Watermarking Scheme 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.

Unambiguous and High-Fidelity Backdoor Watermarking for Deep Neural Networks.

The unprecedented success of deep learning could not be achieved without the synergy of big data, computing power, and human knowledge, among which none is free. This calls for the copyright protection of deep neural networks (DNNs), which has been tackled via DNN watermarking. Due to the special structure of DNNs, backdoor watermarks have been one of the popular solutions. In this article, we first present a big picture of DNN watermarking scenarios with rigorous definitions unifying the black- and white-box concepts across watermark embedding, attack, and verification phases. Then, from the perspective of data diversity, especially adversarial and open set examples overlooked in the existing works, we rigorously reveal the vulnerability of backdoor watermarks against black-box ambiguity attacks. To solve this problem, we propose an unambiguous backdoor watermarking scheme via the design of deterministically dependent trigger samples and labels, showing that the cost of ambiguity attacks will increase from the existing linear complexity to exponential complexity. Furthermore, noting that the existing definition of backdoor fidelity is solely concerned with classification accuracy, we propose to more rigorously evaluate fidelity via examining training data feature distributions and decision boundaries before and after backdoor embedding. Incorporating the proposed prototype guided regularizer (PGR) and fine-tune all layers (FTAL) strategy, we show that backdoor fidelity can be substantially improved. Experimental results using two versions of the basic ResNet18, advanced wide residual network (WRN28_10) and EfficientNet-B0, on MNIST, CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, and FOOD-101 classification tasks, respectively, illustrate the advantages of the proposed method.

Chebyshev Chaotic Mapping and DWT-SVD-Based Dual Watermarking Scheme for Copyright and Integrity Authentication of Remote Sensing Images

Chebyshev Chaotic Mapping and DWT-SVD-Based Dual Watermarking Scheme for Copyright and Integrity Authentication of Remote Sensing Images

A reversible-zero watermarking scheme for medical images

The paper addresses the issue of ensuring the authenticity and copyright of medical images in telemedicine applications, with a specific emphasis on watermarking methods. While several systems only concentrate on identifying tampering in medical images, others also provide the capacity to restore the tampered regions upon detection. While several authentication techniques in medical imaging have successfully achieved their goals, previous research underscores a notable deficiency: the resilience of these schemes against unintentional attacks has not been sufficiently examined or emphasized in previous research. This indicates the need for further development and investigation in improving the robustness of medical image authentication techniques against unintentional attacks. This research proposes a Reversible-Zero Watermarking approach as a solution to address these problems. The new approach merges the advantages of both the reversible and zero watermarking techniques. This system is comprised of two parts. The first part is a zero-watermarking technique that uses VGG19-based feature extraction and watermark information to establish an ownership share. The second part incorporates this ownership share into the image in a reversible manner using a combination of a discrete wavelet transform, an integer wavelet transform, and a difference expansion. Research findings confirm that the suggested watermarking approach for medical images demonstrates substantial enhancements compared to current methodologies. Research findings indicate that NC values are often around 0.9 for different attacks, whereas BER values are close to 0. It demonstrates exceptional qualities in being imperceptible, distinguishable, and robust. Additionally, the system provides a persistent verification feature that functions independently of disputes or third-party storage, making it the preferred choice in the domain of medical image watermarking.

RiSw: resistant to incomplete shooting watermarking scheme

RiSw: resistant to incomplete shooting watermarking scheme

A fair and scalable watermarking scheme for the digital content trading industry

The booming Internet economy and generative artificial intelligence have driven the rapid growth of the digital content trading industry, creating an urgent need for the fair protection of the rights of both buyers and sellers. To meet this need, a technique known as buyer–seller watermarking has emerged. Despite its existence, the majority of existing buyer–seller watermarking schemes adopt the owner-side embedding mode, which results in poor scalability. While a handful of schemes adopt the client-side embedding mode to enhance scalability, they either require the deep involvement of a trusted third party or fall short of ensuring complete fairness due to the unresolved unbinding problem. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a fair and scalable watermarking scheme for digital content transactions based on proxy re-encryption and digital signatures. For one thing, this scheme solves the unbinding problem and ensures complete fair protection of the rights of both buyers and sellers. For another, it adopts the client-side embedding mode and has good scalability. Additionally, it eliminates the need for a trusted third party. Finally, theoretical analysis and experiments demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves the intended design goals and possesses superior efficiency advantages.

