Watermarking Technique Research Articles

A Reversible Digital Image Watermarking Technique for Integrity and Authenticity of MR Images

Digital Watermarking is the art and science of embedding information in existing digital content for Digital Rights Management (DRM) and authentication. Reversible watermarking is a class of (fragile) digital watermarking that not only authenticates multimedia data content, but also helps to maintain perfect integrity of the original multimedia “cover data”. Watermarking of digital images is a well-known technique that is widely used for securing image contents. A successful watermarking method must be accurate, reversible, resilient, and robust against various attacks. The technical revolution associated with the implementation the development of digital technologies in medicine, has led to the emergence and active development of new directions in many areas of medicine. The authenticity and integrity of medical images has to be protected. Hence in this paper a reversible digital image watermarking technique for integrity and authenticity of MR (Magnetic Resonance) images is presented. Reversible watermarking is recognized as a robust approach to confirm the integrity and authenticity of medical images and to verify that alterations can be detected and tracked back.

A Survey of Digital Image Watermarking Techniques in Spatial, Transform, and Hybrid Domains

In this digital era, the vast development of multimedia environments and information technology creates a need for protecting digital content from unauthorized access. Digital watermarking is a universally accepted technique for tackling the issues in the field of multimedia security and information rights management. Several appropriate image watermarking processes have been designed to secure the digital content. An efficient watermarking technique should maintain the tradeoff among imperceptibility, robustness, embedding capacity, and security. Primarily, this paper presents the classifications and applications of digital image watermarking techniques. The discussion comprises the spatial, transform, and hybrid image watermarking methods as well as its comparison with the different schemes. The contribution of this article will be beneficial to the academicians for gaining deep knowledge about image watermarking schemes.

Construction information authentication and integrity using blockchain-oriented watermarking techniques

Information authentication and integrity (IAI) plays a critical role in construction digital transformation. Blockchain technology can prevent information from fabrication and falsification but cannot guarantee IAI before it enters the on-chain world. To cover the void, this paper describes a blockchain-oriented deployment framework to secure IAI for construction by formulating watermarks from the 5W1H (Who?, What?, Where?, Where?, Why?, How?) and hiding them in digital content. It does so by conducting a literature review and industrial stakeholder engagements, based on which the design requirements are derived and a framework with seven modules is further developed. By deploying it in a modular construction project, the framework demonstrates its capability to guide the formation and embedding of watermarks, accurately detect and localize the integrity damage, and recover the full authentication data even after some degree of tampering. Future studies are encouraged to deploy the framework with various blockchain systems in construction applications.

Relational data watermarking resilience to brute force attacks in untrusted environments

Watermarking techniques for relational data that aim at robustness face the challenge of guaranteeing watermark persistence despite aggressive attacks. Nevertheless, attackers cannot compromise watermark detection to their will since they must ensure the usability of the stolen data. Attacks that constitute a potential master-key for false ownership claims focus on leaking or compromising values used for watermark synchronization. For instance, brute-force attacks attempt to guess the values of parameters used for watermark embedding. The chances for brute-force attacks of successfully performing illegal watermark detection increases in untrusted environments where the leaks of parameters are common. In this paper, (i) we show how brute-force attacks succeed even if not all watermark detection parameters’ values are correctly guessed, (ii) we define the role played by each parameter in robustness, and (iii) we formalize a method for improving the resilience of existing watermarking techniques in scenarios lacking trust. According to the experimental results, watermarking approaches to which our proposal has been applied benefit in terms of robustness and security requirements, extending the deployment opportunities for other techniques.

A New Block Based Non-Blind Hybrid Color Image Watermarking Approach Using Lifting Scheme and Chaotic Encryption Based on Arnold Cat Map

Online platforms became preferred mode of communication due to advancement in communication technology. Sharing of digital documents over online communication medium grown exponentially and thus demanded a secure, robust and transparent watermarking technique for authenticity of digital media and copyright protection. This research study proposes a robust and secure non-blind SVD-LWT watermarking technique. Color images are employed instead of gray scale images and Y channel of YCbCr color model is utilized to embed secret digital information. The selected color model is in accordance with the human visual system and Y channel is ideal for data hiding. Two level LWT, SVD is used and diagonal matrix of Y channel of host (cover) and watermark image along with scaling factor (α) is used to embed digital data. Block based and chaotic image encryption transform are used for image scrambling. The performances of presented watermarking scheme evaluated with the aid of fidelity parameters namely MSE, PSNR, SSIM and NCC.

