DIGITAL WATERMARKING

L.SARALADEVE
LECTURER, MCA
JERUSALEM COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
saraladeve@gmail.com
ABSTRACT

A Watermark is a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by
transmitted light, caused by thickness variations in the paper. The use of the word of watermarking is derived from the much
older notion of placing a visible watermark on paper. In the wake of increasing copyright misuses, several new technologies are
developed to preserve the authentication of information. Digital Water Marking is one of them.Digital watermarking is the
process of possibly irreversibly embedding information into a digital signal. The signal may be audio, video or pictures.It is a
technique that allows us to add hidden copyright notices, verification messages or any other useful information to the original
signal. The description can be about the name, place or something related to this. Much of the research work has been done in the
field of digital watermarking in the recent period of time. Digital watermarking is distinctly different from data hashing. It is the
process of altering the original data file, allowing for the subsequent recovery of embedded auxiliary data referred to as a
watermark. Digital Watermarking can be used for a wide range of applications such as:

• Copyright protection
• Fingerprinting (Different recipients get differently watermarked content)
• Broadcast Monitoring (Television news often contains watermarked video from international agencies)
• Convert Communication (steganography)

A disadvantage of digital watermarking is that a subscriber cannot significantly alter some files without sacrificing the quality or
utility of the data. This can be true of various files including image data, audio data, and computer code.

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I
. INTRODUCTION

To begin with, the meaning of “watermark”(on a

paper) is a mark that is not perceptible to the naked
eye in ordinary circumstances but is visible when
focused through a special light. A digital water
marked signal is also difficult to differentiate from
the original signal normal circumstances. In fact,
there should be no detectable difference between the
original signal and watermarked signal. The desire to
communicate secretly is a human trait that dates back
to the earliest times. This led to the invention of
steganography at first and encryption later on.

Before the origin of watermarking technique, there

were two techniques called “steganography” and
“encryption”. Steganography takes its origin from the
old Greek language that means ‘cover writing’. It is
nothing but, a way of transmitting hidden messages
between two persons. Encryption is used to provide
communication privacy and deny access to
unauthorized persons from damaging the content.
The usage of the watermark does not limit the usage
of the original file in any way. Watermarking can
basically be classified into visible and invisible
watermarking. Visible watermarking obviously
includes usage of logos, trademarks and other related Robust watermarking techniques are especially useful
things for unique identification. for military applications, authentication, copyright
protection and so forth. Herein, the watermark is
Invisible watermarking is classified basing on the placed in the significant portion of the data to be
ability to withstand attacks, into robust and fragile watermarked.
watermarking. Fragile watermark is capable of
detecting any minute transformation made to the All in all, the digital watermarking techniques are
watermarked content of the host signal. It is easy to expected to withstand assails including compression,
embed this into the signal. This can be accomplished A/D and D/A conversion, linear and non-linear
by accommodating it in the unimportant portions of filtering and additive noise as well.
the original data. But it cannot withstand wide range
of attacks. For the applications wherein wide range of
attacks needs to be tolerated, a robust watermark is II.. WATERMARKING FOR VARIOUS MEDIA
used. TYPES TECHNIQUES

1. Digital audio watermarking

Here in, the watermark i.e. the digital audio

watermark consists of the information pertaining not
only to the creator of the audio information that could
be any one of several forms of song, music etc., but
also to the authenticated user of the audio
information. This allows that particular information
to be used by only the authorized user and no one
else. The watermark can also be used for secondary
applications other than authentication. e.g. providing
information about the song, album, style of tunes, etc.
This watermark is useful in voice conferencing halls
to indicate the person who is speaking at the moment.

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This application can be extended to videoconferences
as well. The method of inserting watermark consists
of concealing the watermark in the low frequency
components of the message signal (audio signal), so
that the insertion of watermark is not noticeable by
the human ear.

The watermarked signal to be processed is

subjected to framing of some finite duration. This
amount of time must be the same as that of duration
during insertion process.
Once again, spectral analysis is carried out using
techniques such as FFT, to calculate the low
frequency components and the power constituted in
each frame as well.
From the above analysis, the power contained in
the low frequency components is observed which
o At first, the audio signal to be processed is
determines the watermark.
partitioned into some frames, allotting a
Ideally, this watermark should be exact reproduction
finite time interval to each frame.
of the original watermark that was inserted during
o Following this, analysis is done to calculate
insertion process. This is subjected to certain
the spectral components, which is
constraints like power in each frame.
accomplished using FFT, more often than
not. This process also allows us to find out
2. Digital video watermarking
the power contained in each frame, which is
useful in the later parts of the method.
A watermark inserted in a video signal can be used
o From the above calculations, the low
for DVD copy protection. First of all, the watermark
frequency components are removed from
should satisfy the requirements of strength and
the signal.
imperceptibility. Besides this, it can be bestowed on
o Now, the watermark is placed in the low
to convey the information to restrict copying in many
frequency region, where the low frequency
ways such as copy never i.e. the DVD is copy
components are removed earlier on.
protected, copy no more i.e. it is possible to copy a
finite number of times, copy liberally i.e. it can be
This finishes the process of inserting the watermark
copied any number of times, copy only once. The
in the audio file. Now that the process of insertion is
design depends upon the content in the DVD. A
accomplished, the user has to extract the watermark
general process of digital video watermarking
and get it verified with his license to access the
consists of inserting a group of bits along with the
information in the audio file. The process of
video frame to be transmitted. The process of
extraction of watermark is similar to the process of
insertion of watermark is through a ‘hid den key’ that
inserting the watermark as well.
is known to the transmitting person and the receiving
person as well.

