Digital Watermarking Matthew N.O

International Journals of Advanced Research in Research Article June Computer Science and Software Engineering 2017 ISSN: 2277-128X (Volume-7, Issue-6)

Digital Watermarking Matthew N.O. Sadiku1, Adebowale E. Shadare2, and Sarhan M. Musa3 1, 2Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, 3Department of Engineering Technology 1, 2, 3Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, TX 77446, United States DOI: 10.23956/ijarcsse/V7I6/01610

Abstract- Digital watermarks are often used to provide copyright protection for intellectual property and help the fight against electronic copyright infringement. They can be repeated at random locations within the content to make them difficult to detect. Developments in computer science, cryptography, digital signal processing, and information theory have all contributed to the success of digital watermarking. This paper provides a brief introduction to digital watermarking.

Keywords: digital watermarking, forensic watermark, steganography

I. INTRODUCTION The enormous use of computer networks such as the Internet and world wide web has led to the creation and delivery of content in digitally formatted form. The possibility for digital attacks such as forgery, stealing, copying, and altering the digital data has also increased. This has led to the need to protect ownership of digital information or digital media (image, text, video, audio, PDF, etc.), data tempering, and data integrity. Watermarking is an effective mechanism to address the problem and safeguard the digital contents that is created by the proliferation of digital information. A watermark is a name or logo stamped in the makeup of a document. Traditional watermarks have been used for years on letterhead or checks to prove authenticity. It becomes a permanent part of the content. For example, artists can copyright their work by hiding their name within the image. Watermarks are used today as manufacturer's marks to prevent forgery. Digital watermark (DWM) is the electronic version of the traditional one. The idea of "digital watermark" was introduced in 1992 by Andrew Tirkel and Charles Osborne. The digital watermarking may be regarded as a process of embedding a weak signal (watermark) to a strong signal (original image). Digital watermarks in video, audio and images inform the user of their rightful owner and prevent illegal usage. They could be in the form of brand names, logos or some other type of business slogan.

II. CHARACTERISTICS Digital watermarking is among the important techniques for information protection along with cryptography, digital signature, fingerprint and steganography. As shown in Figure 1, DWM belongs to the family of information hiding [1]. Digital watermarking is related to steganography, which is the science and art of secret communication. While steganography is used for secret communication, watermarking is used for content protection and tampering detection. Popular techniques for watermarking include processing in the spatial-domain as well as transform-domain like Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) [2]. A unique advantage of DWM is that the information is bound to the original medium.

Figure 1. An overview of information hiding [1]. © www.ijarcsse.com, All Rights Reserved Page | 141 Sadiku et al., International Journals of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering ISSN: 2277-128X (Volume-7, Issue-6) A digital watermarking system can be characterized by some properties such as visibility, robustness, security, and capacity [3,4]. The watermarks may be visible or invisible. A visible watermark usually consists of a visible message or logo indicating the copyright owner. The invisible watermarks can be viewed with software which can reveal identification about the copyright owner. The watermarks have to be robust against all possible attacks and robustness to the distortion caused by printing, phototypesetting, scan, fax and re-typing. Security ensures that the watermark is only detected by an authorized person. Capacity refers to amount of information that can be embedded within the content. Applications depend on these watermarking classifications.

