Multiple Image Watermarking Applied to Health Information Management
01 Oct 2006-Vol. 10, Iss: 4, pp 722-732
TL;DR: Experimental results indicate the efficiency and transparency of the scheme, which conforms to the strict requirements that apply to regions of diagnostic significance.
Abstract: Information technology advances have brought forth new challenges in healthcare information management, due to the vast amount of medical data that needs to be efficiently stored, retrieved, and distributed, and the increased security threats that explicitly have to be addressed. The paper discusses the perspectives of digital watermarking in a range of medical data management and distribution issues, and proposes a complementary and/or alternative tool that simultaneously addresses medical data protection, archiving, and retrieval, as well as source and data authentication. The scheme imperceptibly embeds in medical images multiple watermarks conveying patient's personal and examination data, keywords for information retrieval, the physician's digital signature for authentication, and a reference message for data integrity control. Experimental results indicate the efficiency and transparency of the scheme, which conforms to the strict requirements that apply to regions of diagnostic significance
Citations
More filters
01 Sep 1996
TL;DR: The objectives of the European Community, as laid down in the Treaty, as amended by the Treaty on European Union, include creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, fostering closer relations between the States belonging to the Community, ensuring economic and social progress by common action to eliminate the barriers which divide Europe, encouraging the constant improvement of the living conditions of its peoples, preserving and strengthening peace and liberty and promoting democracy on the basis of the fundamental rights recognized in the constitution and laws of the Member States and in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
Abstract: (1) Whereas the objectives of the Community, as laid down in the Treaty, as amended by the Treaty on European Union, include creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, fostering closer relations between the States belonging to the Community, ensuring economic and social progress by common action to eliminate the barriers which divide Europe, encouraging the constant improvement of the living conditions of its peoples, preserving and strengthening peace and liberty and promoting democracy on the basis of the fundamental rights recognized in the constitution and laws of the Member States and in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms;
792 citations
TL;DR: This paper aims to provide a useful survey on watermarking and offer a clear perspective for interested researchers by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of different existing methods.
Abstract: The ever-growing numbers of medical digital images and the need to share them among specialists and hospitals for better and more accurate diagnosis require that patients’ privacy be protected. As a result of this, there is a need for medical image watermarking (MIW). However, MIW needs to be performed with special care for two reasons. Firstly, the watermarking procedure cannot compromise the quality of the image. Secondly, confidential patient information embedded within the image should be flawlessly retrievable without risk of error after image decompressing. Despite extensive research undertaken in this area, there is still no method available to fulfill all the requirements of MIW. This paper aims to provide a useful survey on watermarking and offer a clear perspective for interested researchers by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of different existing methods.
157 citations
Cites background from "Multiple Image Watermarking Applied..."
...Therefore, the horizontal subband in each level can be chosen as the best candidate area for embedding the watermark, in order to achieve image quality preservation and offer robustness simultaneously [64, 65, 88]....
[...]
TL;DR: Comparison results viz-a - viz payload and robustness show that the proposed techniques perform better than some existing state of art techniques and could be useful for e-healthcare systems.
Abstract: Electronic transmission of the medical images is one of the primary requirements in a typical Electronic-Healthcare (E-Healthcare) system. However this transmission could be liable to hackers who may modify the whole medical image or only a part of it during transit. To guarantee the integrity of a medical image, digital watermarking is being used. This paper presents two different watermarking algorithms for medical images in transform domain. In first technique, a digital watermark and Electronic Patients Record (EPR) have been embedded in both regions; Region of Interest (ROI) and Region of Non-Interest (RONI). In second technique, Region of Interest (ROI) is kept untouched for tele-diagnosis purpose and Region of Non-Interest (RONI) is used to hide the digital watermark and EPR. In either algorithm 8ź×ź8 block based Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) has been used. In each 8ź×ź8 block two DCT coefficients are selected and their magnitudes are compared for embedding the watermark/EPR. The selected coefficients are modified by using a threshold for embedding bit a `0' or bit `1' of the watermark/EPR. The proposed techniques have been found robust not only to singular attacks but also to hybrid attacks. Comparison results viz-a - viz payload and robustness show that the proposed techniques perform better than some existing state of art techniques. As such the proposed algorithms could be useful for e-healthcare systems.
