• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제18권1호
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• pp.170-191
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• 2024

The transmission of confidential data using cover media is called steganography. The three requirements of any effective steganography system are high embedding capacity, security, and imperceptibility. The text file's structure, which makes syntax and grammar more visually obvious than in other media, contributes to its poor imperceptibility. Text steganography is regarded as the most challenging carrier to hide secret data because of its insufficient redundant data compared to other digital objects. Unicode characters, especially non-printing or invisible, are employed for hiding data by mapping a specific amount of secret data bits in each character and inserting the character into cover text spaces. These characters are known with limited spaces to embed secret data. Current studies that used Unicode characters in text steganography focused on increasing the data hiding capacity with insufficient redundant data in a text file. A sequential embedding pattern is often selected and included in all available positions in the cover text. This embedding pattern negatively affects the text steganography system's imperceptibility and security. Thus, this study attempts to solve these limitations using the Part-of-speech (POS) tagging technique combined with the randomization concept in data hiding. Combining these two techniques allows inserting the Unicode characters in randomized patterns with specific positions in the cover text to increase data hiding capacity with minimum effects on imperceptibility and security. Format-preserving encryption (FPE) is also used to encrypt a secret message without changing its size before the embedding processes. By comparing the proposed technique to already existing ones, the results demonstrate that it fulfils the cover file's capacity, imperceptibility, and security requirements.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• 제10권2호
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• pp.256-270
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• 2014

A new morphed steganographic algorithm is proposed in this paper. Image security is a challenging problem these days. Steganography is a method of hiding secret data in cover media. The Least Significant Bit is a standard Steganographic method that has some limitations. The limitations are less capacity to hide data, poor stego image quality, and imperceptibility. The proposed algorithm focuses on these limitations. The morphing concept is being used for image steganography to overcome these limitations. The PSNR and standard deviation are considered as a measure to improve stego image quality and morphed image selection, respectively. The stego keys are generated during the morphed steganographic embedding and extracting process. Stego keys are used to embed and extract the secret image. The experimental results, which are based on hiding capacity and PSNR, are presented in this paper. Our research contributes towards creating an improved steganographic method using image morphing. The experimental result indicates that the proposed algorithm achieves an increase in hiding capacity, stego image quality, and imperceptibility. The experimental results were compared with state of the art steganographic methods.

• 한국정보통신학회논문지
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• 제20권9호
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• pp.1723-1729
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• 2016

디지털 워터마킹은 강인성과 투명성, 용량에 대한 세 개의 서로 직교하는 성능 특성으로 간주되는 최적의 균형 값을 찾기 위해 시도된다. 따라서 본 논문은 다양한 공격에 강인하고 비지각적인 워터마크 내장을 위해서 여러 주파수 대역에 다중-바코드를 내장하는 워터마크 기법을 제안한다. 그리고 다양한 주파수 대역에 중복된 바코드 워터마크 내장 기법은 다양한 공격에 영상의 내장된 워터마크가 남아있을 가능성이 높아 강인성을 만족할 수 있으나 많은 양의 중복된 바코드 데이터의 내장은 비지각성에서 문제가 발생할 수 있다. 따라서 워터마크의 요구 조건인 강인성과 비시각성의 서로 상반되는 특징을 만족시키기 위해서 주파수 대역별 바코드 데이터의 값을 변경하여 영상에 포함시킨다. 실험 결과, 본 논문에서 제안된 기법의 소유권 인증은 특별한 하드웨어 장치를 요구하지 않고 추출된 워터마크를 모바일 앱의 바코드 스캐너를 통해서 손쉽게 인증하여 낮은 복잡도와 저비용, 빠른 검증을 지원한다.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.476-484
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• 2018

The high capacity audio watermarking algorithms are facing a main challenge in satisfying the robustness against attacks especially on de-synchronization attacks. In this paper, a robust and a high capacity algorithm is proposed using segment selection, Stationary Wavelet Transform (SWT) and the Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) techniques along with new synchronization mechanism. The proposed algorithm provides enhanced trade-off between robustness, imperceptibility, and capacity. The achieved watermarking improves the reliability of the available watermarking methods and shows high robustness towards signal processing (manipulating) attacks especially the de-synchronization attacks such as cropping, jittering, and zero inserting attacks. For imperceptibility evaluation, high signal to noise ratio values of above 22 dB has been achieved. Also subjective test with volunteer listeners shows that the proposed method has high imperceptibility with Subjective Difference Grade (SDG) of 4.76. Meanwhile, high rational capacity up to 176.4 bps is also achieved.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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• 제16권3호
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• pp.179-188
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• 2018

This paper proposes a quick response (QR) barcode watermarking algorithm in order to improve readability of the QR barcode in a JPEG image. The proposed algorithm embeds a watermark in a wavelet based-low frequency band for watermark robustness, and visually extracts a QR barcode after embedding the QR barcode image with confidential information into the original image via imperceptible watermarking technology. The visually extracted QR barcode watermark uses an approach to authenticate the ownership more easily through a common hardware and software-based mobile barcode reader app. Therefore, the QR barcode watermark may improve the ability to easily detect watermarks efficiently as well as imperceptibility and robustness, which is the main watermark requirement by embedding the QR barcode with watermark text information in a digital image and when compare to conventional watermarks.

