A blind digital watermarking scheme based on complete complementary codes

Quantization parameter based blind watermarking schemes are very popular. These schemes work in spatial domain as well as in various transform domains such as wavelet, discrete cosine, and real oriented wavelet. These schemes utilize one bit (binary) image as a watermark. However, in general, watermarks are any n bit image, where n ≥ 1. Therefore, these schemes are not suitable for the watermarks with n > 1. In this paper, we extend the existing work on blind watermarking schemes for n bits watermark images. The ‘division algorithm’ is used as a key component to develop the extended schemes. The proposed scheme is implemented in spatial domain. Experiments are done on one bit, two bits and eight bits watermark images. The results are investigated qualitatively by visualization, and measured quantitatively by peak-signal-to-noise-ratio (PSNR) and normalized correlation coefficient (NC). The results of the existing and proposed watermarking schemes are same for n = 1. The results of the proposed watermarking scheme are reliable for n > 1. A formula is proven for lower bound on PSNR, which is a key finding in the watermarking community. The formula is verified experimentally.

Some signal design methods for the approximately synchronized CDMA systems based on complete complementary codes have been proposed. It has been shown that estimating the multipath channels and applying the convolution of the spread-time signals can increase both the information transmission rate and the frequency usage rate. It is also pointed out that the dynamic range of the signals needs to be constrained before transmission in these methods because the convoluted information signals often have a very large value at each chip. This is a very serious problem in the actual communication systems. In this paper we consider two of those signal design methods using complete complementary codes. The efficiency of the communication systems using these two methods are analyzed and compared through some numerical simulations. The influences of the signals with constrained dynamic range are also included.

In modern times, the rapid growth of the Internet has made copyright protection of digital contents a critical issue. A Digital Rights Management (DRM) system is aimed at protecting the high-value digital assets and controlling the distribution and utilization of those digital assets. Watermarking technologies are being regarded as a vital mean to proffer copyright protection of digital images. Digital watermarking hides, in digital images, the information necessary for ownership identity to offer copyright protection. This paper proposes an innovative invisible and blind watermarking scheme for copyright protection of digital images with the purpose of defending against digital piracy. In the proposed watermarking scheme, a binary watermark image is invisibly embedded into the host image for achieving copyright protection. In watermark embedding, every pixel of the watermark image is embedded into the individual blocks of the host image sized 2×2. In the proposed watermarking scheme, the process of watermark extraction necessitates only the watermarked image and it doesn't require the original image or any of its characteristics, and hence, the proposed watermarking scheme is blind. The efficiency of the proposed watermarking scheme has been demonstrated via the experimental results.

We present a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) code-division-multiple-access (CDMA) communication system based on complete complementary (CC) codes (CC-CDMA) in a time-dispersive (i.e. frequency-selective fading) channel. This system utilizes a novel combination, which consists of orthogonal CC codes for data spreading and a suitably designed multiuser-detector (MUD) algorithm, in order to enhance the current 3rd generation (3G) mobile systems. The simulation results for the CC-CDMA system, obtained in a frequency-selective fading channel, reveal significant improvement in bit-error-rate (BER) performance, and consequently the achieved high data rates (HDR) compared with a conventional Walsh codes based MIMO CDMA (Walsh-CDMA) system.

To protect the ownership of the digital products, a novel adaptive and blind watermarking scheme is designed. Firstly, the underlying reason of image quality degradation in singular value decomposition (SVD)-based watermarking scheme is analyzed and the potential scenario causing visible destroy is pointed out. Then the optimal SVD blocks selection strategy is proposed to improve the imperceptibility. Different from other block selection rules devised by subjective evaluation means, our selection rule aims to retain the image quality as much as possible from the source. Furthermore, information entropy is utilized to achieve the purpose of adaptive embedding. In the experiment, the proposed watermarking scheme is tested under several attacks, such as noise attack, JPEG compression, blurring, sharping, and etc. Finally, the proposed watermarking scheme is compared with other existing schemes, and the experimental results demonstrate the robustness, imperceptibility and superior of the proposed watermarking scheme.

