A Robust Procedure for Image Watermarking based on the Hermite Projection Method

Besides copyright protection, digital video watermarking is also applied in non-security applications like second screen annotation, where high robustness against geometric distortions and high watermark payload are required. Robustness against geometric distortions, however, is still one of the major challenging issues in video watermarking, in particular for the schemes in compressed domain. In this paper, we propose a video watermarking scheme that can resist geometric attacks. The watermark embedding is performed in Fourier domain using patchwork method which is able to handle high embedding payload. Fast transform between block DCT and DFT enables the proposed scheme to be applicable directly in the compressed domain, significantly reducing the computation cost. Perceptual masking is applied in both DFT and DCT domains to ensure high visual quality. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves satisfactory robustness against all kinds of attacks, including geometric distortions and frame dropping and swapping.Keywordsvideo watermarkingannotation applicationgeometric distortiontemporal attack

An image watermarking scheme that combines Hermite functions expansion and space/spatial-frequency analysis is proposed. In the first step, the Hermite functions expansion is employed to select busy regions for watermark embedding. In the second step, the space/spatial-frequency representation and Hermite functions expansion are combined to design the imperceptible watermark, using the host local frequency content. The Hermite expansion has been done by using the fast Hermite projection method. Recursive realization of Hermite functions significantly speeds up the algorithms for regions selection and watermark design. The watermark detection is performed within the space/spatial-frequency domain. The detection performance is increased due to the high information redundancy in that domain in comparison with the space or frequency domains, respectively. The performance of the proposed procedure has been tested experimentally for different watermark strengths, i.e., for different values of the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). The proposed approach provides high detection performance even for high PSNR values. It offers a good compromise between detection performance (including the robustness to a wide variety of common attacks) and imperceptibility.

This paper presents a confidential text documents leakage investigation system, focused on leak channels by documents printing and screen photographing. Internal intruders may print confidential document, take paper copy out of protected perimeter, make document image by scanner and perform anonymous leak. Also, intruders may take a photo of printed confidential document or displayed on workstation screen using personal mobile phone. Described leakage channels are weakly covered by traditional DLP systems that are usually used by enterprises for confidential information leak protection. Digital watermark (DWM) embedding is chosen as a document protection mechanism by implying changing of document image visual representation. In case of confidential document anonymous leak embedded DWM would enable the employee to determine what leak intentionally or by security protocol violation. System architecture consists of different type components. Employees’ workstation components provide DWM embedding into documents, which are sent for printing or displayed on screen. Information about watermark embedding is sent to a remote server that aggregates marking facts and provides it to security officer during investigation. Text document marking algorithms are developed, which embed DWM into printed and displayed on screen documents. Screen watermark is embedded into interline space interval, information is encoded by sequence of lightened and darkened spaces. DWM embedding into printed documents is implemented by three algorithms: horizontal and vertical shift based, font fragments brightness changing based. Algorithms testing methodology is developed in view of the production environment, that helped to evaluate the application area of algorithms. Besides, intruder model was formulated, system security was evaluated and determined possible attack vectors.

Stereo video is an important developing trend of video technologies and its intellectual property rights (IPR) protection should be resolved in advance to avoid piracy. In this paper, based on our previous research work on both digital watermarking and stereo video, a novel adaptive algorithm for watermarking stereo video is proposed. The watermark information is embedded into disparity vectors of the enhancement layer. The embedding of watermark does not affect the base-layer structure and the proposed algorithm is an adaptive one which makes the degradation of the reconstructed video image quality smallest. The operation of watermarking is performed in compressed domain without the need of fully decoding of the whole compressed stream. Watermark detection can be blindly performed without the need of original stereo video sequence. Experimental results reveal that the new algorithm is fast, simple and efficient

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.

In recent years, tampering and altering of digital images have become easier with the rapid development of computer technologies such as digital image editing tools. Therefore, verification of image integrity and tamper detection of digital images have become a great challenge. Fragile watermarking is the most widely used method for protecting the integrity and content authenticity of the image. In this paper, by using SHA-256 hash function, a novel block based fragile watermark embedding and tamper detection method is proposed. In watermark embedding phase, host image is divided into 32 × 32 non-overlapped blocks. Each 32 × 32 block is then divided into four 16 × 16 nonoverlapped sub-blocks. The entire hash value of the first three sub-blocks is generated as a watermark using SHA-256 hash function. The generated 256-bit binary watermark is embedded into the least significant bits (LSBs) of the fourth sub-block and watermarked image is obtained. In tamper detection phase, the detection of tampered block has been performed by comparing the hash value obtained from the three sub-blocks with the extracted watermark from the fourth sub-block of the watermarked image. The performance of the proposed method has been evaluated by applying linear and nonlinear attacks to the different regions of the watermarked images. Experimental results show that the proposed method detects all the tampered regions of the attacked images and high visual quality of watermarked images has been obtained.

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.