Enhanced Watermarking for Paper-Based Digital Microfluidic Biochips

Paper-based digital microfluidic biochip (PB-DMFB) technology provides a promising solution to many biochemical applications. However, the PB-DMFB manufacturing process may suffer from potential security threats. For example, a Trojan insertion attack may affect the functionality of PB-DMFBs. To ensure the correct functionality of PB-DMFBs, we propose a watermarking scheme to hide information in the PB-DMFB layout, which allows users to check design integrity and authenticate the source of the PB-DMFB design. As a result, the proposed method serves as a countermeasure against Trojan insertion attacks in addition to proof of authorship.

A Hybrid Domain Color Image Watermarking Scheme Based on Hyperchaotic Mapping

A Hybrid Domain Color Image Watermarking Scheme Based on Hyperchaotic Mapping

Security analysis and improvement of DWFCAT

With the rapid development of Internet technology, the copyright protection and authentication of multimedia data have attracted more and more attention. Recently, a dual watermarking framework for industrial image content authentication and tampering localization (DWFCAT) has been proposed, in which the main innovation is the double encrypted robust watermark is embedded into the transform domain by exploiting the DCT energy compression characteristics and block coefficient correlation mechanism, the fragile watermark is embedded in the spatial domain to ensure data authentication and tamper location. However, through security analysis, we found that DWFCAT has security holes, the dual encryption algorithm of the robust watermarks cannot resist KPA attacks and prevent robust watermarks from being damaged, stolen, and replaced, even when the fragile watermark is unaware. Theoretical analysis and simulation results verify the effectiveness of the method. To improve the security of the original watermarking scheme and the ability to tampering with location, and restore the robust watermark that has been tampered with, an improved scheme is also given in this paper.

An Optimized IWT–DCT Watermarking Scheme Based on Multiple Matrix Decomposition and MOWOA2

An Optimized IWT–DCT Watermarking Scheme Based on Multiple Matrix Decomposition and MOWOA2

Reversible Image Fragile Watermarking with Dual Tampering Detection

The verification of image integrity has attracted increasing attention. Irreversible algorithms embed fragile watermarks into cover images to verify their integrity, but they are not reversible due to unrecoverable loss. In this paper, a new dual tampering detection scheme for reversible image fragile watermarking is proposed. The insect matrix reversible embedding algorithm is used to embed the watermark into the cover image. The cover image can be fully recovered when the dual-fragile-watermarked images are not tampered with. This study adopts two recovery schemes and adaptively chooses the most appropriate scheme to recover tampered data according to the square errors between the tampered data and the recovered data of two watermarked images. Tampering coincidence may occur when a large region of the fragile-watermarked image is tampered with, and the recovery information corresponding to the tampered pixels may be missing. The tampering coincidence problem is solved using image-rendering techniques. The experimental results show that the PSNR value of the watermarked image obtained using our scheme can reach 46.37 dB, and the SSIM value is 0.9942. In addition, high-accuracy tampering detection is achieved.

Hadamard Error-Correcting Codes and Their Application in Digital Watermarking.

