Comparative Study of Chaos-Based Robust Digital Image Watermarking Techniques

Watermarking has become a crucial technique for protecting copyright and verifying the authenticity of images due to the rapid distribution of digital images and the ease and reliability of image content modification. In this research, we introduce a hybrid digital picture watermarking method that is both secure and resilient. This would use the discrete wavelet transform (DWT), the discrete cosine transforms (DCT), singular value decomposition (SVD), and cryptographic systems such as RSA and chaotic maps. Hence, this method tries to balance the tradeoff of robustness, security, and imperceptibility. We first encrypt the watermark using RSA, and then a chaotic logistic map (CLM) scrambles the already designed encrypted watermark to further enhance its robustness. By putting the watermark in the host image's separately calculated DWT-DCT coefficients, the proposed method works well even when compression, noise addition filtering, and geometric attacks are used. The test results demonstrate that the suggested method does better than other methods in Structural Similarity Index (SSIM), Normalized Correlation (NC), and Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR). Regardless of the nature of the attack, our proposed method consistently generates PSNR values above 55 dB and NC values above to 0.90, indicating correct watermark extraction and excellent image perception. We use cryptographic methods to secure the watermark from retrieval and modification by unauthenticated users. In addition, our approach is superior to the current watermarking methods in robustness and unobtrusiveness. In further works, we plan to improve the robustness of the approach against more complex geometric attacks and apply it for watermarking video and 3D content.

Nowadays image authentication plays a vital role for security. Watermarking techniques facilitate to hide the data in carrier image in such a way so that data would become imperceptible. Watermarking can be performed either in spatial domain or in transfer domain. Least Significant Bit (LSB) modification is the simple but non reliable theme, which is performed in spatial domain. In transfer domain, Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), Discrete Cosine Transformation (DCT), Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT), Discrete Wavelet Transformation (DWT) and Fast hadamard Transform (FHT) etc provide robust result. The goal of the paper is to present how such methods are useful to authenticate images and avoid image tampering. In our work, we have discussed block and non block based watermarking scheme performed in DCT domain using SVD. Several experiments are carried out to check the robustness of the algorithm. We conclude that non block based algorithm is superior in terms of visual quality after embedding and extraction, while its inferior in terms of some common signal processing attacks like rotation, scaling, translation etc.

This paper experimentally investigates the effect of nine chaotic maps on the performance of two Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) variants, namely, Random Inertia Weight PSO (RIW‐PSO) and Linear Decreasing Inertia Weight PSO (LDIW‐PSO) algorithms. The applications of logistic chaotic map by researchers to these variants have led to Chaotic Random Inertia Weight PSO (CRIW‐PSO) and Chaotic Linear Decreasing Inertia Weight PSO (CDIW‐PSO) with improved optimizing capability due to better global search mobility. However, there are many other chaotic maps in literature which could perhaps enhance the performances of RIW‐PSO and LDIW‐PSO more than logistic map. Some benchmark mathematical problems well‐studied in literature were used to verify the performances of RIW‐PSO and LDIW‐PSO variants using the nine chaotic maps in comparison with logistic chaotic map. Results show that the performances of these two variants were improved more by many of the chaotic maps than by logistic map in many of the test problems. The best performance, in terms of function evaluations, was obtained by the two variants using Intermittency chaotic map. Results in this paper provide a platform for informative decision making when selecting chaotic maps to be used in the inertia weight formula of LDIW‐PSO and RIW‐PSO.

Video compression and security both need to be emphasized for reliable and fast communication. This paper proposes an algorithm which emphasize both compression and security through the combination of Embedded Zero Wavelet (EZW) and chaotic logistic map. In the first phase, video is encoded using decoupled 3D-DWT architecture and then compressed using EZW. The data obtained from EZW is given as input to the chaotic logistic map, which provides security. Chaotic logic map is used for providing security as it is simple and more sensitive towards the changes in the initial conditions. The time taken to provide security is efficiently reduced by chaotic logistic map algorithm. To provide a reliable security two keys are used at the transmitter and three keys are used at the receiver. The timing requirement of the chaotic logistic map algorithm is compared with the AES in the results section and found to be much better.

