Watermarking Systems Engineering: Enabling Digital Assets Security and Other Applications

485 Pages·2004·22.42 MB·English

by  Mauro Barni, Franco Bartolini

Watermarking Systems
Engineering
Enabling Digital Assets Security
and Other Applications
MAURO BARNI
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
FRANCO BARTOLINI
University of Florence
Florence, Italy
MARCEL
MARCEL DEKKER, INC. NEW YORK • BASEL
ffi
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Signal Processing and Communications
Editorial Board
Maurice G. Bellanger, Conservatoire National
des Arts et Metiers (CNAM), Paris
Ezio Biglieri, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Sadaoki Furui, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Yih-Fang Huang, University of Notre Dame
Nikhil Jayant, Georgia Tech University
Aggelos K. Katsaggelos, Northwestern University
Mos Kaveh, University of Minnesota
P. K. Raja Rajasekaran, Texas Instruments
John Aasted Sorenson, IT University of Copenhagen
1. Digital Signal Processing for Multimedia Systems, edited by Keshab
K. Parhi and Takao Nishitani
2. Multimedia Systems, Standards, and Networks, edited by Atul Puri
and Tsuhan Chen
3. Embedded Multiprocessors: Scheduling and Synchronization, Sun-
dararajan Sriram and Shuvra S. Bhattacharyya
4. Signal Processing for Intelligent Sensor Systems, David C. Swanson
5. Compressed Video over Networks, edited by Ming-Ting Sun and Amy
R. Reibman
6. Modulated Coding for Intersymbol Interference Channels, Xiang-Gen
Xia
1. Digital Speech Processing, Synthesis, and Recognition: Second Edi-
tion, Revised and Expanded, Sadaoki Furui
8. Modern Digital Halftoning, Daniel L. Lau and Gonzalo R. Arce
9. Blind Equalization and Identification, Zhi Ding and Ye (Geoffrey) Li
10. Video Coding for Wireless Communication Systems, King N. Ngan,
Chi W. Yap, and Keng T. Tan
11. Adaptive Digital Filters: Second Edition, Revised and Expanded,
Maurice G. Bellanger
12. Design of Digital Video Coding Systems, Jie Chen, Ut-Va Koc, and
K. J. Ray Liu
13. Programmable Digital Signal Processors: Architecture, Program-
ming, and Applications, edited by Yu Hen Hu
14. Pattern Recognition and Image Preprocessing: Second Edition, Re-
vised and Expanded, Sing-Tze Bow
15. Signal Processing for Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectros-
copy, edited by Hong Yan
16. Satellite Communication Engineering, Michael O. Kolawole
17. Speech Processing: A Dynamic and Optimization-Oriented Ap-
proach, Li Deng and Douglas O'Shaughnessy
18. Multidimensional Discrete Unitary Transforms: Representation, Par-
titioning, and Algorithms, Artyom M. Grigoryan and Sos A. Agaian
19. High-Resolution and Robust Signal Processing, Yingbo Hua, Alex B.
Gershman, and Qi Cheng
20. Domain-Specific Embedded Multiprocessors: Systems, Architec-
tures, Modeling, and Simulation, Shuvra Bhattacharyya, Ed De-
prettere, andJurgen Teich
21. Watermarking Systems Engineering: Enabling Digital Assets Secu-
rity and Other Applications, Mauro Barni and Franco Bartolini
22. Biosignal and Biomedical Image Processing: MATLAB-Based Ap-
plications, John L. Semmlow
23. Image Processing Technologies: Algorithms, Sensors, and Applica-
tions, Kiyoharu Aizawa, Katsuhiko Sakaue, Yasuhito Suenaga
Additional Volumes in Preparation
Series Introduction
Over the past 50 years, digital signal processing has evolved as a major
engineering discipline. The fields of signal processing have grown from the
origin of fast Fourier transform and digital filter design to statistical spectral
analysis and array processing, image, audio, and multimedia processing, and
shaped developments in high-performance VLSI signal processor design.
Indeed, there are few fields that enjoy so many applications—signal processing
is everywhere in our lives.
When one uses a cellular phone, the voice is compressed, coded, and
modulated using signal processing techniques. As a cruise missile winds along
hillsides searching for the target, the signal processor is busy processing the
images taken along the way. When we are watching a movie in HDTV, millions
of audio and video data are being sent to our homes and received with
unbelievable fidelity. When scientists compare DNA samples, fast pattern
recognition techniques are being used. On and on, one can see the impact of
signal processing in almost every engineering and scientific discipline.
Because of the immense importance of signal processing and the fast-
growing demands of business and industry, this series on signal processing
serves to report up-to-date developments and advances in the field. The topics of
interest include but are not limited to the following:
• Signal theory and analysis
• Statistical signal processing
• Speech and audio processing
• Image and video processing
• Multimedia signal processing and technology
• Signal processing for communications
• Signal processing architectures and VLSI design
We hope this series will provide the interested audience with high-quality,
state-of-the-art signal processing literature through research monographs, edited
books, and rigorously written textbooks by experts in their fields.
in

