Watermark Insertion Research Articles

An improved reversible watermarking scheme using embedding optimization and quaternion moments

Digital watermarking of images is an essential method for copyright protection and image security. This paper presents an innovative, robust watermarking system for color images based on moment and wavelet transformations, algebraic decompositions, and chaotic systems. First, we extended classical Charlier moments to quaternary Charlier moments (QCM) using quaternion algebra. This approach eliminates the need to decompose color images before applying the discrete wavelet transform (DWT), reducing the computational load. Next, we decompose the resulting DWT matrix using QR and singular value decomposition (SVD). To enhance the system's security and robustness, we introduce a modified version of Henon's 2D chaotic map. Finally, we integrate the arithmetic optimization algorithm to ensure dynamic and adaptive watermark insertion. Our experimental results demonstrate that our approach outperforms current color image watermarking methods in security, storage capacity, and resistance to various attacks, while maintaining a high level of invisibility.

FSMx-Ultra: Finite State Machine Extraction From Gate-Level Netlist for Security Assessment

Numerous security vulnerability assessment techniques urge precise and fast finite state machines (FSMs) extraction from the design under evaluation. Sequential logic locking, watermark insertion, fault-injection assessment of a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) control flow, information leakage assessment, and reverse engineering at gate-level abstraction, to name a few, require precise FSM extraction from the synthesized netlist of the design. Unfortunately, no reliable solutions are currently available for fast and accurate extraction of FSMs from the highly unstructured gate-level netlist for effective security evaluation. The major challenge in developing such a solution is precise recognition of FSM state flip-flops in a netlist having a massive collection of flip-flops. In this paper, we propose FSMx-Ultra, a framework for extracting FSMs from extremely unstructured gate-level netlists. FSMx-Ultra utilizes state-of-the-art graph theory concepts and algorithms to distinguish FSM state registers from other registers and then constructs gate-level state transition graphs (STGs) for each identified FSM state register using automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) techniques. The results of our experiments on 14 open-source benchmark designs illustrate that FSMx-Ultra can recover all FSMs quickly and precisely from synthesized gate-level netlists of diverse complexity and size utilizing various state encoding schemes.

Dynamically selected watermark insertion using machine learning

Watermarking is a process of embedding one image into another image, used to protect the image from copyright infringement; the main aim of this watermarking is to provide ownership assertion- only rightful owner can extract the watermark from image to prove the ownership. Day-to-day the attacks on digital content (like images) are increasing, but still the same traditional watermarking process is used to for content protection. In traditional watermark embedding process static watermarks are used at the source which may lead to compromise of algorithm. To avoid this, in this paper a very new way of watermarking is introduced with the help of object detection, along with the concept of content-related watermarking by dynamically selecting the watermark image.

IMPLEMENTATION OF IMAGE AUTHENTICATION USING DIGITAL WATERMARKING WITH BIOMETRIC

The rapid global development of E-commerce in terms of digitalization and distribution of digital contents in the form of image, audio, video, increases the possibility of unrestricted duplication and broadcasting of copyrighted data and the protection of crucial documents is highly significant. Digital watermarking inserts watermark into the cover or host data by unnoticeable modification. In this work digital watermarking with biometric features is done. In this work a technique to implement the hiding of an image inside another image using biometric features namely signature and fingerprint using watermarking techniques is done. To accomplish this, a hybrid watermarking scheme consisting of Discrete Wavelet Transform, Discrete Cosine Transform and Singular Value Decomposition (DWT-DCT-SVD) is proposed for image authentication that is robust against attacks. Here, singular values of watermark1 (fingerprint) and watermark2 (signature) are obtained by applying DWT-DCT-SVD. By adding both the singular values of watermarks we acquire the transformed watermark. To improve the security, robustness and provide authenticity for the image, a two-step watermarking method is demonstrated. The evaluation parameters like PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio), SSIM (Structured Similarity Index Method), normalized correlation coefficient (NCC) are used for image quality assessment.