A simplified and efficient technique of cryptography of an image will be developed. The technique will utilize two simple rounds to apply image encryption and decryption, each round will be implemented by performing a simple rows shuffling and columns shuffling, eliminating the need for computational logical and arithmetic operations required for other techniques of image encryption. Our approach, while simplifying computational demands by eliminating complex arithmetic and logical operations, maintains robust security through the integration of dual Chaotic Logistic Map Models (CLMM) to generate highly sensitive indices keys. These indices keys control row and column shuffling, which provides a high degree of permutation and resists known-plaintext and cipher text-only attacks. The technique will require two secret indices keys, these keys will be variable in the length and the contents and they will depend on the image to be encrypted-decrypted, generation of these keys will be very easy and simple. The shuffling operations will be implemented using two secret indices keys, and by implementing couple of chaotic logistic map these keys will be produced using selected chaotic parameters values included in the private key. The technique uses a 256-bit private key, chaotic logistic maps, and high sensitivity to parameter variations to achieve "Very strong" key space entropy, with encryption throughput of 19,540 KB/s and robust performance across diverse image sizes. The generated decrypted image may become so sensitive to chosen of private key values, and any little variation in the private key through the decryption task, it will be showed as a hacking try. The proposed technique will be flexible, it will be used to process every image with any size (gray and/or color), and image changing will not require any updating in the decryption and encryption processes. The developed technique will be efficient; it will decrease both the encryption and decryption times, and it lead to accelerate the image encryption process comparing with other techniques. The study systematically utilizes specific evaluation metrics to substantiate claims regarding the quality, security, and velocity of the proposed cryptographic technique. Quality is assessed by Mean Square Error (MSE) and Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) metrics

To compromise between imperceptibility and robustness property of robust image watermarking technique, a RDWT-DCT based blind image watermarking scheme using Arnold scrambling is presented in this paper. Firstly, RDWT (Redundant Discrete Wavelet Transform) is applied to each gray scale cover image block after the image is decomposed into fixed size non overlapping blocks. Secondly, the binary watermark logo is encrypted by Arnold chaotic map and reshaped to a sequence to improve the security of the logo. In the subsequent step, DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) is employed on each LH subband of the non-overlapping host image block. Finally, after zigzag scanning of each DCT block a binary bit of watermark is embedded into each block by adjusting some middle significant AC coefficients using repetition code. Experimental results show that robustness is achieved by recovering satisfactory watermark data from the reconstructed cover image after applying common geometric transformation attacks (like rotation, cropping, scaling, shearing and deletion of lines or column operation etc.), common enhancement technique attacks (like lowpass filtering, histogram equalization, sharpening, gamma correction, noise addition etc.) and JPEG compression attacks. The proposed scheme is also tested to verify the robustness performance against standard benchmark software "Checkmark" and satisfactory results are achieved against the Checkmark attacks such as Hard and Soft Thresholding, Template Removal, Warping, Dithering, Remodulation and Downsampling/Upsampling etc.

The main purpose of the proposed image encryption (IE) method is to enhance various security characteristics to protect sensitive images on the internet. In the literature, chaotic maps are preferred for image encryption because of their high randomness and sensitivity to initial parameter values. Therefore, metaheuristic algorithms have been utilized to fine-tune the parameters. In this research, we have employed the metaheuristic Lyrebird optimization (LO) algorithm to fine-tune the chaotic map parameters. The LO algorithm is chosen over other algorithms due to its better exploration and exploitation rate to search for the best solution. The LO algorithm searches for the best parameter value based on the objective function. This research involves the formulation of a multi-objective function that incorporates numerous security parameters, namely, entropy and correlation coefficient (CC), to improve the security attributes of the IE model. The proposed IE model has two steps. In the first step, a random key is generated to transform the pixels of the secret image, whereas in the second step, the image pixels are shuffled based on the shuffling index values to reduce the correlation among the neighboring pixels. In both steps, we have used the chaotic logistic map. The proposed IE is evaluated against statistical and differential attacks on the standard dataset by considering the various images and their different resolutions. The uniform distribution of the histogram of the encrypted images is validated using the chi-square test. Besides that, entropy analysis shows that the average entropy value is 7.9973, 7.9993, and 7.9998 for 256x256, 512x512, and 1024x1024 image resolutions. The average CC and SSIM are near zero value. The average NPCR value (>0.9969) is near the 1 value. Finally, the comparative analysis based on entropy, CC, and NPCR parameters shows that the proposed IE model outperforms the existing models.