In communication technologies such as digital watermarking, wireless sensor networks (WSNs), and visual light communication (VLC), error-correcting codes are crucial. The Enhanced Hadamard Error-Correcting Code (EHC), which is based on 2D Hadamard Basis Images, is a novel error correction technique that is presented in this study. This technique is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the video watermarking scheme. Even with highly sophisticated embedding techniques, watermarks usually fail to resist such comprehensive attacks because of the extraordinarily high compression rate of approximately 1:200 that is frequently employed in video dissemination. It can only be used in conjunction with a sufficient error-correcting coding method. This study compares the efficacy of the well-known Reed-Solomon Code with this novel technique, the Enhanced Hadamard Error-Correcting Code (EHC), in maintaining watermarks in embedded videos. The main idea behind this newly created multidimensional Enhanced Hadamard Error-Correcting Code is to use a 1D Hadamard decoding approach on the 2D base pictures after they have been transformed into a collection of one-dimensional rows. Following that, the image is rebuilt, allowing for a more effective 2D decoding procedure. Using this technique, it is possible to exceed the theoretical error-correcting capacity threshold of ⌊dmin-12⌋ bits, where dmin is the Hamming distance. It may be possible to achieve better results by converting the 2D EHC into a 3D format. The new Enhanced Hadamard Code is used in a video watermarking coding scheme to show its viability and efficacy. The original video is broken down using a multi-level interframe wavelet transform during the video watermarking embedding process. Low-pass filtering is applied to the video stream in order to extract a certain frequency range. The watermark is subsequently incorporated using this filtered section. Either the Reed-Solomon Correcting Code or the Enhanced Hadamard Code is used to protect the watermarks. The experimental results show that EHC far outperforms the RS Code and is very resilient against severe MPEG compression.

Image watermarking based on a ratio of DCT coefficient sums using a gradient-based optimizer

Social networks and various websites provide a lot of tools for publishing and sharing digital images. However, publishing digital content online makes it vulnerable to illegal copying and distribution. An effective method for protecting images is watermarking technology, which embeds a logo or some kind of identifier into an image in an invisible way. If necessary, a watermark can be extracted from an image and used to prove authorship and ownership. A major challenge in designing image watermarking schemes is balancing embedding imperceptibility and resistance to various attacks. In this study, we propose a new robust and blind image watermarking algorithm that set a specific ratio of sum of discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficient absolute values for each image block. We provide a balance between imperceptibility and robustness using a modern metaheuristic optimization algorithm called gradient-based optimizer, which finds the best vector of changes for mid-frequency DCT coefficients. An objective function of optimization algorithm is designed in such a way as to control the ratio of the sums of DCT coefficients absolute values to increase robustness and reduce a distortion level of an image block during embedding. Experimental results and comparison with some other image watermarking schemes demonstrate the high efficiency of the proposed algorithm in terms of imperceptibility and resistance to typical image processing attacks, such as changing brightness and contrast, sharpening, cropping, and others.

Image watermarking scheme employing Gerchberg–Saxton algorithm and integer wavelet transform

Image watermarking scheme employing Gerchberg–Saxton algorithm and integer wavelet transform

Robust digital image watermarking scheme with a fractional-order discrete-time chaotic scheme and DWT-SVD transform

A robust digital image watermarking system with a fractional-order discrete-time chaotic system and discrete wavelet transform-singular value decomposition is presented. The inclusion method inserts an encrypted image into the dynamics of an integer-order discrete-time chaotic system and the resulting cipher serves as a host image watermark. A watermarking function (DWT-SVD transform) watermarks a host image before the watermark is extracted and decrypted at the receiver. As a contribution, our suggested approach introduces a new watermarking system based on discrete-time chaotic systems, as well as a hybridization of integer and fractional-order systems to ensure the watermarking scheme’s robustness. Our method achieved good results in terms of robustness, with normalized cross correlation values above 0.99 when subjected to a range of attacks. Results of the simulation underline practicality and robustness achieved by this approach. They also indicate that the proposed system resists various attacks.