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Actual video signal refers to a single image of a
video sequence. Now that, the watermark is inserted
into an image of a video sequence, it is susceptible to
wide range of attacks in the channel through which it
is transmitted. These attack could include deliberate
attacks and attacks by chance, i.e. not deliberately
done. Some of the deliberate attacks are reducing
frames, conspiracy and geometric attacks. Herein, the
signal is not completely damaged or distorted beyond
use, for the pirate who attacks thus would like to use
it anyway. Other range of attacks that the signal
could suffer is those that arise from the errors due to
transmission and also due to errors generated during
processing of the signal. Now, the process of
extraction or removal of watermark is an intricate
process. This process consists of extraction of
watermark from the received watermarked signal,
provided the ‘hidden key’ is known.
By the time the signal arrives at the watermarking
process, it might in a compressed form i.e. it might
have undergone compression techniques.
Compression is a technique that reduces the storage
space required for a digital form of the video signal.
This is essential to meet the bandwidth requirements.
So it is necessary that the watermark signal be
inserted directly into this signal, which in compressed
form without having to decode the video signal to
reduce intricacy.
This is accomplished by changing the span of the
codes and subsequently inserting the watermark. This
eases the insertion process. The drawback to this
process is that the watermark is vulnerable to remove
entirely at the time of detection. To make the
watermark stable even after detection, the watermark
is inserted by imposing energy differences between
different parts of a video signal.
3. Image watermarking:
For watermarking a still image, the watermark is
directly inserted on to the picture information itself
such as colour, brightness, and luminescence etc. the
watermark may be inserted directly on to the pixels,
which are either in the spatial domain or in the
transform domain. Earliest form of spatial domain
techniques consists of inserting a finite number of
sequences of bits into the least significant data of the
host signal. This type of insertion provides for
efficient visible insertio n technique. Another
advantage of using this technique is that the
implementation requires very low cost. Later on this
technique was extended to two dimensions as well.
This also proved to be an effective fr gile
watermarking technique. While decoding, a
correlation detector is used for the retrieval of
watermark. Another method where a correlation
detector is used does the watermarking by
introducing a texture-based watermark into the
region, which is quite identical to the original image.
This enhances the transparency between the
watermarked and the actual image. Watermarking the
image in transform domain comes up with many
advantages like capability of withstanding the
compression techniques.
4. Text watermarking:
Text watermarking is the process of inserting
watermark into the text for preserving the creator’s
identity. This is especially applicable to such
valuable texts such as poetry. An earlier form of
watermarking the texts was accomplished by
inserting spaces in specific parts of the text. The
disadvantage associated with this form of
watermarking was that it was quite easy to remove
the watermark. Later on, watermarks were placed in
the text that depends on linguistic properties like
synonyms, sequence of words etc. minor
modifications are made to characters, and such
characters are used for watermarking. Text
watermarking schemes are applicable to any type of
texts from usual word documents to PDF files. At
detection stage, the watermark is removed by
processing which involves the correction for noise,
and distortion introduced, if any (during the insertion
process) as well. This scheme protects texts like
poetry well as, the changes brought about in the text
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will damage the worth of it. This is also resistant to
attacks like photocopying because these do not alter
the watermark.
Fig 6. Diagram showing changed ‘N’(character
alteration).
. watermarking are broadcast monitoring, usage of
1. Here the word “fundamental” is printed in the
ordinary way.
2. It shows the word “fundamental”, in which the
letter ‘N’ is modified slightly.
III. WATERMARK INSERTION:
Mid frequency components are chosen for
embedding the watermark in a simple way, owing to
the shortcomings with the low frequency components
and high frequency components. The difficulty with
the low frequency components is that they are highly
susceptible to distortion. The high frequency
components do not bear much of the information
reliably, since their removal from the actual signal
does not affect the signal’s quality too much. The
watermarking process is a process known to all, thus
the safety of the signal completely depends up on the
hidden key (confidential key ‘C’ shown in the Fig 1).
This key ‘C’ determines the sequence of bits, which
are to be embedded into the host signal. The key acts
in such a way that, it would be difficult (almost
impossible) to recover the original signal without
knowing the confidential key ‘C’. There are simple
additive watermarking methods, which can be
represented using simple mathematical equation: F’=
H+P
Where F’ is the watermarked signal, ‘H’ is the host
signal (from fig 1). The new signal ‘P’ is nothing but
the signal originating from the hidden key ‘C’ and the
original watermark ‘F’. This method of
representation is not applicable to all embedding
processes. In some of the processes, the properties of
the host signal are used for the embedding process.
