Spread Spectrum Image Watermarking for Secured Multimedia Data Communication

Digital watermarking is a way to provide the facility of secure multimedia data communication besides its copyright protection approach. The Spread Spectrum modulation principle is widely used in digital watermarking to satisfy the robustness of multimedia signals against various signal-processing operations. Several SS watermarking algorithms have been proposed for multimedia signals but very few works have discussed on the issues responsible for secure data communication and its robustness improvement. The current paper has critically analyzed few such factors namely properties of spreading codes, proper signal decomposition suitable for data embedding, security provided by the key, successive bit cancellation method applied at decoder which have greater impact on the detection reliability, secure communication of significant signal under camouflage of insignificant signals etc. Based on the analysis, robust SS watermarking scheme for secure data communication is proposed in wavelet domain and improvement in secure communication and robustness performance is reported through experimental results. The reported result also shows improvement in visual and statistical invisibility of the hidden data.

• Tirtha S. Das
• Ayan K. Sau
• Subir K. Sarkar

• Spread spectrum modulation
• spreading code
• signaldecomposition
• security
• successive bit cancellation

[1] I. J. Cox and M. L. Miller, "A Review of Watermarking and the
Importance of perceptual Modeling ", Proc of Electronic Images, Feb.
1997.
[2] N. Nikolaidis, I. Pitas, "Robust Image Watermarking in the Spatial
Domain", Elsevis Signal Processing, Sept. 1997, pp. 385-403.
[3] G.W. Braudaway, "Protecting publicly available images with an
invisible image Watermark", Int. Conf. On Image Processing, vol. 1
Oct. 1997.
[4] C.T. Hsu, J. L. Wu, "Hidden signatures in images", Int. Conf. On Image
Process, vol. 3, Lausanne, Switzerland, Sept. 1996.
[5] P. Maulin and A. Ivanovic, IEEE Trans on signal processing, Apr. 2003,
vol. 51, pp 1098 -1117.
[6] X. Niu, S. Sun, W. Xiang, "Multi-resolution Watermarking for Video
Based on Gray-level Digital Watermark", IEEE Trans. Consumer
Electronics vol. 46, May 2000.
[7] W. Bender, D. Gruhl, N Morimoto and A. Lu, "Techniques for Data
Hiding", IBM systems journal, vol. 35, pp 3-4, 1996.
[8] G. Mazzini, G. Setti and R. Rovatti, "Chaotic complex spreading
sequences for asynchronous DS-CDMA", IEEE Trans on Circuits &
Systems- 97.
[9] A. B. Watson, G. Y. Yang, J. A. Solomon, J. Villasenor, "Visibility of
Wavelet Quantization Noise", IEEE Trans on Image Processing vol. 6,
August 1997.
[10] B. L. W. Zeng, S. Lei, "Eextraction of multiresolution watermark
images for resolving rightful ownership", Proc. of SPIE, Security and
Watermarking of Multimedia Contents, January 1999.
[11] I. J. Cox, J. Killian, F. T. Leighton, T. Shamoon, "Secured Spread
Spectrum Watermarking for Multimedia", IEEE Trans on Image
Processing, vol. 6, pp 601-610, June 2000.
[12] M. Bani, F. Bartolini and A. De, "Rosa, on the performance of
multiplicative spread spectrum watermarking", proc. on IEEE work on
MMSP-02
[13] I. J. Cox and M. L. Miller, and A. L. McKellips, "Watermarking as
communications with side information", Proc. of IEEE-99.
[14] S. Craver, N. Memon, B. L. Yeo and M. M. Yeung, "Resolving Rightful
Ownership with Invisible Watermarking Techniques: Limitations,
Attacks and Implications", IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in
Communications-98.
[15] J.R.Hernandez and F.Perez- Gonzales, "Statistical analysis of
watermarking schemes for copyright protection of images", Proc. of
IEEE, 99.
[16] N. Merhav, "Random coding error exponents of watermarking systems",
IEEE Trans on Information Theory-2000.
[17] M. Barni, F. Bartolini, A. Piva, "Improved wavelet-based watermarking
through pixel-wise masking", IEEE Trans. on Image Processing, pp.
783-791, 2001.
[18] W. Dietl, P. Meerwald, A. Uhl, "Protection of wavelet based
watermarking systems using filter parameterizations", Signal
Processing. October 2003.
[19] D. Kundur, D. Hatzinakos, "Towards Robust logo watermarking using
multiresolution image fusion", IEEE Trans. Multimedia 6, Feb. 2004.
[20] P. Meerwald, A. Uhl, "A survey of wavelet-domain watermarking
algorithms", In Proc. of SPIE, Electronic Imaging, Security And
Watermarking of Multimedia ContentsIII, CA, USA4314, Jan. 2001.
[21] Wang, Y., Doherty, J. F., VanDyck, R.E., "A wavelet based
watermarking algorithm for ownership verification of digital images",
IEEE Trans. Image Process 11, February 2002.
[22] M. K. Kundu and M. Acharya, "M-Band Wavelets: Application to
Texture Segmentation for Real Life Image Analysis", Proc.
International journal of wavelets, Multiresolution and Information
proceeding, vol. 1, pp115-149, 2003.
[23] Philippe D., Benoit M., and Dirk T. M. S., "Signal adapted
multiresolution transform for image coding", IEEE Trans on
Information Theory, 38(2), March 1992.
[24] H. S. Malvar and D. A. F Florencio, "Improved Spread Spectrum: A
new Modulation Technique for Robust Watermarking", IEEE Trans on
signal processing, April 2003, pp 898-905.
[25] A. Chouly, A Brajal and S. Jourdan, "Orthogonal multicarrier
techniques applied to direct sequence spread spectrum CDMA
systems", Proc of IEEE GLOBECOM-93.
[26] S. Hara and R. Prasad, "Overview of multicarrier CDMA", IEEE
communication Mag-97.
[27] V. M. Dasilva and E. S. Sousa, "Performance of orthogonal CDMA
codes for quasi-synchronous communication systems", Proc. of IEEE
ICUPC-93.
[28] S. Kaiser, "OFDM-CDMA vs. DS-CDMA: Performance evaluation for
fading channels", Proc. of IEEE ICC-95.
[29] L. Vandendorpe, "Multitone Spread Spectrum Multiple Access
Communications System in a Multipath Rician Fading Channel", IEEE
Trans Vehic-95.
[30] N. Yee, L. Linnartz and G. Fettweis, "Multicarrier CDMA in Indoor
Wireless Radio Networks", Proc of IEEE PIMRC-93