• 한국항행학회논문지
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• 제9권2호
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• pp.170-176
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• 2005

본 논문에서 제안한 방법은 웨이블릿 변환을 사용하여 디지털 영상을 주파수 공간으로 변환시킨 후 워터마킹하는 알고리즘을 제안한다. 비가시성을 고려하여 고주파 영역을 국부 블록으로 나누어 각 블록의 대조 감도와 텍스처 감도를 계산하고, 각 계수블록에 워터마크를 삽입 시 블록 특성에 따라 가중치를 달리 하였다. 실험결과, 인간의 시각 시스템을 적용하여 워터마크를 삽입함으로써 워터마크의 강인함과 비가시성을 향상시켰다.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• 제15권2호
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• pp.271-287
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• 2019

The synchronization scheme based on moving average is robust and suitable for the same rule to be adopted in embedding watermark and synchronization code, but the imperceptibility and search efficiency is seldom reported. The study aims to improve the original scheme for robust audio watermarking. Firstly, the survival of the algorithm from desynchronization attacks is improved. Secondly, the scheme is improved in inaudibility. Objective difference grade (ODG) of the marked audio is significantly changed. Thirdly, the imperceptibility of the scheme is analyzed and the derived result is close to experimental result. Fourthly, the selection of parameters is optimized based on experimental data. Fifthly, the search efficiency of the scheme is compared with those of other synchronization code schemes. The experimental results show that the proposed watermarking scheme allows the high audio quality and is robust to common attacks such as additive white Gaussian noise, requantization, resampling, low-pass filtering, random cropping, MP3 compression, jitter attack, and time scale modification. Moreover, the algorithm has the high search efficiency and low false alarm rate.

• 한국멀티미디어학회논문지
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• 제8권3호
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• pp.379-388
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• 2005

화상 심층암호(image steganography)는 비밀 정보를 화상에 몰래 숨겨 송/수신자간에 주고받는 비밀 통신의 한 방법이다. 송신자는 특별한 의미를 갖지 않는 커버 화상(cover image)에 비밀 정보를 삽입한 스테고 화상을 수신자에게 전달한다. 수신자는 송신자에게 받은 스테고 화상(stego image)에서 숨겨진 비밀 정보를 추출하여 그 개용을 확인한다. 본 논문에서는 알고리즘이 간단하면서, 심층암호의 필수 조건인 비밀 정보의 삽입용량, 스테고 화상의 비가시성, 그리고 송i수신자간의 기밀성을 모두 만족할 수 있는 기법들을 제안한다 제안 방식은 커버 화상의 연속 두 화소간의 차분 값과 양자화 범위를 이용하여 비밀 정보를 은닉시킨다. 특별히, 스테고 화상의 비가시성을 위해 커버 화상의 두 화소간의 차분 값에 따라 삽입 비트수를 다르게 한다. 또한, 기밀성을 위해서는 비밀 양자화 범위를 사용하여 제3자에 의해 비밀 정보가 해독되는 것을 방지할 수 있다. 제안 방식은 기존의 방식보다 화질을 개선시키기 위하여 범위의 상한값을 이용하였고, 삽입용량을 증가시키기 위해 특정 화소에 대해서는 삽입 처리를 중복으로 수행하였다 실험을 통하여 기존의 방식과 제안 방식을 비교하였고, 그 결과 제안 방식의 유효성을 확인할 수 있었다.

• 융합신호처리학회논문지
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• 제3권3호
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• pp.36-40
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• 2002

본 논문에서는 디지털 컨텐츠 저작권 보호를 위해서 에지 웨이브릿 변환에 기초한 디지털 워터마킹 방법을 제안하였다. 이미지의 중요한 성분인 저주파 성분을 비롯한 각 대역의 모든 가능한 위치에 다양한 가중치와 임계값을 적용하는 워터마크 삽입방법을 통하여 손실압축, 고의적인 영상의 변형 등 각종 공격에 대하여 상반관계에 있는 비가시성과 강인성을 만족하는 워터마크 양에 대한 적정량 선정과 최적의 삽입대역을 찾는 방법을 제안하였다. 그리고 제안한 방법이 적정한 워터마크 삽입영역과 적절한 워터마크 양을 찾을 수 있음을 실험을 통하여 입증하였다.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제10권9호
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• pp.4603-4624
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• 2016

In this paper, a new reversible watermarking algorithm with adaptive embedding threshold matrix is proposed. Firstly, to avoid the overflow and underflow, two flexible thresholds, TL and TR, are applied to preprocess the image histogram with least histogram shift cost. Secondly, for achieving an optimal or near optimal tradeoff between the embedding capacity and imperceptibility, the embedding threshold matrix, composed of the embedding thresholds of all blocks, is determined adaptively by the combination between the composite chaos and the average energy of Integer Wavelet Transform (IWT) block. As a non-liner system with good randomness, the composite chaos is suitable to search the optimal embedding thresholds. Meanwhile, the average energy of IWT block is calculated to adjust the block embedding capacity, and more data are embedded into those IWT blocks with larger average energy. The experimental results demonstrate that compared with the state-of-the-art reversible watermarking schemes, the proposed scheme has better performance for the tradeoff between the embedding capacity and imperceptibility.