Chaotic map gained its importance in the field of cryptography, due to its properties like, randomness, unpredictability, sensitivity on initial condition, aperiodicity, which is used to generate pseudorandom bit streams. In this paper the optimal values of chaos parameters are generated through Real Coded Genetic Algorithm (RCGA), which is optimal, unpredictable, and optimally sensitive. Here, a non-deterministic RCGA based optimal pseudo-random bit sequence generator based on Chaotic maps, such as Logistic Chaotic map, Skew Tent Chaotic map, Cross Coupled Logistic Chaotic map, Cross Coupled Skew Tent Chaotic map is proposed. A real coded crossover and mutation technique is proposed for RCGA. Seed values for chaotic map have been optimized by using all sub-functions of GA (RCGA). These seed values are used to generate optimal pseudorandom bit stream of finite length. The randomness of the bit stream is tested by using NIST statistical test suit.

The paper proposes a novel chaos based audio steganography and cryptography method. It is a higher Least Significant Bit (LSB) layers algorithm in which the secret message is encrypted first by one-time pad algorithm. Two chaotic sequences of Piecewise Linear Chaotic Map (PWLCM) were used. In the encryption process, the key for one-time pad is generated by PWLCM chaotic map. In the steganography process, the second sequence of PWLCM is used to generate a random sequence. Then, indices of the ordered generated sequence were used to embed the encrypted message in randomly selected audio samples. The encrypted data were embedded on the higher layers other than the LSB using efficient bits adjustment algorithm, in order to increase the robustness against noise addition or MPEG compression. An analysis is discussed for the proposed scheme. For the steganography algorithm, the proposed scheme overcomes the main two problems for LSB coding, which are the low robustness of secret message extraction and destruction. For the former, the proposed method encrypts the secret message by perfect efficient algorithm which is the one-time pad. Regard of the second one, the secret message is hidden in higher layers which improve the robustness against signal processing manipulation. The main three steganography characteristics were tested and evaluated which are high capacity, perceptual transparency and robustness. Furthermore, the drawbacks of key generation and key distribution for one-time pad is sloved by using the chaotic maps. For the experimental results, waveform analysis and signal-to-noise Ratio are made, which show the high quality of the stego audio, and hence demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed scheme.

Digital image watermarking is one of the largest research fields, and it plays a vital role in digital information authentication and security. Based on the study of watermarking systems, the whole process may be segregated into the processes of watermark embedding and extraction. In this paper, a review of the theoretical and experimental analysis and performance measurement of representative digital image watermarking systems in spatial and transform domains is presented. The significant characteristics of the digital image watermarking scheme are robustness, capacity, imperceptibility, the security of the hiding place, and false-positive of the watermarking algorithm. Comparison of the different watermarking techniques such as the least significant bit (LSB), singular value decomposition (SVD), the discrete wavelet transform (DWT), and the discrete cosine transform (DCT) is presented in a tabular form. A detailed discussion along with an algorithm for digital image encryption/decryption through embedding and extraction is given. A brief comparison of their relative advantages and disadvantages is also noted in this paper.KeywordsInformation hidingWatermarkingSecurityAttacksRobust

There is a huge resource of data available on the internet which one can access without realizing that the person is even authorized to access it or not. The hard work of the original resource person can easily be compromised. Digital watermarking is an answer to overcome this issue. This paper introduces a hybrid of LSB and DCT techniques, LSB(Least Significant Bit) and DCT(Discrete Cosine Transformation). The paper studies the two techniques along with the proposed technique and a comparison is drawn between the three based on MSE and PSNR values obtained. The introduced hybrid technique performs better in comparison to DCT and LSB. The MSE calculated was 64% better than LSB and 60% better than DCT resultantly PSNR is also observed to be better than LSB and DCT.