Statistical image watermark decoder using NSM-HMT in NSCT-FGPCET magnitude domain

The image watermarking technology is an effective technology for protecting image copyright at present. Image watermarking techniques have a constraint relationship between imperceptibility, robustness, and watermark capacity. Balancing imperceptibility, robustness, and watermark capacity becomes a tricky problem. This paper proposes a statistical image watermarking scheme using nonsubsampled Contourlet transform (NSCT) domain fast generic polar complex exponential transform (FGPCET) magnitudes and nonsymmetric mixtures (NSM) based hidden Markov tree (HMT). In the embedding part, to enhance robustness and imperceptibility, we insert the watermark signal into the robust local NSCT domain FGPCET magnitudes through the multiplicative method. In the decoding part, a statistical image watermarking decoder is designed using the NSM-HMT model and maximum likelihood criterion. Here, marginal characteristics and strong correlations of local NSCT domain FGPCET magnitudes are described by NSM-HMT. In addition, the generalized expectation-maximization (GEM)-clusterized method of moments (CMM) approach is used for accurate parameters. Extensive Monte Carlo experiments validate the better performance of the proposed image watermarking method compared to other well-known methods.

Watermarking of EEG Data to Provide Security Based on DWT-SVD and Optimized by Firefly Algorithm

A watermark embedding into digital media or signal is called digital watermarking for the purpose of enhancing security from copyright encroachment. In this paper, an optimized and advanced watermarking technique has been proposed, which is based on singular value decomposition (SVD) in the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) domain using the firefly algorithm (FA). In this, a watermark logo is embedded into electroencephalogram (EEG) data. To optimize the scaling factor, robustness and imperceptibility have been considered. Further, the performance of the proposed algorithm is also analyzed against various attacks. The results show the adequacy of the proposed algorithm and indicate a higher value of NCC of 0.95 as robustness and PSNR 51.83 as imperceptibility in contrast with the related existing method.

A secure gray-scale image watermarking technique in fractional DCT domain using zig-zag scrambling

Security of watermark is a huge concern when dealing with imperceptible watermarking for copyright protection and owner identification. A novel watermarking technique that is intrinsically secure against unauthorized extraction of watermark and robust against a variety of attacks has been proposed in this paper. Semi-blind in nature, the technique employs fractional discrete cosine transform (FDCT) and zig-zag scrambling to add a layer of security while embedding watermark bits in the cover image. Transformation through multiple fractional value pairs yields robust results against attacks for every cover image. A pair out of these is chosen while embedding the watermark. The same pair is needed at the time of extraction of original watermark from a signed image. This pair of unique values adds a layer of security in the proposed technique. After dividing the cover image into sub-blocks that are non-overlapping, fuzzy entropy is used to make the selection of appropriate sub-blocks in which watermark bits are to be embedded. These blocks are first mapped in a zig-zag fashion and then, after selection of half sub-blocks, FDCT is applied on each of them. FDCT coefficients serve as training data for Kernel extreme learning machine (KELM). Used as a non-linear regression model, KELM predicts the value of a particular coefficient with the help of neighboring transform domain coefficients. Multiple scaling factors are used to control the extent to which the watermark bit modifies the predicted coefficient. Strength of these scaling factors is determined and controlled with the help of standard deviation of every selected sub-block. The technique shows perfect extraction of watermarks (Normalized correlation=1.0, Bit error ratio=0.0) against attacks like median filtering (3 × 3), Gaussian filtering, Weiner filtering, JPEG compression (Quality factor 40) and gamma correction. Even for other attacks, the extracted watermarks are not too bad in quality that they are beyond recognition.

Evaluation of a Framework for Robust Image Reversible Watermarking

In the literature, robust reversible watermarking schemes (RWSs) allow the extraction of watermarks after the images have suffered attacks; however, the modified images are compromised. On the other hand, self-recovery schemes will restore the compromised regions of the images, but no secret messages are inserted in these schemes. A framework for robust reversible watermarking with signal restoration capabilities was previously proposed in the literature. This study selects four fragile reversible watermarking techniques and two self-recovery schemes to design different framework configurations. These configurations are evaluated to test the framework’s performance and determine the structure that yields better results in terms of perceptual transparency using a well-known image database as the signal input. It was found that fragile reversible watermarking schemes hold low perceptual distortion, while self-recovery schemes produce high perceptual distortion levels. The inherent characteristics of each algorithm determine, a priori, the behavior of the framework, which is approximated by a proposed equation.

Digital watermarking—A tutorial

Digital watermarking is a technique in which secret information is embedded inside a host signal, which may be an audio, video, or image signal. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Watermarking</i> is also defined as a branch of information hiding that is used to hide proprietary information in digital media. Digital watermarking may be used for authentication, integrity, or information security. In this article, we present a comprehensive survey on watermarking techniques based on their characteristics and applications, including visible, invisible, robust, fragile, and semifragile watermarking methods. The parameters that are used for the analysis of watermarking algorithms are peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), mean square error (MSE), embedding capacity, bit rate, and bit error rate (BER).