Analisis Watermarking Menggunakan Metode Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) dan Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT)

Digital image watermarking is the insertion of watermarks into digital image media. Several types of watermarking methods used are Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). Both of these watermarking methods work in the frequency domain (transform). Digital image watermarking using the frequency domain is carried out on the frequency coefficient. This study used 30 digital image data as material for digital image watermaking analysis with 10 data each in binary, grayscale and color digital images in jpg, png and bmp formats. Digital images in the binary and grayscale domains are conversions from digital images in the true color (RGB) domain. Digital image watermarking includes three main processes, namely embedding the watermarked image on the original digital image, extracting the watermarked image and measuring the correlation between the two digital images. Correlation aims to measure two variables that have the same relationship. The technology used in this research work is MATLAB (Matrix Laboratory) as a high-performance programming language for computing in solving problems with solutions expressed in mathematical notation. The results of the discussion prove that the watermarking process in terms of color, for DCT, RGB is better and binary is better for DFT. And the watermaking process, in terms of the type of watermark inserted, for both DCT and DFT, a good watermark is an invisible watermark.

Color Ultrasound Image Watermarking Scheme Using FRT and Hessenberg Decomposition for Telemedicine Applications

Watermarking is a valuable technique for verifying medical images obtained through the internet for diagnosis. There is a greater need for security in medical pictures with ever- increasing security risks. This research presented a Finite Ridgelet Transform (FRT)-Hessenberg based watermarking scheme in medical images. The suggested paradigm is divided into two stages. Before watermark insertion, FRT is applied to medical images. The coefficients are combined into blocks of 4 x 4 and each block is decomposed using Hessenberg decomposition. The second column of the Q matrix is used to insert the watermark using the additive quantization technique. The results obtained from our experiment have given good visual quality of the watermarked images. The high PSNR value 53.6121 and NC value 1.0 show that our scheme is performing better. Moreover, the performance of our scheme is robust against several attacks. The consequences of this result imply that the anticipated scheme is effective for medical image watermarking.

A Novel Fragile Zero-Watermarking Algorithm for Digital Medical Images

The wireless transmission of patients’ particulars and medical data to a specialised centre after an initial screening at a remote health facility may cause potential threats to patients’ data privacy and integrity. Although watermarking can be used to rectify such risks, it should not degrade the medical data, because any change in the data characteristics may lead to a false diagnosis. Hence, zero watermarking can be helpful in these circumstances. At the same time, the transmitted data must create a warning in case of tampering or a malicious attack. Thus, watermarking should be fragile in nature. Consequently, a novel hybrid approach using fragile zero watermarking is proposed in this study. Visual cryptography and chaotic randomness are major components of the proposed algorithm to avoid any breach of information through an illegitimate attempt. The proposed algorithm is evaluated using two datasets: the Digital Database for Screening Mammography and the Mini Mammographic Image Analysis Society database. In addition, a breast cancer detection system using a convolutional neural network is implemented to analyse the diagnosis in case of a malicious attack and after watermark insertion. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm is reliable for privacy protection and data authentication.

A fast and efficient image watermarking scheme based on Deep Neural Network

In this work, a robust image watermarking method is proposed based on the LWT (lifting wavelet transform) and DNN (Deep Neural Network). Watermark embedding uses wavelet transforms that help in maintaining a high value of imperceptibility and robustness. Different frequency bands are tested to find the optimum balance between robustness and imperceptibility. To check the robustness of proposed work, various attacks like compression attacks, noise attacks and filtering attacks are used. Deep Neural Network is trained to identify the changes made by these attacks on the different frequency bands. The use of high-frequency sub-band (LH (low-high)/LH1/HL (high-low) 2) for watermark insertion enhances the invisibility of scheme. On the contrary, various sub-bands perform differently (in terms o/f robustness) against the different types of attacks. The proposed scheme is tested on 600 images and the average PSNR (peak signal to noise ratio) is found to be 44.1148 dB with the variance of 0.5146 and standard deviation of 0.7173. Also, time analysis shows it to suitable for real-time applications. Comparative analysis suggests that the proposed method depicts improved performance over state-of-the-art techniques in almost all the parameters for most of the cases.

