characteristics, network flow watermarking, a kind of active flow correlation technology, is characterised by high accuracy, low false positive rate and short observation time. The basic framework and main elements of flow watermarking are formally described. The robustness and invisibility focused by flow watermarking as well as typical application scenarios (such as stepping-stone traceback, anonymous abuser correlation) of flow watermarking are expounded. The intra-flow and inter-flow interferences (such as repacketisation, packet reorder, delay normalisation, flow mixing, flow splitting and flow merging) faced by flow watermarking are briefly introduced. Analysis and comparison on different watermark carriers (packet payload, traffic rate, packet timing, packet number, packet length, packet order and hybrid carrier) based typical flow watermarking technologies, including flow fingerprinting technologies, are conducted, then, a review on security threats faced by flow watermarking, including multi-flow attack, mean-square autocorrelation attack, Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, BACKLIT detection and replication attack, and main countermeasures for increasing invisibility of flow watermarking is carried out. Current research hotspots and future development trends of flow watermarking are summarised and prospected from the aspects of architecture design, invisibility enhancement, adaptive capability improvement, performance evaluation, deployment and application.

Application of Invisible Image Watermarking

Copyright to an image is very important so that it is not misused by irresponsible parties, many ways can be done to provide copyright information in an image. Watermarking is a technique commonly used to mark a picture that the image already has copyright and whose owner is known, but in addition to visible watermarking there is also an invisible watermarking to indicate an image on a pixel or also in byte code and this is invisible. The Patchwork Algorithm is an algorithm that can be used to give an image to the image as an authenticity image so that many parties cannot claim it and are quite good from various modifications of image, application that has been created are purpose to embedded information as invisible watermarking in the image.

DropWat: An Invisible Network Flow Watermark for Data Exfiltration Traceback

Watermarking techniques have been proposed during the last 10 years as an approach to trace network flows for intrusion detection purposes. These techniques aim to impress a hidden signature on a traffic flow. A central property of network flow watermarking is invisibility, i.e., the ability to go unidentified by an unauthorized third party. Although widely sought after, the development of an invisible watermark is a challenging task that has not yet been accomplished. In this paper we take a step forward in addressing the invisibility problem with DROPWAT, an active network flow watermarking technique developed for tracing Internet flows directed to the staging server that is the final destination in a data exfiltration attack, even in the presence of several intermediate stepping stones or an anonymous network. DROPWAT is a timing-based technique that indirectly modifies interpacket delays by exploiting network reaction to packet loss. We empirically demonstrate that the watermark embedded by means of DROPWAT is invisible to a third party observing the watermarked traffic. We also validate DROPWAT and analyze its performance in a controlled experimental framework involving the execution of a series of experiments on the Internet, using Web proxy servers as stepping stones executed on several instances in Amazon Web Services, as well as the TOR anonymous network in the place of the stepping stones. Our results show that the detection algorithm is able to identify an embedded watermark achieving over 95% accuracy while being invisible.

Transform‐based watermarking algorithm maintaining perceptual transparency

Here, a novel, yet simple, transform-based watermarking scheme for copyright protection has been proposed. The proposed method takes advantage of the rotation invariant property of the ripplet-II transform which makes the proposed method robust against rotation attacks. In the proposed method, firstly a cost function of perceptual transparency is formed in the ripplet-II domain. Secondly, the ridge regularisation constraint is added to the cost function to avoid the singularity problem in the model. In order to obtain the embedding weights, this function is minimised. Therefore, the embedding weights are adaptive to both the host image and watermark. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm not only provides an excellent watermark invisibility, but it also shows superior robustness against common image processing operations and acceptable robustness against geometric distortions.

A COPYRIGHT PROTECTION OF DATA OVER INTERNET BY USING WATERMARKING

As the growing demand for security of copyright protection against unauthorized attacks. It is necessary to protect the ownership of the data mainly during the transferring of data, which leads to call the embedding of watermark to the data for security. This paper proposed a combined algorithm of Discrete Wavelet Transform [DWT]-Singular Value Decomposition [SVD]. This combined technique gives a better authentication against various and common unauthorized attacks. Here we embed the invisible watermark to the host image by using this combined technique. We use the R plane of the host image to embed the watermark. Firstly , we split the three color bands named as R, G and B Band. And select the R band for embedding the watermark. The watermark can be extracted at the receiver side further by splitting the three color bands and by applying the Inverse Discrete Wavelet Transform(IDWT) and Inverse Singular value Decomposition. In this paper four level decomposition has been done. The various experimental results have been shown in this paper which gives the better robustness against various unauthorized attacks.