DIBR Zero-Watermarking Based on Invariant Feature and Geometric Rectification

Despite the success of watermarking technique for protecting depth image-based rendering (DIBR) 3-D videos, existing methods still can hardly ensure the robustness against geometric attacks, lossless video quality, and distinguishability between different videos simultaneously. In this article, we propose a novel zero-watermarking scheme to address this challenge. Specifically, we design CT-SVD features to ensure both distinguishability and robustness against signal processing and DIBR conversion attacks. In addition, a logistic–logistic chaotic system is utilized to encrypt features for the enhanced security. Moreover, a rectification mechanism based on salient map detection and SIFT matching is designed to resist geometric attacks. Finally, we establish an attention-based fusion mechanism to explore the complementary robustness of rectified and unrectified features. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms the existing schemes in terms of losslessness, distinguishability, and robustness against geometric attacks.

Digital Watermarking for Detecting Malicious Intellectual Property Cores in NoC Architectures

System-on-chip (SoC) developers utilize intellectual property (IP) cores from third-party vendors due to increasing design complexity, cost, as well as time-to-market constraints. A typical SoC consists of a wide variety of IP cores [such as processor, memory, controller, and field-programmable gate array (FPGA)] that interact using a network-on-chip (NoC). This global trend of designing SoCs using third-party IPs raises serious concerns about security vulnerabilities. Since NoC facilitates communication between all IPs in an SoC, NoC is the ideal place for any hardware Trojans to hide and launch a plethora of attacks. Due to the resource-constrained nature of SoCs, developing security solutions against such attacks is a major challenge. In particular, in an eavesdropping attack, a Trojan-infected router copies packets transferred through the NoC and reroutes the duplicated packets to an accompanying malicious application running on another IP in an attempt to extract confidential information. While authenticated encryption can thwart such attacks, it incurs unacceptable overhead in resource-constrained SoCs. In this article, we propose a lightweight alternative defense based on digital watermarking techniques. We develop theoretical models to provide security guarantees. Experiments using realistic SoC models and diverse applications demonstrate that our approach can significantly outperform state-of-the-art methods.

Survey: Recent Techniques of Image Fragile Watermarking

Ease of access to digital images and the many images editing programs available, like photoshop. All this makes the Issue of protecting images against modification becomes essential. Some images contain crucial information that can risk a patient's life, such as medical images and e-government images that relate to citizen information and state or ministry security. The watermark was one of the essential methods for this type of protection, especially the fragile watermark, which is very sensitive to any attack. Because of its other characteristics, it was one of the techniques that proved its efficiency in detecting tampering and the authenticity of images—also, watermarking focuses on protecting the image itself, not about protecting the secret message. A fragile watermark is a watermarking which inserts some information to cover an image to secure it .fragile watermarking could use in such a way and implement in spatial or frequency domain or in both so, making it a hybrid watermarking scheme. The Paper presented set of fragile watermark techniques used by the researchers with the performance metrics of an algorithm used in spatial and frequency domains, also showing how to use artificial intelligence with a watermarking technique to protect Document images from manipulation and forgery. Index Terms— fragile watermark, spatial domain, frequncy domain

AuSR2: Image watermarking technique for authentication and self-recovery with image texture preservation

This paper presents an image watermarking technique for authentication and self-recovery called AuSR2. The AuSR2 scheme partitions the cover image into 3 × 3 non-overlapping blocks. The watermark data is embedded into two Least Significant Bit (LSB), consisting of two authentication bits and 16 recovery bits for each block. The texture of each block is preserved in the recovery data. Thus, each tampered pixel can be recovered independently instead of using the average block. The recovery process may introduce the tamper coincidence problem, which can be solved using image inpainting. The AuSR2 implements the LSB shifting algorithm to increase the imperceptibility by 2.8%. The experimental results confirm that the AuSR2 can accurately detect the tampering area up to 100%. The AuSR2 can recover the tampered image with a PSNR value of 38.11 dB under a 10% tampering rate. The comparative analysis proves the superiority of the AuSR2 compared to the existing schemes.

Tracing Text Provenance via Context-Aware Lexical Substitution

Text content created by humans or language models is often stolen or misused by adversaries. Tracing text provenance can help claim the ownership of text content or identify the malicious users who distribute misleading content like machine-generated fake news. There have been some attempts to achieve this, mainly based on watermarking techniques. Specifically, traditional text watermarking methods embed watermarks by slightly altering text format like line spacing and font, which, however, are fragile to cross-media transmissions like OCR. Considering this, natural language watermarking methods represent watermarks by replacing words in original sentences with synonyms from handcrafted lexical resources (e.g., WordNet), but they do not consider the substitution’s impact on the overall sentence's meaning. Recently, a transformer-based network was proposed to embed watermarks by modifying the unobtrusive words (e.g., function words), which also impair the sentence's logical and semantic coherence. Besides, one well-trained network fails on other different types of text content. To address the limitations mentioned above, we propose a natural language watermarking scheme based on context-aware lexical substitution (LS). Specifically, we employ BERT to suggest LS candidates by inferring the semantic relatedness between the candidates and the original sentence. Based on this, a selection strategy in terms of synchronicity and substitutability is further designed to test whether a word is exactly suitable for carrying the watermark signal. Extensive experiments demonstrate that, under both objective and subjective metrics, our watermarking scheme can well preserve the semantic integrity of original sentences and has a better transferability than existing methods. Besides, the proposed LS approach outperforms the state-of-the-art approach on the Stanford Word Substitution Benchmark.