IV. WATERMARK DECODING:
‘Detection’ and ‘identification’ are not the same. The
method of deciding about whether a signal received
contains a watermark or not is ‘detection’. But,
identification is the actual process of decoding the
unique watermark from a finite number of possible
choices. Two kinds of errors could occur at the
detection. The first one is detection of a watermark in
the received signal when it really does not exist. The
second one is quite opposite to this. Herein, the
watermark, which inherently exists in the received
data, is not detected. Synchronization failure between
watermark embedding and detection process could
disable the entire communication process. This could
result in attacks on the signal.
V. APPLICATIONS:
Some of the additional applications of digital
contractual watermarks for special purposes, secret
communication and copy control.
1. Broadcast monitoring:
Watermarks are used in broadcast monitoring by
inserting watermarks in the message that is to be
transmitted. This is done before signal (audio or
video) is broadcasted.
2. Contractual watermarks:
These types of watermarks are also called
fingerprints. One of the applications of these is in the
distribution of daily film copies. Many people and
organizations might be involved in the distribution of
a film. In this process, there could be possibilities of
leakage of certain copies. Placing a watermark in
every copy, which contains the information of the
recipient, can prevent this. This doesn’t affect the
actual version of the copy, and it is possible to
identify the person or source responsible for leakage,
if any.
3. Secret communication:
This was one of the earliest applications of
watermarking technique. It is a process of transmitted
secret messages in concealed form. Specially
designed programs are there to accomplish these
tasks.
4. Copy control:
Many watermarks do not actually prevent the
copying of content into which they are embedded, but
serve as identification marks of the genuine owner of
it. But using certain mechanisms that detect the
watermarks and inhibit the copying of the
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information, it is possible to preserve the integrity of
the information.
VI. PROPERTIES:
Some of the properties of the watermarking
techniques are strength, fidelity, cost involved, and
the tamper resistance.
1. Strength:
Strength is an important parameter because it decides
the capacity of the watermarked signal to withstand
the wide range of attacks. Especially, the image and
video signals need to tolerate the attacks including
the geometric ones. Besides, it should be able to
endure ordinary attacks like A to D conversion and
lossy conformations. More often than not, a
watermarked signal is expected to endure common
processing transformations only during the time
interval between the insertion and decoding of the
signal. The toughness of the signal is not limited to
any one constraint, but it can be extended to many
others. It means, a signal, which is capable of
withstanding an attack, may not be able to tolerate
another. Consequently, the signal is made to
withstand attacks, which may differ from one
application to another. Where there is only a
necessity to know whether any distortion of signal
has occurred and nothing else, the strength is not at
all a constraint. Instead, the watermark may be a
fragile one. The situation may be quite different in
some other cases. One such case is where the attacks
are quite capricious. Herein, the signal is
watermarked in such a fashion it can withstand every
possible distortion.
2. Tamper resistance:
If there is a possibility of aggressive orantagonistic
attacks, then the watermarked signal must be tamper
resistant. Tamper resistance is immaterial if there are
slim chances of aggressive attacks. The watermarked
signal must be tamp er resistant to attacks like
passive, active, and falsification attacks. In passive
form of attacks, the attacker just likes to determine
whether a watermark is present in the signal or not. In
contrast to this, an active attack is one in which the
attacker tries to remove the watermark from the
watermarked signal. There is yet another form of
active attack, called collusion attack wherein, the
attacker tries to reconstruct the replica with no
watermark from different sets of copies with different
watermarks. In falsification attacks, the attacker
inserts another watermark into the genuine one,
thereby, changing the identification of the copy.
3. Reliability:
A watermarked signal may be considered to be
highly reliable, if the distortion caused by the
inclusion of watermark is quite unnoticeable by the
human eye.
4. Cost involved:
Depending upon the application, the number of
watermark embedders and watermark detectors vary.
Their working speeds vary as well according to the
type of application. The cost involved thus varies
greatly depending up on all these constraints.
VII.CONCLUSION:
Digital watermarking is an outstanding technology
that can serve a wide range of applications in various
media types. But, the employment of schemes
depends upon the requirements that may vary widely.
A sound knowledge of communication techniques
and signal processing methods is essential for
efficient development of watermarking techniques.
Besides this, the attacks that the signal is expected to
endure the assessment of the amount of distortion
that the signal suffered which in turn determine the
efficacy of the system and the effective cost involved
need to be taken into consideration while designing
watermarking technique for a particular application.
Thus the standards for all the applications don’t
remain alike.
VIII. REFERENCES:
1. Digital communications,
By Bernard Sklar.
2. Digital image processing
By Ganzaly and Woods.
3. www.scholar.google.com