An ASIC based invisible watermarking of grayscale images using pixel value search algorithm (PVSA)

Digital image watermarking has become more popular due to its applications in copyright protection and secret communication. Most of the image watermarking algorithms reported till date involve modification of the host contents for embedding a secret data, leading to a reduced robustness and a limited embedding capacity. In the present work, a novel spatial domain watermarking scheme called Pixel Value Search Algorithm (PVSA) is proposed using a linear search operation to achieve high robustness and a theoretically unlimited embedding capacity. In the proposed scheme, secret data are embedded into a host image by mapping their intensity values into row and column locations. Due to this linear mapping of secret data, the host structural content is not altered. In addition, multiple watermarks can be mapped into a single host image using the PVSA technique. The proposed algorithm is verified using MATLAB® simulations and its performance characteristics are assessed using a standard benchmark tool called strimark. Experimental results illustrate the robustness of the PVSA technique against the attacks of Gaussian blurring, Gaussian noise, salt and pepper noise, Poisson noise, speckle noise, mean and median filtering, histogram equalization, image sharpening, intensity transformation, unsharp filtering, JPEG attack, etc. Subsequently an ASIC implementation of the PVSA algorithm is carried out using Verilog HDL and various modules of the Cadence® EDA tool so as to integrate the chip as a watermark co-processor. The ASIC implementation using a 0.18 μm technology at an operating frequency of 100 MHz consumes a power of 326.34 μW for the complete hardware architecture.

Imperceptible reversible watermarking of radiographic images based on quantum noise masking

Background and objectiveAdvances in information and communication technologies boost the sharing and remote access to medical images. Along with this evolution, needs in terms of data security are also increased. Watermarking can contribute to better protect images by dissimulating into their pixels some security attributes (e.g., digital signature, user identifier). But, to take full advantage of this technology in healthcare, one key problem to address is to ensure that the image distortion induced by the watermarking process does not endanger the image diagnosis value. To overcome this issue, reversible watermarking is one solution. It allows watermark removal with the exact recovery of the image. Unfortunately, reversibility does not mean that imperceptibility constraints are relaxed. Indeed, once the watermark removed, the image is unprotected. It is thus important to ensure the invisibility of reversible watermark in order to ensure a permanent image protection. MethodsWe propose a new fragile reversible watermarking scheme for digital radiographic images, the main originality of which stands in masking a reversible watermark into the image quantum noise (the dominant noise in radiographic images). More clearly, in order to ensure the watermark imperceptibility, our scheme differentiates the image black background, where message embedding is conducted into pixel gray values with the well-known histogram shifting (HS) modulation, from the anatomical object, where HS is applied to wavelet detail coefficients, masking the watermark with the image quantum noise. In order to maintain the watermark embedder and reader synchronized in terms of image partitioning and insertion domain, our scheme makes use of different classification processes that are invariant to message embedding. ResultsWe provide the theoretical performance limits of our scheme into the image quantum noise in terms of image distortion and message size (i.e. capacity). Experiments conducted on more than 800 12 bits radiographic images of different anatomical structures show that our scheme induces a very low image distortion (PSNR∼ 76.5 dB) for a relatively important capacity (capacity∼ 0.02 bits of message per pixel). ConclusionsThe proposed watermarking scheme, while being reversible, preserves the diagnosis value of radiographic images by masking the watermark into the quantum noise. As theoretically and experimentally established our scheme offers a good capacity/image quality compromise that can support different watermarking based security services such as integrity and authenticity control. The watermark can be kept into the image during the interpretation of the image, offering thus a continuous protection. Such a masking strategy can be seen as the first psychovisual model for radiographic images. The reversibility allows the watermark update when necessary.

