A robust software watermarking framework using shellcode

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Watermarks have long been applied to ensure the authenticity of media contents. Computer software is an intellectual outcome in the digital domain. Therefore, it...     

A context-aware mobile application framework using audio watermarking

Multimedia Systems - In this paper, we propose a proximity-based indoor positioning system which is capable of monitoring mobile device user’s indoor locations where the commonly used GPS...     

Level-direction decomposition analysis with a focus on image watermarking framework

This research addresses the new level-direction decomposition in the area of image watermarking as the further development of investigations. The main process of realizing a watermarking framework is to generate a watermarked image with a focus on contourlet embedding representation. The approach performance is evaluated through several indices including the peak signal-to-noise ratio and structural similarity, whereby a set of attacks are carried out using a module of simulated attacks. The obtained information is analyzed through a set of images, using different color models, to enable the calculation of normal correlation. The module of the inverse of contourlet embedding representation is correspondingly employed to obtain the present watermarked image, as long as a number of original images are applied to a scrambling module, to represent the information in disorder. This allows us to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach by analyzing a complicated system, where a deci-sion making system is designed to find the best level and the corresponding direction regarding contourlet embedding represen-tation. The results are illustrated in appropriate level-direction decomposition. The key contribution lies in using a new integration of a set of subsystems, employed based upon the novel mechanism in contourlet embedding representation, in association with the decision making system. The presented approach is efficient compared with state-of-the-art approaches, under a number of serious attacks. A number of benchmarks are obtained and considered along with the proposed framework outcomes. The results support our ideas.     

Hierarchical watermarking framework based on analysis of local complexity variations

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Increasing production and exchange of multimedia content have increased the need for better protection of copyright using watermarking. Different methods have...     

An efficient wavelet-tree-based watermarking method

This paper proposes a blind watermarking scheme based on wavelet tree quantization for copyright protection. In such a quantization scheme, there exists a large significant difference while embedding a watermark bit 1 and a watermark bit 0; it then does not require any original image or watermark during watermark extraction process. As a result, the watermarked images look lossless in comparison with the original ones, and the proposed method can effectively resist common image processing attacks; especially for JPEG compression and low-pass filtering. Moreover, by designing an adaptive threshold value in the extraction process, our method is more robust for resisting common attacks such as median filtering, average filtering, and Gaussian noise. Experimental results show that the watermarked image looks visually identical to the original, and the watermark can be effectively extracted.     

An adjusted-purpose digital watermarking technique

Selection of a suitable watermarking technique is not easy since there exist many kinds of watermarking techniques for variant types of watermarks. In this paper, a novel adjusted-purpose digital watermarking technique is presented to simplify the selection and to integrate different watermarking techniques. The quantity factor is used to affect the embedded watermarks to become fragile, semi-fragile or robust watermarks. The varying sized transform window is designed to determine whether the embedded strategy should be in spatial or frequency domains. Furthermore, by extracting pixel-based features, our watermarking technique cannot only improve robustness of embedded watermarks, but also provide an integrated view in studies of digital watermarking.     

An industry-level knowledge management model—a study of information-related industry in Taiwan

Most knowledge management (KM) literature investigates related issues from the perspectives of organizational and national layer. While observing KM practices, especially in less developed countries (LDCs), many KM activities are happened in industrial layer. Hence, the primary purpose of this study is to explore the content of industry-layer knowledge management (i.e., ILKM) and how ILKM activities are practiced. This study, first, classifies ILKM as four modes, named knowledge clustering, knowledge enlarging, knowledge exchanging, and knowledge initiating. Following KM-related literature and practices, this study constructs the ILKM model, and defines and lists content and activities of the four ILKM modes, by which a four sub-construct, 20-item ILKM scale is constructed. A 123-respondents empirical survey, selecting Taiwan's information equipment industry as the sample, confirms the reliability and validity of ILKM scale. This study also provides suggestions and directions toward ILKM practices and researches for the future.     

An SVD-based screen-shooting resilient watermarking scheme

Multimedia Tools and Applications - This paper proposes a new watermarking scheme that is screen-shooting resilient. We try to design a watermarking scheme that can resist the distortion generated...     

一种自适应盲灰度水印算法

本文提出了一种基于余数条件稳定性的自适应盲水印算法，并将DC和AC系数结合进行水印的嵌入。使用余数设置的方法在四个系数中嵌入水印，将它们的余数关联起来。并利用视觉掩蔽效应自适应地选择嵌入强度，使得不可见性和鲁棒性得到很好的折中。通过对系数的重组，对灰度水印权值较高的位（高平面位）进行重点保护，使提取的水印质量得以提高。改进了通常在DC系数中嵌入水印是非盲算法和嵌入容量较小的缺陷，同时避免了DC系数改变过大引起的块效应。实验证明该算法取得了很好的效果。     

An overview of digital speech watermarking

Digital speech watermarking is a robust way to hide and thus secure data like audio and video from any intentional or unintentional manipulation through transmission. In terms of some signal characteristics including bandwidth, voice/non-voice and production model, digital speech signal is different from audio, music and other signals. Although, various review articles on image, audio and video watermarking are available, there are still few review papers on digital speech watermarking. Therefore this article presents an overview of digital speech watermarking including issues of robustness, capacity and imperceptibility. Other issues discussed are types of digital speech watermarking, application, models and masking methods. This article further highlights the related challenges in the real world, research opportunities and future works in this area, yet to be explored fully.     

