Design of robust image watermarking schemes for image security using frequency domain transformations

Abstract

Increased Internet usage and the availability of high-speed digital data networks have induced exponential growth of online transmission and distribution of multimedia content over the Web. Security, authentication, and copyright protection of multimedia data have become a major concern, because it can be duplicated, modified, and re-transmitted easily. Watermarking is a mechanism to address these issues by embedding copyright information, slightly altering the content in such a manner that the change is unnoticeable to the human visual system. The embedded information can be detected and extracted at any time for authentication, ownership identification, copy protection, and control. The data may confront various means of intentional and unintentional security threats before it finally reaches the intended user. The watermarking technique can be employed for secure communication of multimedia data over an insecure channel. A watermarking scheme should possess robustness and security features to overcome such threats. The application of chaotic systems in digital watermarking schemes enhance the security in an efficient way due to the inherent properties of sensitivity to initial conditions and parameters, topological transitivity, and periodic point of chaotic systems. Imperceptibility and robustness are two primary contradicting characteristics by which watermarking algorithms are evaluated. Image watermarking techniques deserve significant importance as images constitute the most common form of multimedia data transmitted and circulated over the Internet, especially through social networking sites. The objective of this research work is to design chaotic image watermarking schemes with good robustness, imperceptibility and security characteristics in the frequency domain. newline