155 citations
Cites background from "Multiple Image Watermarking Applied..."
...Thus, integrity, security and confidentiality of this patient data is of major concern, when transferred electronically [1, 9]....
[...]
TL;DR: The security requirements of medical images as well as expected threats in teleradiology are reviewed and justification for watermarking over conventional security measures is made in terms of their various objectives, properties, and requirements.
Abstract: Teleradiology allows medical images to be transmitted over electronic networks for clinical interpretation and for improved healthcare access, delivery, and standards. Although such remote transmission of the images is raising various new and complex legal and ethical issues, including image retention and fraud, privacy, malpractice liability, etc., considerations of the security measures used in teleradiology remain unchanged. Addressing this problem naturally warrants investigations on the security measures for their relative functional limitations and for the scope of considering them further. In this paper, starting with various security and privacy standards, the security requirements of medical images as well as expected threats in teleradiology are reviewed. This will make it possible to determine the limitations of the conventional measures used against the expected threats. Furthermore, we thoroughly study the utilization of digital watermarking for teleradiology. Following the key attributes and roles of various watermarking parameters, justification for watermarking over conventional security measures is made in terms of their various objectives, properties, and requirements. We also outline the main objectives of medical image watermarking for teleradiology and provide recommendations on suitable watermarking techniques and their characterization. Finally, concluding remarks and directions for future research are presented.
133 citations
Cites methods from "Multiple Image Watermarking Applied..."
...Watermarking allows using DS or perceptual hashing for appropriate applications [78, 105, 109, 110]....
[...]
TL;DR: The experimental results show the ability of hiding patient’s data with a very good visual quality, while ROI, the most important area for diagnosis, is retrieved exactly at the receiver side, and the scheme shows some robustness against certain levels of salt and pepper and cropping noise.
Abstract: Authenticating medical images using watermarking techniques has become a very popular area of research, and some works in this area have been reported worldwide recently. Besides authentication, many data-hiding techniques have been proposed to conceal patient’s data into medical images aiming to reduce the cost needed to store data and the time needed to transmit data when required. In this paper, we present a new hybrid watermarking scheme for DICOM images. In our scheme, two well-known techniques are combined to gain the advantages of both and fulfill the requirements of authentication and data hiding. The scheme divides the images into two parts, the region of interest (ROI) and the region of non-interest (RONI). Patient’s data are embedded into ROI using a reversible technique based on difference expansion, while tamper detection and recovery data are embedded into RONI using a robust technique based on discrete wavelet transform. The experimental results show the ability of hiding patient’s data with a very good visual quality, while ROI, the most important area for diagnosis, is retrieved exactly at the receiver side. The scheme also shows some robustness against certain levels of salt and pepper and cropping noise.
132 citations
References
More filters
TL;DR: This work explores both traditional and novel techniques for addressing the data-hiding process and evaluates these techniques in light of three applications: copyright protection, tamper-proofing, and augmentation data embedding.
Abstract: Data hiding, a form of steganography, embeds data into digital media for the purpose of identification, annotation, and copyright. Several constraints affect this process: the quantity of data to be hidden, the need for invariance of these data under conditions where a "host" signal is subject to distortions, e.g., lossy compression, and the degree to which the data must be immune to interception, modification, or removal by a third party. We explore both traditional and novel techniques for addressing the data-hiding process and evaluate these techniques in light of three applications: copyright protection, tamper-proofing, and augmentation data embedding.
3,037 citations
01 Jul 1999
TL;DR: An overview of the information-hiding techniques field is given, of what the authors know, what works, what does not, and what are the interesting topics for research.