The users of networks are increasing rapidly due to increase in growth of internet. There is always a concern among owners of the digital products about illegal copying of their products. Important issues in multimedia applications and services today are Security and copyright protection. Digital watermarking is a technology used for copyright protection of images videos etc. that is stored on internet. Here own right information data called watermark is embedded into the digital media without affecting the perceptual quality of video. In case if any dispute arises, it is possible to detect or extract the watermark data from the media and it can be used as an ownership proof. Digital video watermarking scheme is based on Discrete Wavelet Transform and Singular Value Decomposition. Design of this scheme using Matlab is proposed. Embedded watermark is robust against various attacks that can be carried out on the watermarked video.

Digital watermarking technology has the advantages of easy implementation and capability of providing wide security services such as copyright protection, authentication and secret communication. In this paper, a novel image watermarking approach based on embedding watermarks in different domains, without any distortion of the watermarked image is used. In the spatial domain, the processing method is based on study of segmentation by fuzzy c-means clustering method (FCM) that outputs the zones of watermark embedding and respectively the associated appropriate embedding gain factors. However, in the DCT, we embedded the watermark into the coefficients in mid-band frequency of the selected blocks with different embedding strength. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme has good imperceptibility and high robustness to common image processing operators. Key words: Image watermarking, insertion force, Image segmentation, fuzzy C-mean (FCM), statistical features

Watermarking is a technique for labeling digital pictures by hiding secret information into images. Watermark embedding is a method to discourage unauthorized copying and identify the owner or distributor of digital data. In this paper, a new method is proposed. The watermark is processed as a visually recognizable pattern—binary image, which includes more information than the traditional symbol or ID number and is “extracted” instead of only “detected” to characterize the owner. The watermark is hidden in the host image by selectively modifying the middle-frequency part of the host image in conjunction with the human visual system(HVS) and the image discrete cosine transform(DCT). The experimental results show that this method can survive image cropping and image compression, and get better results, this is also a prospective method.

An imperceptible spatial domain color image watermarking scheme

With the rapid growth of the multimedia technology, copyright protection has become a very important issue, especially for images. The advantages of easy photo distribution are discarded by their possible theft and unauthorized usage on different websites. Therefore, there is a need in securing information with technical methods, for example digital watermarks. This paper reviews digital watermark embedding methods for image copyright protection, advantages and disadvantages of digital watermark usage are produced. Different watermarking algorithms are analyzed. Based on analysis results most effective algorithm is chosen – differential energy watermarking. It is noticed that the method excels at providing image integrity. Digital watermark embedding system should prevent illegal access to the digital watermark and its container. Requirements for digital watermark are produced. Possible image attacks are reviewed. Modern modifications of embedding algorithms are studied. Robustness of the differential energy watermark is investigated. Robustness is a special value, which formulae is given further in the article. DEW method modification is proposed, it’s advantages over original algorithm are described. Digital watermark serves as an additional layer of defense which is in most cases unknown to the violator. Scope of studied image attacks includes compression, filtration, scaling. In conclusion, it’s possible to use DEW watermarking in copyright protection, violator can easily be detected if images with embedded information are exchanged.

Digital watermarks have been proposed as a means for copyright protection of multimedia data. We address the capability of invisible watermarking schemes to resolve copyright ownership. We show that, in certain applications, rightful ownership cannot be resolved by current watermarking schemes alone. Specifically, we attack existing techniques by providing counterfeit watermarking schemes that can be performed on a watermarked image to allow multiple claims of rightful ownership. In the absence of standardization and specific requirements imposed on watermarking procedures, anyone can claim ownership of any watermarked image. In order to protect against the counterfeiting techniques that we develop, we examine the properties necessary for resolving ownership via invisible watermarking. We introduce and study invertibility and quasi-invertibility of invisible watermarking techniques. We propose noninvertible watermarking schemes, and subsequently give examples of techniques that we believe to be nonquasi-invertible and hence invulnerable against more sophisticated attacks proposed in the paper. The attacks and results presented in the paper, and the remedies proposed, further imply that we have to carefully reevaluate the current approaches and techniques in invisible watermarking of digital images based on application domains, and rethink the promises, applications and implications of such digital means of copyright protection.

Digital watermarking is considered to be a main technology for the copyright protection of multimedia digital content distributed on the Internet. However, watermarking procedures can effectively support copyright protection processes only if they are applied by employing specific watermarking protocols, which define the scheme of the interactions that have to take place among the entities involved in the content protection and web-based distribution. To this end, a number of current watermarking protocols can attain important achievements, such as the correct authentication of buyers without exposing their identities during web transactions and the capability of resorting to trusted watermark certification authorities to ensure a copyright protection process that is able to correctly take into account the rights of both buyers and sellers. However, these protocols are often not suitable for web context, where buyers are usually neither provided with digital certificates issued by trusted certification authorities nor able to autonomously perform complex security actions to purchase digital content distributed by web-based content providers. This paper presents an improved version of a web-oriented and interactive anonymous buyer-seller watermarking protocol previously presented by the author. The protocol overcomes the drawbacks affecting relevant protocols existing in literature, and is based on a design approach that makes it suitable for web contexts.