A strategy for quantum watermarking against geometric attacks

The development of new quantum watermarking is in full swing, and it is crucial to test the robustness of these proposed watermarking schemes. In this paper, different quantum circuits are introduced to realize geometric transformations on quantum images, which serve as a means of simulating geometric attacks on quantum watermark images. Receivers may get distorted images, and the extracted watermark images may also be disrupted. To recover the geometric order of the quantum watermark images, a strategy is proposed to identify the trajectory of qubit alterations. Quantum circuits can be designed accordingly to restore the original order of the watermark images, which receivers could use before the extraction process to mitigate the impact of geometric attacks. Experimental simulations demonstrate how attacks affect the quantum watermark images and the extracted watermark images. Additionally, it illustrates how quantum recovery circuits step by step act on images that have been geometrically attacked. An analysis of the complexity of geometric restoration circuits reveals that quantum circuits exhibit better performance compared to classical circuits.

A Reversible Medical Image Watermarking Scheme for Advanced Image Tampering Detection

A Reversible Medical Image Watermarking Scheme for Advanced Image Tampering Detection

MuST: Robust Image Watermarking for Multi-Source Tracing

In recent years, with the popularity of social media applications, massive digital images are available online, which brings great convenience to image recreation. However, the use of unauthorized image materials in multi-source composite images is still inadequately regulated, which may cause significant loss and discouragement to the copyright owners of the source image materials. Ideally, deep watermarking techniques could provide a solution for protecting these copyrights based on their encoder-noise-decoder training strategy. Yet existing image watermarking schemes, which are mostly designed for single images, cannot well address the copyright protection requirements in this scenario, since the multi-source image composing process commonly includes distortions that are not well investigated in previous methods, e.g., the extreme downsizing. To meet such demands, we propose MuST, a multi-source tracing robust watermarking scheme, whose architecture includes a multi-source image detector and minimum external rectangle operation for multiple watermark resynchronization and extraction. Furthermore, we constructed an image material dataset covering common image categories and designed the simulation model of the multi-source image composing process as the noise layer. Experiments demonstrate the excellent performance of MuST in tracing sources of image materials from the composite images compared with SOTA watermarking methods, which could maintain the extraction accuracy above 98% to trace the sources of at least 3 different image materials while keeping the average PSNR of watermarked image materials higher than 42.51 dB. We released our code on https://github.com/MrCrims/MuST

Adversarial watermark: A robust and reliable watermark against removal

Digital image watermarking used to be an important tool for copyright protection. However, as neural network-based watermark removal methods have been proposed in recent years, the embedded watermark is increasingly easy to be erased, which poses a great threat to copyright protection. To address this issue, we propose an adversarial visible watermark scheme, which combines the visible watermark with the adversarial perturbation. By attacking the watermark removal network, we maximize the resistance of visible watermark against removal while minimizing the visual distortion. To further improve the robustness against various transformations (e.g. cropping, JPEG compression), we employ the region of interest and random pre-processing to embed the adversarial visible watermark. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme can effectively resist the removal of watermarks on different datasets and network structures while having good transferability and robustness, which enables the watermark to continue to be an effective copyright protection method.

An image watermarking scheme: combining the transform domain and deep learning modality with an improved scrambling process

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a novel image watermarking scheme with the following two processes. In the embedding process, the cover image is subjected to NSCT to obtain the properties of multi-scale and directional characteristics and fed to DWT which decomposes the contourlet image into various sub-bands. The wavelet decomposition image is subjected to a region selection step, where the regions are selected based on the DL strategy for selecting the region from the contourlet of the cover image where the features, including LOOP feature, mean feature, Canny features, and ResNet features are extracted and subjected to the DNN classifier. Conversely, the watermark image performs NSCT and DWT as the cover image and is fed into further steps to eliminate the correlation of pixels. For that, it proposes the FTTS approach to scramble the contourlet of watermark images, in which tent map and dyadic transformation are employed to eliminate the correlation among pixels. Then the resultants of region selection and FTTS are embedded to obtain the watermarked image. On the other hand, the extraction process takes place, which extracts the embedded watermarked image and applies inverse scrambling and inverse an NSCT approach to recover the watermark image against any malicious attack.