Digital watermarking provides the solution for problems such as copyright and authentication in today’s digital world of communication. Trustworthy watermarking techniques should provide the protection for rightful ownership, robustness and resist against attacks such as filtering and modification. In this paper, we proposed an efficient watermarking scheme based on singular value decomposition (SVD) and quantum Hilbert image scrambling. In the proposed watermarking scheme, first watermark is scrambled using quantum Hilbert image scrambling then perform alpha blending on scrambled watermark and SVD transformed cover image followed by alpha mixing operation. Finally, perform SVD operation of the generated signal; after alpha blending operation, we get watermarked image. The experimental results show strength of the proposed technique in terms of the robustness and security. Performance of the proposed scheme is tested on different image quality parameters of watermarked and host image. These are peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), mean square error (MSE) and normalized cross-correlation (NCC), average difference (AD), maximum difference (MD), and structural contents (SC).KeywordsSingular value decompositionWatermarkQuantum Hilbert image scramblingSteganography

Based on the NEQR of quantum images, a new quantum gray-scale image watermarking scheme is proposed through Arnold scrambling and least significant bit (LSB) steganography. The sizes of the carrier image and the watermark image are assumed to be $$2n\times 2n$$ and $$n\times n$$ , respectively. Firstly, a classical $$n\times n$$ sized watermark image with 8-bit gray scale is expanded to a $$2n\times 2n$$ sized image with 2-bit gray scale. Secondly, through the module of PA-MOD N, the expanded watermark image is scrambled to a meaningless image by the Arnold transform. Then, the expanded scrambled image is embedded into the carrier image by the steganography method of LSB. Finally, the time complexity analysis is given. The simulation experiment results show that our quantum circuit has lower time complexity, and the proposed watermarking scheme is superior to others.

Optical 3D watermark based digital image watermarking for telemedicine

Today, the Internet is a worldwide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location. With the rapid evolution of digital networks, digital libraries and World Wide Web (WWW) services, the convenient broadcasting or exposition of digital products on the global network leads easily to illegal copying, modifying and retransmission. The Internet has spawned many copyright issues involving multimedia content distribution. Let’s say an owner would like to sell or distribute a work to legal/registered users only. If the work were subsequently copied/redistributed illegally, how could the owner find who was responsible? Cryptographic techniques provide an effective solution for securing the delivery process and controlling the use of the contents that an user has obtained. However, with flawless transmission through the network, the contents after decryption are exactly the same as the original data. The contents can be copied perfectly infinite times. A user can also manipulate the contents. Digital watermarking (Arnold, Schmucker, & Wolthusen, 2003; Katzenbeisser & Petitcolas, 2000) offers a way to counter copyright piracy on global networks that are not solvable by cryptography. It provides proof and tracking capabilities to illegal copying and distribution of multimedia information. Most existing digital watermarking schemes are based on some assumptions for watermark detection and extraction. Some schemes require the previous knowledge of watermark locations, strengths or some thresholds. In some algorithms, the watermark is estimated with the help of the original watermark information. To ensure the robustness and invisibility of the watermark, the optimum embedding locations are usually different for different images. For a large image database, it could be a disadvantage to require watermark location and strength information for watermark detection and extraction. A large amount of information then needs to be stored. On the Internet, an owner would like to distribute multimedia data by signing different watermarks to different users in order to prevent illegal redistribution of the data by a legal user. In this scenario, watermark detection and extraction algorithms requiring information of either watermark embedding locations and strengths or the original watermark should fail, since one does not know exactly which watermark is embedded in a particular copy of the watermarked image. To this end, we present a new blind watermarking scheme (Yu, Sattar, & Ma, 2002; Yu & Sattar, 2003, 2005) based on Independent Component Analysis (ICA) (Hyvarinen, 1999; Hyvärinen & Oja, 1999; Lee, 1998) for color images, which can overcome existing problems of watermark detection and extraction as described above. The new ICA-based scheme is found to be efficient in the application of data tracking/tracing for multimedia distribution through the Internet against other digital watermarking schemes. By adopting this ICA-based watermarking scheme, an efficient multimedia distribution framework/protocol for copyright protection can be accomplished. This article is organized as follows: The watermark embedding and extraction algorithms for color image watermarking using the new ICA-based scheme are presented next, followed by a discussion and comments on the results, security issues, summary and future works.