The comparison between SVD-DCT and SVD-DWT digital image watermarking

With internet, anyone can publish their creation into digital data simply, inexpensively, and absolutely easy to be accessed by everyone. However, the problem appears when anyone else claims that the creation is their property or modifies some part of that creation. It causes necessary protection of copyrights; one of the examples is with watermarking method in digital image. The application of watermarking technique on digital data, especially on image, enables total invisibility if inserted in carrier image. Carrier image will not undergo any decrease of quality and also the inserted image will not be affected by attack. In this paper, watermarking will be implemented on digital image using Singular Value Decomposition based on Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) by expectation in good performance of watermarking result. In this case, trade-off happen between invisibility and robustness of image watermarking. In embedding process, image watermarking has a good quality for scaling factor < 0.1. The quality of image watermarking in decomposition level 3 is better than level 2 and level 1. Embedding watermark in low-frequency is robust to Gaussian blur attack, rescale, and JPEG compression, but in high-frequency is robust to Gaussian noise.

Improved imperceptible visible watermarking algorithm for auxiliary informationdelivery

An imperceptible visible watermarking (IVW) algorithm is proposed to deliver auxiliary information about the visual contents, including ownership information. The proposed algorithm overcomes several inconveniences presented in previously reported IVW algorithms using the just noticeable difference (JND) criterion, invisible watermarking and binarisation function. The proposed algorithm consists of the visible watermark embedding and the exhibition stages. The JND criterion is used to embed visible watermark pattern in an imperceptible manner by the human visual system, while invisible watermarking based on the discrete cosine transform is used to share crucial parameters between both stages, which makes possible the watermark visualisation without any side information. In the watermark exhibition stage, the imperceptibly embedded visible watermark pattern is exhibited by the binarisation function. The proposed algorithm can be applied to any class of images with different characteristics and several visible watermark patterns can be embedded into an input image. Evaluation results show that performance of the proposed algorithm is better compared with previously reported algorithms from several practical points of view.

Using Sab-Iomha for an Alpha Channel based Image Forgery Detection

Digital images are a very popular way of transfer-ring media. However, their integrity remains challenging because these images can easily be manipulated with the help of software tools and such manipulations cannot be verified through a naked-eye. Although there exist some techniques to validate digital images, but in practice, it is not a trivial task as the existing approaches to forgery detection are not very effective. Therefore, there is need for a simple and efficient solution for the challenge. On the other hand, digital image steganography is the concealing of a message within an image file. The secret message can be retrieved afterwards by the author to check the image file for its veracity. This research paper proposes Sabiomha, an image forgery technique that make use of image steganography. The proposed technique is also supported by a software tool to demonstrate its usefulness. Sabiomha works by inserting an invisible watermark to certain alpha bits of the image file. The watermark we have used to steganograph an image is composed of a combination of text inputs the author can use to sign the image. Any attempts to tamper the image would distort the sequence of the bits of the image pixel. Hence, the proposed technique can easily validate originality of a digital image by exposing any tampering. The usability of our contribution is demonstrated by using the software tool we developed to automate the proposed technique. The experiment which we performed to further validate our technique suggested that Sabimoha could be flawlessly applied to image files.

Robust Watermarking for Video Using Mean Modulation Technique

This paper is directed toward the task of embedding a robust invisible watermark in the found sprite object (survive object) in each Group of Video (GOV). The proposed system is designed to provide authentication and protection to video by embedding invisible watermark. Three different watermark data embedding methods have been developed and used; they are: (i) Blocks average modulation applied on RGB domain, (ii) Blocks average modulation applied on Y-band only, and (iii) Haar wavelet approximation modulation. Uniform quantization is used as part of hiding step for modulating the block mean value of one or more of the color bands. The conducted tests indicated that the proposed block mean modulation method in the Y-subband of sprite blocks offer excellent robust watermark embedding; it was capable to withstand against lossy JPEG and JPEG2000 compression attacks.