Advanced security and privacy technique for digital text in smart grid communications

In the current era of technology, digital contents copyright protection is a significant issue in the Internet of Things and smart grid. Digital contents are distributed, reproduced, and disclosed with extensive use of communication technologies such as the cloud. It has become quite easy to produce an illegal copy of digital content. Limited techniques are available for text documents ownership verification and copyright protection in the Internet of Things. However, most of the existing techniques produce distortion during watermark insertion, which directly impacts imperceptibility. We propose a robust and secure digital text watermarking technique for Microsoft Word documents in the said perspective. The watermark is extracted with high probability, which illustrates that the proposed technique is robust, imperceptible, and improves the capacity. The results of the proposed technique are compared with the previous techniques of text watermarking. The proposed technique is imperceptible with the Peak signal-to-noise ratio is 33.65, and the similarity percentage is 99.42%. The length of the secret message is improved from 0.2 to 1.24 kilobytes.

A Non-Blind Robust and Impercept Watermarking Using Discrete Cosine Transform and Discrete Wavelet Transform

Non-blind watermarking is a form of watermarking with a watermark image validation process that requires a host image. The use of the transform domain is more robust and imperceptible. The transform domain method is resistant to various forms of digital image attacks. In this study, Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) were selected as watermark insertion algorithms. DCT is faster and more resistant to attacks, especially in image compression attacks, but has lower imperceptibility than DWT. DWT is also known to be resistant to noise attacks, filtering, blurring, cropping, and has high imperceptibility depending on the sub-band selection but is not resistant to image compression attacks. Based on each algorithm's advantages and disadvantages, there is an opportunity to combine it to analyze and compare the insertion results with DCT and DWT itself. To test the results of imperceptibility, we used the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), while to test the robustness, we used Cross-Correlation (CC) and Bit Error Ratio (BER). Without attacks, the PSNR on the proposed method can reach 71 dB. The CC value without attack can reach a perfect value of 1 and BER = 0. The highest attack test result is CC = 1 on the filtering attack. From the various tests we have conducted, it has been proven that the DCT-DWT is more imperceptive and robust than previous studies

Machine learning based blind color image watermarking scheme for copyright protection

• Machine learning approach to boost the computational performance. • Transform domain robustness with fast (spatial domain like) execution. • Simultaneous improvement in imperceptibility and robustness. This work presents a blind and robust scheme using YCbCr color space, IWT (integer wavelet transform) and DCT (discrete cosine transform) for color image watermarking. During watermark insertion, Y channel is divided into blocks and Mersenne Twister random number generator is used to select the blocks for embedding. This randomized selection of blocks required a secret key, thus improving the security of the scheme. To reduce the computational complexity, the artificial neural network architecture is developed for watermark embedding. To check the robustness, several signal processing attacks such as JPEG compression, filtering attacks, noise attacks, cropping, resizing and other common attacks are applied on the watermarked images. The proposed work is tested on different images to verify the similarity in watermarking results. The scheme provides similar results (having little variation) for different test images. Experimental results demonstrate the superior performance in terms of imperceptibility and robustness. Further, the ANN framework provides faster embedding with approximately similar parametric results. The performance comparison with existing schemes demonstrates better performance for different attacks. The proposed work can be used in robust applications (i.e. copyright protection) for efficient results and less computational time.