Abstract: Information-hiding techniques have recently become important in a number of application areas. Digital audio, video, and pictures are increasingly furnished with distinguishing but imperceptible marks, which may contain a hidden copyright notice or serial number or even help to prevent unauthorized copying directly. Military communications systems make increasing use of traffic security techniques which, rather than merely concealing the content of a message using encryption, seek to conceal its sender, its receiver, or its very existence. Similar techniques are used in some mobile phone systems and schemes proposed for digital elections. Criminals try to use whatever traffic security properties are provided intentionally or otherwise in the available communications systems, and police forces try to restrict their use. However, many of the techniques proposed in this young and rapidly evolving field can trace their history back to antiquity, and many of them are surprisingly easy to circumvent. In this article, we try to give an overview of the field, of what we know, what works, what does not, and what are the interesting topics for research.
2,561 citations
01 Jul 1999
TL;DR: The basic concepts of watermarking systems are outlined and illustrated with proposed water marking methods for images, video, audio, text documents, and other media.
Abstract: Multimedia watermarking technology has evolved very quickly during the last few years. A digital watermark is information that is imperceptibly and robustly embedded in the host data such that it cannot be removed. A watermark typically contains information about the origin, status, or recipient of the host data. In this tutorial paper, the requirements and applications for watermarking are reviewed. Applications include copyright protection, data monitoring, and data tracking. The basic concepts of watermarking systems are outlined and illustrated with proposed watermarking methods for images, video, audio, text documents, and other media. Robustness and security aspects are discussed in detail. Finally, a few remarks are made about the state of the art and possible future developments in watermarking technology.
1,447 citations
"Multiple Image Watermarking Applied..." refers background in this paper
...In addition, patient- and examination-related data are permanently linked to the image and more protected than in the case of meta- data, since access to them is possible only through the use of a key [21], [36]....
[...]
TL;DR: It is shown that public key information hiding systems exist, and are not necessarily constrained to the case where the warden is passive, and the use of parity checks to amplify covertness and provide public key steganography.
Abstract: In this paper, we clarify what steganography is and what it can do. We contrast it with the related disciplines of cryptography and traffic security, present a unified terminology agreed at the first international workshop on the subject, and outline a number of approaches-many of them developed to hide encrypted copyright marks or serial numbers in digital audio or video. We then present a number of attacks, some new, on such information hiding schemes. This leads to a discussion of the formidable obstacles that lie in the way of a general theory of information hiding systems (in the sense that Shannon gave us a general theory of secrecy systems). However, theoretical considerations lead to ideas of practical value, such as the use of parity checks to amplify covertness and provide public key steganography. Finally, we show that public key information hiding systems exist, and are not necessarily constrained to the case where the warden is passive.
1,270 citations
"Multiple Image Watermarking Applied..." refers background in this paper
...In this way, separate transmission and storage of metadata, which would increase memory and transmission bandwidth requirements, is prevented [16]–[18]....
[...]
01 Jun 1998
TL;DR: The reliability of data-embedding procedures and their ability to deliver new services such as viewing a movie in a given rated version from a single multicast stream are discussed.
Abstract: We review developments in transparent data embedding and watermarking for audio, image, and video. Data-embedding and watermarking algorithms embed text, binary streams, audio, image, or video in a host audio, image, or video signal. The embedded data are perceptually inaudible or invisible to maintain the quality of the source data. The embedded data can add features to the host multimedia signal, e.g., multilingual soundtracks in a movie, or provide copyright protection. We discuss the reliability of data-embedding procedures and their ability to deliver new services such as viewing a movie in a given rated version from a single multicast stream. We also discuss the issues and problems associated with copy and copyright protection and assess the viability of current watermarking algorithms as a means for protecting copyrighted data.
1,023 citations
"Multiple Image Watermarking Applied..." refers background in this paper
...This technology originally focused on copyright protection, but has since been exploited in a wide range of applications [6]–[11]....
[...]