Data hiding for fighting piracy

The problem of digital content piracy is becoming more and more critical, and major content producers are risking seeing their business being drastically reduced because of the ease by which digital contents can be copied and distributed. This is the reason why digital rights management (DRM) is currently garnering much attention from industry and research. Among the various technologies that can contribute to set up a reliable DRM system, data hiding (watermarking) has found an important place due to its potentiality of persistent attaching some additional information to the content itself. In this article, we analyzed the possible use of data hiding technology in DRM systems. The article also gives a brief survey of the main characteristics of the most common data hiding methods such as proof of ownership, watermark, copyright protection, infringement tracking, copy control, and item identification. The article also investigates the different approaches by highlighting critical points of each approach in particular from the point of view of hostile attacks.     

Data hiding technologies for digital radiography

Research on data hiding is demonstrating every day that several applications can benefit from this technology; among these, medical data management. In particular, embedding patient information into a medical image through data hiding could improve the level of security and confidentiality that is essential for the diffusion of medical information systems. The design of a data hiding system for such an application has to take into account specific requirements, the most important are: high payload to identifying reliably a patient; quality preservation of the watermarked image; robustness to content modification. According to this analysis, a comparison between different data hiding approaches is presented, to evaluate the most suitable algorithms for embedding patient information into digital radiographs. In particular two algorithms based on statistical decision theory have been compared with schemes following the new approach of modelling data hiding as communication with side-information at the transmitter. These methods have been tested and compared in the framework of digital radiographies management in order to identify their benefits and drawbacks.     

Data hiding watermarking for halftone images

In many printer and publishing applications, it is desirable to embed data in halftone images. We proposed some novel data hiding methods for halftone images. For the situation in which only the halftone image is available, we propose data hiding smart pair toggling (DHSPT) to hide data by forced complementary toggling at pseudo-random locations within a halftone image. The complementary pixels are chosen to minimize the chance of forming visually undesirable clusters. Our experimental results suggest that DHSPT can hide a large amount of hidden data while maintaining good visual quality. For the situation in which the original multitone image is available and the halftoning method is error diffusion, we propose the modified data hiding error diffusion (MDHED) that integrates the data hiding operation into the error diffusion process. In MDHED, the error due to the data hiding is diffused effectively to both past and future pixels. Our experimental results suggest that MDHED can give better visual quality than DHSPT. Both DHSPT and MDHED are computationally inexpensive.     

Techniques and applications of intelligent multimedia data hiding

In this paper, we present the intelligent multimedia data hiding techniques and their possible applications. An introduction on intelligent multimedia data hiding is described which covers backgrounds, recent advances, methodologies, and implementations. The recently developed research branch called reversible data hiding is also depicted. Two major classes for the implementation of reversible data hiding, namely, the difference expansion method, and the histogram-based scheme, are discussed. With its ease of implementation, the histogram-based reversible data hiding technique is then illustrated with simulation results and actual implementations. Possible extension for our work is also depicted in the concluding remarks.     

Data hiding approach for efficient image indexing

A data hiding approach to embed the indexing keys inside the JPEG compressed images for their retrieval, inspired from the spirit of digital watermarking, is proposed. At the stage of database population, the existing approach is to compress all images by standard JPEG in order to save their storage space, but this ignores the compression of their indexing keys under the notion that the size of each indexing key is negligible. When a large image database is established, however, this part of storage space becomes non-trivial. By hiding the indexing keys inside the JPEG compressed codes, significant advantages are gained in that the indexing keys can be compressed naturally by JPEG without any additional cost. Experiments on hiding an indexing key of 256 bytes illustrate that: no noticeable distortion is introduced in comparison with non-watermarked images; and their storage space is reduced into the region of 7-27% of their original size.     

Data hiding with video independent components

Video watermarking is a main technique for video copyright protection. A novel blind video watermarking scheme is proposed, which embeds a watermark into video independent components by using the four-neighbouring-mean-based method. Temporal synchronisation is achieved efficiently. Simulations show that the scheme is robust to MPEG2 compression and collusion attacks.     

Audio visual interaction in multimedia

Audio-visual interaction is a very important issue in personal communication applications. The research and development of multimedia communication systems should account for this interaction. In this paper, we address a number of areas related to audio-visual interaction, such as automatic lipreading, speech-driven talking heads, and lip synchronization. In particular, we will discuss a new trend in video coding research: joint audio-video coding. Given that mouth movements are very difficult to code because of its rapid, complex, and non-rigid motion (so conventional block-based motion-compensation methods fail), we will explain how having extra help from the acoustic signal can enable us to code the mouth movements more efficiently     

Data hiding based on image texture classification

In this paper, a new pattern-based fragile, semi-blind, spatial domain data hiding scheme is proposed. The Local Binary Pattern texture classification approach is used, in order to transparently and securely embed secret data into an image. Pixel values are modified in such a way that the texture satisfies the message requirements. The method is thoroughly studied and compared to other techniques in spatial domain in terms of capacity and image quality. The scheme performs well in images with smooth areas and can be used for authentication, tamper proofing, and secret communications.     

Data hiding in ordered dithered halftone images

In this paper, we propose a novel method called data hiding ordered dithering (DHOD) to hide a relatively large amount of invisible watermarking data in ordered dithered halftone images while retaining good visual quality. We assume that both the original image and the ordered dithering screen are available. The proposed method includes two techniques:screen modification andthreshold selection. First, one out of everyM pseudo-random locations is selected usingthreshold selection to embed one bit of hidden data. Second, at the selected locations,screen modification is applied to change the ordered dithering screen in a local neighborhood to achieve the desired data hiding while attaining good visual quality. Some custom-made quality measures are proposed to evaluate DHOD. Simulation results suggest that DHOD can hide a large amount of data while maintaining good visual quality.This work has been supported by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.     