DWT based color image watermarking using maximum entropy

Digital watermarking techniques can be used to solve the authenticity and copyright protection issue of images. In this work, the authors have proposed an adaptive color image watermarking scheme based on DWT by combining alpha blending and entropy concept. Entropy is one of the important features of images and can be used for watermark insertion. There are two domains in which watermarking can be carried out i.e. spatial and transform domain. Here, watermark embedding is carried out in the of Y component of YCbCr color space. This paper also lays down the proper justification for the selection of the Y component to embed the watermark. The performance of the proposed scheme is tested over seven different standard color images. The average PSNR and SSIM of the proposed scheme are 51.6145 dB and 0.9992 respectively. Whereas, NCC of the proposed scheme under no attack condition is 1. Further, the performance of the proposed scheme is compared with other state-of-the-art techniques.

An optimized robust watermarking technique using CKGSA in frequency domain

The existing SVD based watermarking techniques insert watermark into the singular component which causes the false positive problem (FPP). To overcome this problem, a robust watermarking technique using a chaotic kbest gravitational search algorithm (CKGSA) in DCT and SVD domain is proposed. To eliminate the FPP, the watermark is embedded into the principal component (PC) of the cover image rather than the singular value. The objective to use CKGSA is to optimize the value of multiple embedding factors so that robustness and imperceptibility can be balanced. Arnold transform (AT) is applied to the watermark image before embedding, to enhance security and robustness. The performance of the proposed technique has been experimented on a standard dataset and compared with the six recent state-of-the-art techniques including DS-DE, DS-PSO, DCT-SVD, DDS-PSO, DS-GSA, and DS-TLBO in terms of imperceptibility (PSNR, SSIM) and robustness (PSNR, NC). The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique outperforms the other existing techniques.

Blind multipurpose watermarking with insertion of a single watermark: a generic construction based on verifiable threshold secret sharing

Currently, the existing literature on multipurpose watermarking employs multiple watermarks for simultaneous achieving of multiple security objectives. This approach can be problematic since a watermark targeting tampers might fail to detect tampering of another watermark inserted for copyright violation. Moreover, most of the current schemes follow a non-blind approach where the original watermark is needed for authentication. A question that naturally arises is whether multipurpose watermarking can be realised with the insertion of a single watermark in a blind way or not. The goal of the authors study is to provide an affirmative answer to this important question. They show how a cryptographic primitive called verifiable threshold secret sharing can be used to come up with a generic construction for blind multipurpose watermarking which inserts a single watermark into the host image for simultaneous achieving of copyright protection, authentication, and tamper localisation. The generic property of the proposed scheme provides flexibility for choosing the embedding/extraction of the watermark based on the desired level of fidelity, robustness and capacity. Experimental results are provided to confirm the superiority of their proposed technique as compared to existing approaches.

Image Security using Self embedding Fragile Watermarking Method

Rapid development in technology to provide security to data in the form of images is a major issue. So to provide security to the original image, watermark image embedded in it. In this paper we use self embedded watermark using fragile watermark technique. Authenticity of an image can be tested using block based technique of self embedding fragile watermarking; to represent the entire image the feature image watermark is used. In each 2x2non overlapping block four authentication bits and eight recovery bits are generated. In each block three least significant bits are embedded with authentication bits and recovery bits are embedded in the three least significant bits of the mapped block This paper mainly summarizes the Selection of image, method of watermark insertion, detection and tamper localization and recovery procedure. The experimental results of this proposed method shows visual quality of image recovery better than some of the schemes.

Statistical watermarking approach for 3D mesh using local curvature estimation

In this study, an oblivious 3D mesh watermarking scheme is represented utilising local curvature estimation and statistical characteristics of 3D mesh to provide robustness as well as retaining the imperceptibility of the 3D model. The proposed method estimates the local curvature of 3D model by finding the difference between the average normal and the surface normal of all the faces in a 1-ring neighbourhood of a vertex under consideration. Feature vector of all vertices is then measured and used to select vertices for watermark insertion. Distributions of vertex norms are transformed statistically to hide the watermark as statistical parameters are more robust and less prone to attacks. The robustness and imperceptibility of the proposed method against various attacks are analysed through simulations.

