Digital watermarking is a key ingredient to copyright protection. It provides a solution to illegal copying of digital material and has many other useful applications such as broadcast monitoring and the recording of electronic transactions. Now, for the first time, there is a book that focuses exclusively on this exciting technology. Digital Watermarking covers the crucial research findings in the field: it explains the principles underlying digital watermarking technologies, describes the requirements that have given rise to them, and discusses the diverse ends to which these technologies are being applied. As a result, additional groundwork is laid for future developments in this field, helping the reader understand and anticipate new approaches and applications.

Digital Watermarking

From the Publisher:
Steganography, a means by which two or more parties may communicate using "invisible" or "subliminal" communication, and watermarking, a means of hiding copyright data in images, are becoming necessary components of commercial multimedia applications that are subject to illegal use. This new book is the first comprehensive survey of steganography and watermarking and their application to modern communications and multimedia. 

Handbook of Information Hiding: Steganography and Watermarking helps you understand steganography, the history of this previously neglected element of cryptography, the hurdles of international law on strong cryptographic techniques, a description of possible applications, and a survey of the methods you can use to hide information in modern media. Included in this discussion is an overview of "steganalysis," methods which can be used to break steganographic communication.

This comprehensive resource also includes an introduction to and survey of watermarking methods, and discusses this method's similarities and differences to steganography. You gain a working knowledge of watermarking's pros and cons, and you learn the legal implications of watermarking and copyright issues on the Internet.

Information Hiding Techniques for Steganography and Digital Watermarking

Disclosed herein are methods and systems for encoding digital watermarks into content signals. Also disclosed are systems and methods for detecting and/or verifying digital watermarks in content signals. According to one embodiment, a system for encoding of digital watermark information includes: a window identifier for identifying a sample window in the signal; an interval calculator for determining a quantization interval of the sample window; and a sampler for normalizing the sample window to provide normalized samples. According to another embodiment, a system for pre-analyzing a digital signal for encoding at least one digital watermark using a digital filter is disclosed. According to another embodiment, a method for pre-analyzing a digital signal for encoding digital watermarks comprises: (1) providing a digital signal; (2) providing a digital filter to be applied to the digital signal; and (3) identifying an area of the digital signal that will be affected by the digital filter based on at least one measurable difference between the digital signal and a counterpart of the digital signal selected from the group consisting of the digital signal as transmitted, the digital signal as stored in a medium, and the digital signal as played backed. According to another embodiment, a method for encoding a watermark in a content signal includes the steps of (1) splitting a watermark bit stream; and (2) encoding at least half of the watermark bit stream in the content signal using inverted instances of the watermark bit stream. Other methods and systems for encoding/decoding digital watermarks are also disclosed.

Optimization methods for the insertion, protection, and detection of digital watermarks in digitized data

Image hash functions find extensive applications in content authentication, database search, and watermarking. This paper develops a novel algorithm for generating an image hash based on Fourier transform features and controlled randomization. We formulate the robustness of image hashing as a hypothesis testing problem and evaluate the performance under various image processing operations. We show that the proposed hash function is resilient to content-preserving modifications, such as moderate geometric and filtering distortions. We introduce a general framework to study and evaluate the security of image hashing systems. Under this new framework, we model the hash values as random variables and quantify its uncertainty in terms of differential entropy. Using this security framework, we analyze the security of the proposed schemes and several existing representative methods for image hashing. We then examine the security versus robustness tradeoff and show that the proposed hashing methods can provide excellent security and robustness.

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Robust and secure image hashing

A method for applying a digital watermark to a content signal is disclosed. In accordance with such a method, a watermarking key is identified. The watermarking key includes a binary sequence and information describing application of that binary sequence to the content signal. The digital watermark is then encoded within the content signal at one or more locations determined by the watermarking key.

Method and system for digital watermarking

A blind watermarking technique embedding a digital image signature for authentication is developed. The signature algorithm is first implemented in the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) domain and is later coupled within the SPIHT compression algorithm. The capacity of the watermarking method is determined by the upper bound on the attainable information bit rate that can be hidden in the image using two methods: binary engraving and multi-bit engraving.

Joint wavelet compression and authentication watermarking

This paper introduces approximate image message authentication codes (IMACs) for soft image authentication. The proposed approximate IMAC survives small to moderate image compression and it is capable of detecting and locating tampering. Techniques such as block averaging and smoothing, parallel approximate message authentication code (AMAC) computation, and image histogram enhancement are used in the construction of the approximate IMAC. The performance of the approximate IMAC in three image modification scenarios, namely, JPEG compression, deliberate image tampering, and additive Gaussian noise, is studied and compared. Simulation results are presented.

Approximate image message authentication codes

According to the principles of the invention, there is provided a system for generating a message authentication code for a conventional digital video stream. The system operates on the rows and columns of block data for a video stream, and more specifically on histograms of DC coefficients from each row and column, to produce a compact code that is nonetheless descriptive of the underlying images in the video stream. The message authentication code can be reproduced from the images of a received video stream, and if desired, compared with a digital watermark embedded in the video stream in order to confirm the accuracy of the video content or identify the source of the video stream.

Message authentication code using image histograms

A system (100) for watermarking digital data includes a watermark etching subsystem (105) and a watermark extraction subsystem (110). The watermark etching subsystem (105) obtains a matrix of digital data values, selects windows including a plurality of data values from the matrix, specifies a parameter that indicates an acceptable amount of variation in the data values, and etches watermark bits in each window of data values using the specified parameter. The watermark extraction subsystem (110) obtains a matrix of digital data values containing an etched watermark, selects windows comprising a plurality of data values from the matrix, and extracts watermark bits from each window of data values using the specified parameter.

Systems and methods for etching digital watermarks

A content based digital image signature scheme for image authentication is proposed. The signature is implemented by image watermarking in the wavelet domain. We introduce interdependency between the watermark and the image data sequence, so that the detection and verification of the signature are independent of the original image and the knowledge of the original watermark sequence or location are not needed. The signature is embedded and tested within the Entropy Zerotree Wavelet Coding (EZW) model. The information capacity of the algorithm is determined.

Liehua Xie

Papers

Joint wavelet compression and authentication watermarking

Approximate image message authentication codes

Message authentication code using image histograms

Systems and methods for etching digital watermarks

A blind wavelet based digital signature for image authentication