Today, the Internet is a worldwide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location. With the rapid evolution of digital networks, digital libraries and World Wide Web (WWW) services, the convenient broadcasting or exposition of digital products on the global network leads easily to illegal copying, modifying and retransmission. The Internet has spawned many copyright issues involving multimedia content distribution. Let’s say an owner would like to sell or distribute a work to legal/registered users only. If the work were subsequently copied/redistributed illegally, how could the owner find who was responsible? Cryptographic techniques provide an effective solution for securing the delivery process and controlling the use of the contents that an user has obtained. However, with flawless transmission through the network, the contents after decryption are exactly the same as the original data. The contents can be copied perfectly infinite times. A user can also manipulate the contents. Digital watermarking (Arnold, Schmucker, & Wolthusen, 2003; Katzenbeisser & Petitcolas, 2000) offers a way to counter copyright piracy on global networks that are not solvable by cryptography. It provides proof and tracking capabilities to illegal copying and distribution of multimedia information. Most existing digital watermarking schemes are based on some assumptions for watermark detection and extraction. Some schemes require the previous knowledge of watermark locations, strengths or some thresholds. In some algorithms, the watermark is estimated with the help of the original watermark information. To ensure the robustness and invisibility of the watermark, the optimum embedding locations are usually different for different images. For a large image database, it could be a disadvantage to require watermark location and strength information for watermark detection and extraction. A large amount of information then needs to be stored. On the Internet, an owner would like to distribute multimedia data by signing different watermarks to different users in order to prevent illegal redistribution of the data by a legal user. In this scenario, watermark detection and extraction algorithms requiring information of either watermark embedding locations and strengths or the original watermark should fail, since one does not know exactly which watermark is embedded in a particular copy of the watermarked image. To this end, we present a new blind watermarking scheme (Yu, Sattar, & Ma, 2002; Yu & Sattar, 2003, 2005) based on Independent Component Analysis (ICA) (Hyvarinen, 1999; Hyvärinen & Oja, 1999; Lee, 1998) for color images, which can overcome existing problems of watermark detection and extraction as described above. The new ICA-based scheme is found to be efficient in the application of data tracking/tracing for multimedia distribution through the Internet against other digital watermarking schemes. By adopting this ICA-based watermarking scheme, an efficient multimedia distribution framework/protocol for copyright protection can be accomplished. This article is organized as follows: The watermark embedding and extraction algorithms for color image watermarking using the new ICA-based scheme are presented next, followed by a discussion and comments on the results, security issues, summary and future works.

This paper proposes a actual blind detection watermark scheme based on Contourlet Transform (CT) and Independent Component Analysis (ICA). To decrease Contourlet coefficient values of the watermark images and insure safe of watermark, watermark images are encrypted. The encrypted images and the original images are decomposed into a serial of subbands by Contourlet transform. The ratio of the distributed energies of corresponding subbands between watermark image and original image is regarded as self-adaptive embedded strength. The watermark image is embedded into original image to form the embedded image. The embedded image has invisibility for watermarks. A blind detection approach from the embedded image is presented. The approach needs the embedded image only, and realize genuine blind detection watermark. Experiments show that the approach has good extracting effect and robustness.

In this digital era, illegitimate redistribution and protection of digital multimedia have to turn out to be the critical issue. Therefore, digital watermarking has been introduced for avoiding illegitimate works and also to ensure security and authentication as well. “Digital video watermarking is a method to hide some kind of data like audio, image, text into digital video sequences which is nothing but orders of successive still images.” This paper intends to formulate a novel video watermarking framework that includes three stages, such as (i) optimal video frame prediction, (ii) watermark embedding process and (iii) watermark extraction process. Very first, the optimal frames are determined using a new hybrid algorithm termed trial-based update on Jaya plus firefly (TU-JF) algorithm, in such a way that the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) should be maximal. The frames are assigned with a label of one or zero, where label one denotes the frame with better PSNR (can select for embedding process) and label zero denotes the frame with reduced PSNR (cannot be used for embedding). Consequently, a data library is formed from the obtained results, where each frame of videos is determined with their gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) features and labels (can embed or not). As in the proposed model, the optimal frame prediction is carried out using deep belief network (DBN) framework; the obtained data are then trained in the model. The optimal frames could be predicted in an efficient manner while testing. The significant contribution of this work concerns the optimization of hidden neurons in the DBN framework, which helps to enhance prediction accuracy. At last, the “watermark embedding process” and “watermark extraction process” are done by which the image could be embedded within the optimal frames.