Steganography is the art/technique of hiding message data inside a carrier file in such a way that unauthorized or unsolicited personnel is not capable of detecting the presence of data inside the carrier file. The Proposed Method provides improved security and improved high embedding capacity image steganography through the usage of Integer Wavelet Transform (IWT) and Chaotic Logistic map. Least Significant Bit technique is used to replace the bits in the coefficient of detail band. The proposed method offers lossless and unnoticeable change in the image steganography. In this paper we focus on both cryptography and steganography for better confidentiality, security and robustness. We find that the proposed algorithm has a better CMPSNR (Chaotic Logistic mapping) value averaging close to 74 after embedding the secret data, while the existing algorithms have values of around 65.

In this paper, a robust video zero-watermarking scheme for copyright protection using a combination of convolutional neural network (CNN) and self-organizing map (SOM) in polar complex exponential transform (PCET) space is presented. The scheme is developed not only to remedy the existing problems of lacking in some performance assessments but also to enhance the robustness. It starts with extracting the content feature of each frame by CNN and then some significant frames are selected using SOM clustering and maximum entropy. Secondly, the PCET is applied to all selected frames to abstract invariant moments, and further, is scrambled by a chaotic logistic map and is reduced in dimensions by singular value decomposition (SVD). Next, a binary sequence is generated by comparing adjacent values of the obtained compact PCET moments in the previous step, and further is permuted to produce a binary matrix. Finally, a bitwise exclusive-OR operation is imposed on the binary matrix and the encrypted watermark by the chaotic map to generate a zero-watermark signal. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme has adequate equalization and distinguishability of zero-watermarks as well as strong robustness against common signal processing, geometric, compression, and inter-frame attacks. Also, compared with existing video zero-watermarking and traditional video watermarking methods, the proposed scheme exhibits superior robustness.

Chaotic maps have gained popularity in image encryption models due to their ability to secure images with a random key.Further, the randomness of the key is highly dependent on the initial parameter values of the chaotic map.Therefore, the literature employs metaheuristic algorithms to find the optimal parameter values for generating a completely random key.Two chaotic maps-the 1-D chaotic logistic map (CLM) and the chaotic tent map (CTM)-along with the metaheuristic algorithm known as one-to-one-based optimization (OOBO) were used to create an optimized image encryption (IE) model in this study.We utilize the 1-D CLM algorithm for random key generation, while the 1-D CTM algorithm generates the shuffling sequence for image shuffling.We use the metaheuristic OOBO algorithm in both chaotic maps to generate completely random keys and random shuffling sequences based on the objective function.In this research, we design the objective function using security parameters such as entropy (E) and correlation coefficient (CC).After determining the optimal parameter values for chaotic maps, we perform an exclusive-OR operation between the random key and the secret image.After that, shuffling of the secret image is done based on the shuffling sequence given by the 1-D CTM algorithm.We evaluate the proposed IE model through simulation using images from the primary and secondary datasets.Using various parameters, we compare the visual quality of the encrypted image with the secret image in this evaluation.The results illustrate that the proposed IE model outperforms in terms of entropy and correlation coefficients and provides better encryption than the existing IE models.The proposed model achieves an entropy of 7.99648 for the cameraman, 7.99688 for Elaine, and 7.99704 for the pepper image.Further, a correlation coefficient of 0.00021 for the cameraman, -0.00012 for Elaine, and -0.00161 for the pepper image.

The study provides a unique method for creating an efficient substitution box (S-box) for advanced encryption standards using a Chaotic Logistic Map (CLM) and a Linear Congruential Generator (LCG) (AES) for secure communications in a smart city. The Pseudo-Random Number Generator (PRNG), which is further examined, is constructed using an extensive search of reasonable possibilities for the initial seed and set parameters. Using statistical testing, the performance analysis of the new S-box is assessed. Additionally, the resilience of differential, as well as linear cryptanalysis, is shown. It is derived using other features, including nonlinearity, the Bit Independence Criterion (BIC), and the Strict Avalanche Criterion (SAC). The suggested S-box has good potential and is usable for symmetric key cryptography, according to the features of the new S-cryptographic box.