Preface
Since the second half of the 1990's, digital data hiding has received increas-
ing attention from the information technology community. To understand
the reason for such interest, it may be useful to think about the importance
that the ability to hide an object or a piece of information, has in our ev-
eryday life. To do so, consider the basic question: Why hide? Without
claiming to be exhaustive, the most common answers can be summarized
as follows. One may want to hide something:
1. To protect important/valuable objects. It is more difficult to damage,
destroy or steal a hidden object than an object in plain sight; suffice
it to think of the common habit of hiding valuables in the home to
protect them from thieves.
2. To keep information secret. In this case, data hiding simply aims
at denying indiscriminate access to a piece of information, either by
keeping the very existence of the hidden object secret, or by making
the object very difficult to find.
3. To set a trap. Traps are usually hidden for two reasons: not to let the
prey be aware of the risk it is running (see the previous point about
information secrecy), or to make the prey trigger the trap mechanism
as a consequence of one of its actions.
4. For the sake of beauty. However strange it may seem, hiding an
object just to keep it out of everyone's sight because its appearance
is not a pleasant one, or because it may disturb the correct vision of
something else, can be considered the most common motivation to
conceal something.
5. A mix of the above. Of course, real life is much more complicated than
any simple schematization; thus, many situations may be thought
of where a mixture of the motivations discussed above explains the
willingness to hide something.
Preface
VI
The increasing interest in digital data hiding, i.e., the possibility of
hiding a signal or a piece of information within a host digital signal, be it
an image, a video, or an audio signal, shares the same basic motivations.
Research in digital data hiding was first triggered by its potential use for
copyright protection of multimedia data exchanged in digital form. In this
kind of application, usually termed digital watermarking, a code conveying
some important information about the legal data owner, or the allowed
uses of data, is hidden within the data itself, instead of being attached
to the data as a header or a separate file. The need to carefully hide the
information within the host data is explained by the desire not to degrade
the quality of the host signal (i.e., for the sake of beauty), and by the
assumption that it is more difficult to remove the information needed for
copyright protection without knowing exactly where it is hidden.
Data authentication is another common application of digital data, hid-
ing. The authenticity and integrity of protected data are obtained by hiding
a fragile signal within them. The fragile signal is such that the hidden data
is lost or altered as soon as the host data undergoes any modification: loss
or alteration of the hidden data is taken as an evidence that the host signal
has been tampered with, whereas the recovery of the information contained
within the data is used to demonstrate data authenticity. In this case, the
hidden data can be seen as a kind of trap, since a forger is likely to modify
it inadvertently, thus leaving a trace of its action (be it malicious or not).
Of course, the need to not alter the quality of the host signal is a further
motivation behind the willingness to conceal carefully the authenticating
information.
In addition to security/protection applications, many other scenarios
exist that may take advantage of the capability of effectively hiding a sig-
nal within another. They include: image/video indexing, transmission error
recovery and concealment, hidden communications, audio in video for au-
tomatic language translation, and image captioning. In all of these cases,
hiding a piece of data within a host signal is just another convenient - it is
hoped - way of attaching the concealed data to the host data. Hiding the
data here is necessary because we do not want to degrade the quality of
the hosting signal. As a matter of fact, embedding a piece of information
within the cover work instead of attaching it to the work as a header or
a separate file presents several advantages, including format independence
and robustness against analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion.
Having described the most common motivations behind the develop-
ment of a data hiding system, we are ready to answer a second important
question: what is this book about? We mostly deal with digital water-
marking systems, i.e. data hiding systems where the hidden information is
required to be robust against intentional or non-intentional manipulations
Preface vii
of the host signal. However, the material included in the book encompasses
many aspects that are common to any data hiding system. In addition, as
the title indicates, we look at digital watermarking from a system perspec-
tive by describing all the main modules of which a watermarking system
consists, and the tools at one's disposal to design and assemble such mod-
ules. Apart for some simple examples, the reader will not find in this book
any cookbook recipes for the design of his/her own system, since this is
impossible without delving into application details. On the contrary, we
are confident that after having read this book, readers will know the basic
concepts ruling the design of a watermarking (data hiding) system, and a
large enough number of solutions to cover most of their needs. Of course,
we are aware that watermarking, and data hiding in general, is an imma-
ture field, and that more effective solutions will be developed in the years
to come. Nevertheless we hope our effort represents a good description of
the state of the art in the field, and a good starting point for future research
as well as for the development of practical applications.
As to the subtitle of this book, its presence is a clue that our main focus
will be on security applications, that is, applications where the motivations
for resorting to data hiding technology belong to the first three points of
the foregoing motivation list. Nevertheless, the material discussed in the
book covers other applications as well, the only limit of applicability being
the imagination of researchers and practitioners in assembling the various
tools at their disposal and in developing ad hoc solutions to the problems
at their hands.
This book is organized as follows. After a brief introductory chapter,
chapter 2 describes the main scenarios concerning data hiding technology,
including IPR (Intellectually Property Rights) protection, authentication,
enhanced multimedia transmission, and annotation. Though the above list
of applications is by no means an exhaustive one, it serves the purpose of
illustrating the potentialities of data hiding in different contexts, highlight-
ing the different requirements and challenges set by different applications.
Chapter 3 deals with information coding, describing how the to-be-hidden
information is formatted prior to its insertion within the host signal. The
actual embedding of the information is discussed in chapter 4. The prob-
lem of the choice of a proper set of features to host the watermark is first
addressed. Then the embedding rule used to tie the watermark to them
is considered by paying great attention to distinguish between blind and
informed embedding schemes. The role played by human perception in the
design of an effective data hiding system is discussed in chapter 5. After a
brief description of the Human Visual System (HVS) and the Human Audi-
tory System (HAS), the exploitation of the characteristics of such systems
to effectively conceal the to-be-hidden information is considered for each