Cosine Model Watermarking against Ensemble Distillation

Many model watermarking methods have been developed to prevent valuable deployed commercial models from being stealthily stolen by model distillations. However, watermarks produced by most existing model watermarking methods can be easily evaded by ensemble distillation, because averaging the outputs of multiple ensembled models can significantly reduce or even erase the watermarks. In this paper, we focus on tackling the challenging task of defending against ensemble distillation. We propose a novel watermarking technique named CosWM to achieve outstanding model watermarking performance against ensemble distillation. CosWM is not only elegant in design, but also comes with desirable theoretical guarantees. Our extensive experiments on public data sets demonstrate the excellent performance of CosWM and its advantages over the state-of-the-art baselines.

Protecting Intellectual Property of Language Generation APIs with Lexical Watermark

Nowadays, due to the breakthrough in natural language generation (NLG), including machine translation, document summarization, image captioning, etc NLG models have been encapsulated in cloud APIs to serve over half a billion people worldwide and process over one hundred billion word generations per day. Thus, NLG APIs have already become essential profitable services in many commercial companies. Due to the substantial financial and intellectual investments, service providers adopt a pay-as-you-use policy to promote sustainable market growth. However, recent works have shown that cloud platforms suffer from financial losses imposed by model extraction attacks, which aim to imitate the functionality and utility of the victim services, thus violating the intellectual property (IP) of cloud APIs. This work targets at protecting IP of NLG APIs by identifying the attackers who have utilized watermarked responses from the victim NLG APIs. However, most existing watermarking techniques are not directly amenable for IP protection of NLG APIs. To bridge this gap, we first present a novel watermarking method for text generation APIs by conducting lexical modification to the original outputs. Compared with the competitive baselines, our watermark approach achieves better identifiable performance in terms of p-value, with fewer semantic losses. In addition, our watermarks are more understandable and intuitive to humans than the baselines. Finally, the empirical studies show our approach is also applicable to queries from different domains, and is effective on the attacker trained on a mixture of the corpus which includes less than 10% watermarked samples.

Cryptanalysis and improvement of a semi-fragile watermarking technique for tamper detection and recovery

Cryptanalysis and improvement of a semi-fragile watermarking technique for tamper detection and recovery

A practical physical watermarking approach to detect replay attacks in a CPS

Cyber Physical Systems (CPSs) are considered as an integration of computing, networking, and physical processes. In such systems physical processes are monitored and controlled by the combination of computation, communication, and control technologies. Examples of CPSs include process control systems, medical devices, robots, and critical infrastructures such as water treatment plants, water distribution systems, and power grid. Often, these systems are vulnerable to attacks as the cyber components such as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) workstations, Human Machine Interface (HMI), and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) are potential targets for attackers. Replay attacks are easy to perform on such systems and can potentially lead to significant damages to the system. Therefore, timely detection of replay attacks is important to mitigate the attack consequences. In this work, we propose a practical watermarking technique to detect the attacks. Experiments are performed on a real WAter DIstribution system (WADI) to explore how to tackle the replay attacks using watermarking signal.

Blind Digital Watermark Based on Discrete Fourier Transformation

The policy and security of digital images are concerned by all artists. Embedding blind digital watermarks to images is an effective solution to such problem. The existing blind digital watermark techniques for images are usually based on the spatial domain method, such as some build-in tools in some software like Photoshop. Those methods' imperceptibility is good, but the robustness is dissatisfactory. Therefore, blind digital watermark based on the frequency domain is becoming popular nowadays. The use of the frequency domain-based techniques can not only keep the imperceptibility but also ensure good robustness and non-removability. According to the reasons mentioned above, this thesis presents a frequency domain-based blind digital watermark technique. This method uses basic discrete Fourier transformation to transform an image to the frequency domain and then embeds a digital watermark. To increase the security, we also introduce some methods to encode watermarks before embedding them to the images. We conduct some experiments by applying the technique to some images with different watermarks. In the experiments, it can embed blind watermarks with the least effect on the quality of the original image and can also successfully extract watermarks from the watermarked image. The results show this technique is highly useable. We also conduct some experiments to simulate the attacks. This technique also shows great robustness after many kinds of different attacking methods.