Data hiding in partially encrypted HEVC video

In this study, an efficient scheme for hiding data directly in partially encrypted versions of high efficiency video coding (HEVC) videos is proposed. The content owner uses stream cipher to selectively encrypt some HEVC‐CABAC bin strings in a format‐compliant manner. Then, the data hider embeds the secret message into the encrypted HEVC videos using the specific coefficient modification technique. Consequently, it can be used in third‐party computing environments (more generally, cloud computing). For security and privacy purposes, service providers cannot access the visual content of the host video. As the coefficient is only slightly modified, the quality of the decrypted video is satisfactory. The encrypted and marked bitstreams meet the requirements of format compatibility, and have the same bit rate. At the receiving end, data extraction can be performed in the encrypted domain or decrypted domain that can be adapted to different application scenarios. Several standard video sequences with different resolutions and contents have been used for experimental evaluation.     

Solid state optical space switches for network cross-connect andprotection applications

Network protection and reconfiguration is becoming increasingly important in fiber optic communications systems. This is driven by the intense traffic and high cost of lost high-data-rate optical connections. Optical cross-connects at the nodes in transmission systems are developing rapidly in response. A key optical component required for these applications is an optical space switch. Since the required timescale of network reconfiguration at the optical level is on the order of 50 ms to prevent electrical intervention. The optical space switching speed must be approximately 5 ms or faster. The demand created by these applications has motivated the development of a solid state optical space switch based on a novel planar-waveguide technology. This planar integrated optics technology relies on the thermo-optic effect in specialized optical polymer materials and results in reliable optical space switches without moving parts to wear out. This article reviews the state of the art in solid state optical space switches based on thermo-optic polymers and applications of these switches in network communication systems. The same polymer-based planar waveguide technology used to make the solid state optical space switches of today provides the basis for WDM devices. Electro-optic modulators, and devices integrating several functions (space switching, wavelength multiplexing, light generation and detection) in one component in the years to come     

Data hiding on 3-D triangle meshes

In this paper, we present a new scheme for digital steganography of three-dimensional (3-D) triangle meshes. This scheme is robust against translation, rotation, and scaling operations. It is based on a substitutive procedure in the spatial domain. The key idea is to consider a triangle as a two-state geometrical object. We discuss its performance in terms of capacity, complexity, visibility, and security. We validate the use of a principal component analysis (PCA) to make our scheme signal-dependent in the line of second generation watermarking scheme. We also define a simple specific metric for distortion evaluation that has been validated by many tests. We conclude by giving some other solutions, including open steganographic schemes that could be derived from the basic ideas presented here.     

基于颜色表扩展技术的数据隐藏方法

提出了一种基于索引图像颜色表扩展技术的数据隐藏方法,并对该方法的安全性及隐藏容量进行了分析,分析结果表明,该方法具有很强的安全性和很高的隐藏容量.利用该方法可以将机密数据隐藏在索引掩护图像中,获得的伪装图像具有与原始掩护图像完全相同的视觉效果.如果提供正确的密钥,机密数据可以从伪装图像中无失真地得以恢复.另外,由于使用了随机数,机密数据的统计特性被完全掩盖,伪装图像与机密数据统计独立.     

个性化E-learning框架研究

本文提出了在E-learning环境下的虚拟校园中分析学生浏览行为的框架.学生通过浏览基于Web的虚拟校园与采用SCORM E-learning标准结构的学习资源相交互.本文的主要目是设计一个使用挖掘工具,来分析学生的浏览行为和抽取能用来确定与虚拟校园相关某些方面的设计和可用性,依靠学生学档(profile)为每门课程制订理想的排课安排表等相关知识.最后,结合教师的专业知识和由系统使用情况分析取得的学生学习体验,本文拟扩充标准学习管理系统SCORM序列能力和推荐路径的一些概念.     

I-centric communications: personalization, ambient awareness, and adaptability for future mobile services

The acceptance of next-generation mobile communication systems depends to a large extent on the services and applications that can be offered to customers. Tailoring the services to actual user needs is considered to be crucial for the success of future wireless technology. The individual user, "I", has to be put in the center of service provisioning. In this article, we report the work developed by the Working Group 2 of the Wireless World Research Forum on a service infrastructure framework for the future wireless world. Major service capabilities such as personalization, ambient awareness, and adaptability are described along with a reference model focusing in I-centric communication.     

关于隐藏文件的两个小技巧

隐藏文件信息的另类方法 文件信息隐藏的最好方法莫过于让别人根本想不到你在隐藏着一些重要信息。下面的方法您不妨试试。 我们都知道DOS命令Copy的主要作用是复制文件,另外一个重要功能,就是将两个以上的文件合并成一个文件。一般情况下,它主要用于合并相同类型的文件,如将两个文本文件合并为一个文本文件、将两个独     

Data hiding in image and video .II. Designs and applications

For pt. I see ibid., vol.12, no.6, p.685-95 (2003). This paper applies the solutions to the fundamental issues addressed in Part I to specific design problems of embedding data in image and video. We apply multilevel embedding to allow the amount of embedded information that can be reliably extracted to be adaptive with respect to the actual noise conditions. When extending the multilevel embedding to video, we propose strategies for handling uneven embedding capacity from region to region within a frame as well as from frame to frame. We also embed control information to facilitate the accurate extraction of the user data payload and to combat such distortions as frame jitter. The proposed algorithm can be used for a variety of applications such as copy control, access control, robust annotation, and content-based authentication.     

Speech, audio, and acoustic processing for multimedia

The primary advances in speech and audio signal processing that contributed to the maturing of multimedia applications are discussed in the areas of speech and audio signal compression, speech synthesis, acoustic processing and echo control, and network echo cancellation