Image Watermarking Using All Phase Discrete Cosine Biorthogonal Transform in Selected Pixel Blocks

In the past decade, a transform called all phase discrete cosine biorthogonal transform (APDCBT) appeared in the field of digital image processing. It is mainly used to solve the negativity found in discrete cosine transform (DCT), especially in a low bit rate. In this paper, the APDCBT is employed for watermark insertion based on selected regions of an image. The insertion is depending on the homogeneity of each part of the image. To determine the extent of homogeneity, there are two criteria: Mean and standard deviation are applied for the intensity of the image. Medium frequency bands of APDCBT in image pixel blocks are used to hold the embedded watermark. Then, the transform is inversed to obtain the resultant watermarked image. The robustness of APDCBT against watermark removal attacks is tested and the experimental results showed the superiority of the APDCBT over traditional DCT in the watermark embedding system. More specifically, when the LSB reset attack applied. For instance, when the contrast adjustment attack applied, the average of normalized cross-correlation (NCC) values of extracted watermark images with the original watermark, it was 0.992 for the proposed method. This is a promised result, if it is compared with the NCC of the DCT method, which was 0.423. The proposed method can be used for copyright protection purpose.

On the implementation of a copyright protection scheme using digital image watermarking

In this paper, a spatial domain based digital image watermarking scheme has been developed to serve the purpose of copyright protection for digital images. This scheme proposes how to embed copyright information, i.e. the watermark bits by adaptive LSB replacement technique. Here, to improve imperceptibility, imperfect nature of human visual system has been exploited by means of saliency map generation. Robustness and data hiding capacity are also optimized by modifying the higher bit-planes instead of only the LSB. A few signal processing attacks are applied to evaluate the robustness, and several image quality metrics are involved in this purpose. The quality metrics are also used in verifying experimental results in terms of imperceptibility; and finally the system proficiency is compared to some existing frameworks. A proper benchmarking is also employed for a quantitative justification of the visual image degradation, caused by watermark insertion.

Digital watermarking for healthcare: a survey of ECG watermarking methods in telemedicine

Innovations in healthcare have introduced a radical change in medical environment including patient diagnostic data and patient biological signal facilities and processing. The adoption of telemedicine services usually leads to an incremental trend in transmission of electronic sensitive data over insecure infrastructures. Since integrity, authenticity and confidentiality are mandatory features in telemedicine, the need to guarantee these requirements with end-to-end control arises. Among the various techniques implemented for data security, digital watermarking has gained considerable popularity in healthcare oriented applications. The challenge the watermarking insertion has to overcome is to avoid changes in health and medical history of a patient to a level where a decision maker can make a misdiagnosis. This paper presents a survey of different applications of electrocardiogram watermarking for telemedicine. The most recent and significant electrocardiogram watermarking schemes are reviewed, various issues related to each approach are discussed and some aspects of the adopted technique, including classification and performance measures, are analysed.

Digital watermarking for healthcare: a survey of ECG watermarking methods in telemedicine

Innovations in healthcare have introduced a radical change in medical environment including patient diagnostic data and patient biological signal facilities and processing. The adoption of telemedicine services usually leads to an incremental trend in transmission of electronic sensitive data over insecure infrastructures. Since integrity, authenticity and confidentiality are mandatory features in telemedicine, the need to guarantee these requirements with end-to-end control arises. Among the various techniques implemented for data security, digital watermarking has gained considerable popularity in healthcare oriented applications. The challenge the watermarking insertion has to overcome is to avoid changes in health and medical history of a patient to a level where a decision maker can make a misdiagnosis. This paper presents a survey of different applications of electrocardiogram watermarking for telemedicine. The most recent and significant electrocardiogram watermarking schemes are reviewed, various issues related to each approach are discussed and some aspects of the adopted technique, including classification and performance measures, are analysed.