An efficient video watermarking based security model

Microsystem Technologies - Watermarking is defined as about hiding any valuable information set in the particular digital media by itself through modifying the particular graphic contents. In our...     

An efficient watermarking algorithm for medical images

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Medical images exchanged over vulnerable networks are sensitive to modifications or tampering which could lead to misdiagnosis, risking the lives of the...     

An adaptive reversible watermarking in IWT domain

Multimedia Tools and Applications - An adaptive reversible watermarking in integer wavelet transform (IWT) domain was proposed in this paper. It could adaptively embed according to the size of the...     

一种复合型自适应数字水印算法

提出一种同时嵌入鲁棒性水印和易损性水印的复合型数字水印算法。其中鲁棒性水印的算法,利用图像小波系数的零树结构,基于零树小波编码,构造出重要系数小波树,将水印信息自适应地以不同强度嵌入载体图像的合适位置。实验结果表明,本算法在用于版权认证的同时还能对篡改进行有效的检测,具有较好的双重保护性能。     

An ID-based digital watermarking protocol for copyright protection

Digital watermarking techniques are a means of protecting the copyrights of digital contents. In this paper, we propose an identity-based (ID-based) digital watermarking protocol and point out several previously unpublished flaws in Hwang et al. (2005)’s scheme. We hope that by identifying the design flaws, similar structural mistakes can be avoided in future designs. We also claim that our proposed digital watermarking scheme can effectively solve the problem of multiple claims of ownership, and is suitable for any practical and secure watermarking algorithm.     

An improved SVD-based watermarking technique for copyright protection

The drawbacks of SVD-based image watermarking are false positive, robust and transparency. The former can be overcome by embedding the principal components of the watermark into the host image, the latter is dependent on how much the quantity (i.e., scaling factor) of the principal components is embedded. For the existing methods, the scaling factor is a fixed value; actually, it is image-dependent. Different watermarks need the different scaling factors, although they are embedded in the same host image. In this paper, two methods are proposed to improve the reliability and robustness. To improve the reliability, for the first method, the principal components of the watermark are embedded into the host image in discrete cosine transform (DCT); and for the second method, those are embedded into the host image in discrete wavelets transform (DWT). To improve the robustness, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) is used for finding the suitable scaling factors. The experimental results demonstrate that the performance of the proposed methods outperforms than those of the existing methods.     

An adaptive watermarking scheme for e-government document images

This paper proposes an adaptive watermarking scheme for e-government document images. The adaptive scheme combines the discrete cosine transform (DCT) and the singular value decomposition (SVD) using luminance masking. As a core of masking model in the human visual system (HVS), luminance masking is implemented to improve noise sensitivity. Genetic algorithm (GA), subsequently, is employed for the optimization of the scaling factor of the masking. Involving a number of steps, the scheme proposed through this study begins by calculating the mask of the host image using luminance masking. It is then continued by transforming the mask on each area into all frequencies domain. The watermark image, following this, is embedded by modifying the singular values of DCT-transformed host image with singular values of mask coefficient of host image and the control parameter of DCT-transformed watermark image using Genetic Algorithm (GA). The use of both the singular values and the control parameter respectively, in this case, is not only to improve the sensitivity of the watermark performance but also to avoid the false positive problem. The watermark image, afterwards, is extracted from the distorted images. The experiment results show the improved adaptive performance of the proposed scheme is in resistant to several types of attacks in comparison with the previous schemes; the adaptive performance refers to the adaptive parameter of the luminance masking functioned to improve the performance or robustness of an image from any attacks.     

An SVD-based watermarking scheme for protecting rightful ownership

Digital watermarking has been proposed as a solution to the problem of copyright protection of multimedia documents in networked environments. There are two important issues that watermarking algorithms need to address. First, watermarking schemes are required to provide trustworthy evidence for protecting rightful ownership. Second, good watermarking schemes should satisfy the requirement of robustness and resist distortions due to common image manipulations (such as filtering, compression, etc.). In this paper, we propose a novel watermarking algorithm based on singular value decomposition (SVD). Analysis and experimental results show that the new watermarking method performs well in both security and robustness     

An improved sample projection approach for image watermarking

Very recently, a novel watermarking scheme named sample projection approach (SPA) has been proposed by Akhaee et al. [1] to improve the watermarking performance against gain attacks. The SPA embeds one message symbol into four signal samples by projecting the line segment formed by the four samples on a certain specific codeline. Based on the SPA, this paper presents an improved sample projection approach (ISPA) by introducing a set of modified codelines to decrease embedding distortion and constructing the long line segments to increase robustness. According to our theoretical analysis of document-to-watermark ratio (DWR), the modified codelines result in a lower embedding distortion than the SPAʼs codelines in the same conditions with regard to payload and robustness. We also derive a theoretical expression for the symbol error rate (SER) of the ISPA against additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) attack. The numerous experiments conducted on both artificial Gaussian signals and the natural images show that the proposed ISPA outperforms the SPA in terms of robustness against attacks.