III. APPLICATIONS Digital watermarking is used in several applications including [5]-[7]:  Copyright protection: Watermarks may be used to provide copyright protection. For example, owners of copyrighted materials on the Internet can use digital watermarking to protect their materials from being duplicated without their permission. Some companies such as the Digimarc Corporation, Sony and IBM have introduced digital watermarking software that allows individuals to imbed watermarks within image, audio and video files and protect them from copyright infringement [8].  Source tracking: It has been used to detect the source of illegally copied movies.  Data security: Watermarks can be used for certification and authentication. Certification is crucial for official documents, such as identity cards or passports  Broadcast monitoring: This involves tracking what is being broadcast by a radio or TV station. Information used to identify individual videos could be embedded in the videos themselves using watermarking, making broadcast monitoring easier.  Tempering detection: This is important for applications that involve sensitive data like medical imagery, legal transaction, or evidence in court of law. Digital content can be detected for tampering by embedding fragile watermarks.  Fingerprinting: To discourage unauthorized duplication, a distinct watermark (or a fingerprint) is embedded in each copy of the data. Thus watermark is used to track the customer who illegally distributes the digital content in the market. This application requires that the watermark be invisible.  Medical image: These days, patient records are stored in hospitals in digital format. Watermarking is used in medical images to prevent unauthorized modification by authenticating the digital content. This will minimize security threat such as tampering of images and fraud, which may lead to wrong treatment. The watermarking needs to be invisible and blind.

Digital watermarking is also used in video authentication, e-commerce, and for Portable Document Format (PDF) documents. It is not possible to provide an exhaustive list of real-world digital watermarking applications.

IV. ISSUES A major limitation of DWM is the occasional occurrence of false positives. Security and privacy are important study fields in digital age. Securing data integrity between authors and users of digital information is crucial. Any cryptographic technique can be used to secure the embedded information.

V. CONCLUSION The process of embedding a watermark in a multimedia object (digital content) is termed as watermarking. Digital watermarking is the process of embedding authentication information in digital contents. It refers to the act of hiding information related to a digital signal (i.e. an image, music, video) within the signal itself. It may be considered to be a supplementary technique to well established encryption schemes. It may serve as a kind of deterrent to illicit copying and dissemination of copyrighted documents. Digital watermarking is a new multidisciplinary field, which combines the work of fields such as computer science, digital signal processing, cryptography, and information theory. It is a rapidly growing area of research and development. The Copy Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG) and Digital Audio-Visual Council (DAVIC) are currently developing DWM standards that will facilitate wide deployment of the technology [9].

REFERENCES [1] M. H. Alkawaz et al., “Concise analysis of current text automation and watermarking approaches,” Security and Communication Networks, vol.9, 2016, pp. 6365–6378 [2] S. K. Pal , P. K. Saxena, and S. K. Muttoo, “Steganography and watermarking of digital images using singular value decomposition,” Journal of Discrete Mathematical Sciences and Cryptography, vol. 8, no. 3, 2005, pp. 343-353. [3] V. Singh, “Digital watermarking: a tutorial,” Cyber Journals: Multidisciplinary Journals in Science and Technology, Journal of Selected Areas in Telecommunications, January edition, 2011, pp. 10-21. [4] N. Rani, “Digital Watermarking,” Global Journal of Computer Science and Technology Graphics & Vision, vol. 12, no. 13, 2012.

© www.ijarcsse.com, All Rights Reserved Page | 142 Sadiku et al., International Journals of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering ISSN: 2277-128X (Volume-7, Issue-6) [5] “Digital watermarking,” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking [6] V. M. Potdar, S. Han, and E. Chang, “A survey of digital image watermarking techniques, “ Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Industrial Informatics, 2005. [7] H. L. Khor, S. C. Liew, and J. Zain, “Parallel digital watermarking process on ultrasound medical images in multicores environment,” International Journal of Biomedical Imaging, 2016, 14 pages. [8] “Digital watermarking?”, December 2009, https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/what-is-digital-watermarking [9] M. Natarajan and G. Makhdumi, “Safeguarding the digital contents: digital watermarking,” Journal of Library & Information Technology, vol. 29, no. 3, May 2009, pp. 29-35.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Matthew N.O. Sadiku is a professor at Prairie View A&M University, Texas. He is the author of several books and papers. He is a fellow of IEEE. Adebowale E. Shadare is a doctoral student at Prairie View A&M University, Texas. He is the author of several papers. Sarhan M. Musa is a professor in the Department of Engineering Technology at Prairie View A&M University, Texas. He has been the director of Prairie View Networking Academy, Texas, since 2004. He is an LTD Spring and Boeing Welliver Fellow.