Secure and Efficient Transmission of Hyperspectral Images for Geosciences Applications

Hyperspectral images are acquired through air-borne or space-borne special cameras (sensors) that collect information coming from the electromagnetic spectrum of the observed terrains. Hyperspectral remote sensing and hyperspectral images are used for a wide range of purposes: originally, they were developed for mining applications and for geology because of the capability of this kind of images to correctly identify various types of underground minerals by analysing the reflected spectrums, but their usage has spread in other application fields, such as ecology, military and surveillance, historical research and even archaeology. The large amount of data obtained by the hyperspectral sensors, the fact that these images are acquired at a high cost by air-borne sensors and that they are generally transmitted to a base, makes it necessary to provide an efficient and secure transmission protocol. In this paper, we propose a novel framework that allows secure and efficient transmission of hyperspectral images, by combining a reversible invisible watermarking scheme, used in conjunction with digital signature techniques, and a state-of-art predictive-based lossless compression algorithm.

Hyperspectral Data: Efficient and Secure Transmission

Airborne and spaceborne hyperspectral sensors collect information which is derived from the electromagnetic spectrum of an observed area. Hyperspectral data are used in several studies and they are an important aid in different real-life applications (e.g., mining and geology applications, ecology, surveillance, etc.). A hyperspectral image has a three-dimensional structure (a sort of datacube): it can be considered as a sequence of narrow and contiguous spectral channels (bands). The objective of this paper is to present a framework permits the efficient storage/transmission of an input hyperspectral image, and its protection. The proposed framework relies on a reversible invisible watermarking scheme and an efficient lossless compression algorithm. The reversible watermarking scheme is used in conjunction with digital signature techniques in order to permit the verification of the integrity of a hyperspectral image by the receiver.

Enhancing security and privacy of images on cloud by histogram shifting and secret sharing

In contemporary society, people can easily use any smart device at hand to capture images of scenery and upload them to cloud storage. Cloud storage is widely used for storing user generated multimedia content. However, the risk of potential private data leakage exists because cloud storage is normally in a public domain. To protect the privacy information of images on cloud storage, we propose an integrated scheme involving invisible watermarking, masking and secret sharing methods. The histogram modification-based scheme can achieve reversible data hiding to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of image data. Additionally, a secret sharing scheme was used to further improve the security of data access. The evaluation results show that the proposed system may prevent malicious users from accessing private images.

Generating Pattern from Image using Genetic Algorithm as Invisible Watermark

Generating Pattern from Image using Genetic Algorithm as Invisible Watermark

PENERAPAN DIGITAL WATERMARK SEBAGAI VALIDASI KEABSAHAN GAMBAR DIGITAL DENGAN SKEMA BLIND WATERMARK

Digital watermarking is an important field of technological development that has now grown in the digital era. Digital era encourage the spread digital images on internet by the websites with a large scale. On the other hand, digital images are objects that are very easy to change or manipulate, and even copied irresponsibly. Meanwhile it is very difficult to prove the image has been changed by existing equipment at this time, and it is difficult to prove its ownership. This is an important issue, when the image is one of the evidences for legal cases, news reporting and medical filing, where the image must be ensured that the digital image is not subject to change or manipulation. In this paper, we present the application of digital watermarking to authentication and ownership validation of digital image so the image can be ascertained its validity. This research applies blind watermark scheme by using secret key that inserted at least-significant bits (LSB) of host image therefore the watermark is invisible watermark. The result of watermarked image has a small decrease in quality with the mean value of PSNR and MSE about 34.08 and 14.62.

Watermarking protocols: an excursus to motivate a new approach

Digital watermarking is one of the techniques that can be used to support digital copyright protection. It enables copyright owners to insert a perceptually invisible watermark within any copy of content that is distributed on the Internet. The main aim is to use watermarks to implement copyright identification and content tracking. However, digital watermarking is not sufficient to ensure an adequate copyright protection, if it is not employed in conjunction with watermarking protocols, which define the schemes of the web transactions by which buyers can purchase protected digital content distributed by content providers in a secure manner. Therefore, watermarking protocols play a central role in the field of digital copyright protection by means of watermarking techniques. They have to ensure both a correct content protection and an easy participation of buyers in the purchase transactions of the contents distributed on the Internet. This paper presents a new watermarking protocol based on an innovative, buyer centric, and mediated design approach. The result is a secure protocol that enables buyers to easily participate in the transactions by which they can buy digital protected content, and this makes the protocol suited for the current web context.