In this paper we present a novel multiple access scheme based on a combination of multi-carrier OFDMA techniques and a multi-dimensional spread spectrum modem that makes use of rotated mutually orthogonal complete complementary codes. A multi-dimensional code-division multiple access (MD-CDMA) modem with recent designs of perfectly orthogonal complete complementary codes, produces an innovative modulation technique, which is further improved upon by exploiting the rotational properties of the spreading codes to increase the throughput and spectral efficiency. The system is extended by making use of multiple carrier frequencies as in orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA), providing additional benefits such as diversity by being able to spread the data in frequency and/or in time. The proposed modem offers multiple access interference (MAI)-free operation due to the perfect autocorrelation and zero cross-correlation properties of the spreading codes. The uniquely proposed modulation technique together with the integration of rotated complete complementary codes, produces a system with better spectral efficiency compared to a theoretical non-spread system, with high data throughput rates, better noise tolerances in harsh channel conditions and an increased user capacity. Various other benefits such as low complex channel estimation and synchronisation, rate adaption, and resistance to the near-far problem can be attributed to the system.

Due to the rise in many industrial environment applications involving distributed networked collaborative intelligent measurement systems, intelligent monitoring and multi-sensor information exchange of private information, digital image information security and hidden image authentication, tampering detection, correction, and automatic intelligent self-recovery have become critical concerns. Towards that end, there is a need for more secure, efficient, and robust-to-unauthorized-tampering digital image watermarking, information hiding and authentication schemes. In our prior work, we introduced non-blind watermarking schemes where the carrier and watermark images are available at the receiver's end. We also proposed a double-blind scheme where both the carrier and the watermark images are not available at the receiver's end, but at the expense of possible lower pixel tampering, authentication and automatic intelligent self-correction ability. This paper proposes a blind wavelet-based, high capacity, secure digital watermarking and information hiding scheme with higher tampering localization and authentication that nullifies the need to have the carrier image available at the receiving end. The proposed scheme also increases robustness to image authentication and automatic self-recovery and correction compared to our prior double-blind scheme. The scheme is high capacity and sustains hiding secret hidden and watermarking images of the same full size as an arbitrary-sized carrier image. One of the benefits of the blind watermarking scheme is that it allows usage of varying and arbitrary carrier images that are unknown and unavailable anywhere, including the receiver's end. This is to prevent hackers' recognition of a familiar carrier image and their potential unauthorized tampering. Here, in this paper, two grayscale images are inserted in a colored carrier image. Here the watermark image is used for authentication and tamper localization. The second image is used as ownership or encoded secret hidden message image. The Arnolds Transform is used to introduce added security to a hidden image. The proposed scheme uses an embedded correction matrices mechanism for the extracted hidden information self-recovery from various tampering and digital attacks by unauthorized hackers.

Digital watermarking is an efficient technique for copyright protection in the current digital and network era. In this paper, a novel robust watermarking scheme is proposed based on singular value decomposition (SVD), Arnold scrambling (AS), scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) and majority voting mechanism (MVM). The watermark is embedded into each image block for three times in a novel way to enhance the robustness of the proposed watermarking scheme, while Arnold scrambling is utilized to improve the security of the proposed method. During the extraction procedure, SIFT feature points are used to detect and correct possibly geometrical attacks, and majority voting mechanism is performed to enhance the accuracy of the extracted watermark. Our analyses and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed watermarking scheme is not only robust to a wide range of common signal processing attacks (such as noise, compression and filtering attacks), but also has favorable resistance to geometrical attacks.