Personal identity refers to a set of attributes (e.g., name, social insurance number, etc.) that are associated with a person. Identity management is the process of creating, maintaining and destroying identities of individuals in a population. Biometric technologies are technologies developed to use statistical analysis of an individual’s biological or behavioral traits to determine his identity. Biometrics based authentication systems offer a reliable solution for identity management, because of their uniqueness, relative stability over time and security (among other reasons). Public acceptance of biometric systems will depend on their ability to ensure robustness, accuracy and security. Although robustness and accuracy of such systems are rapidly improving, there still remain some issues of security and balancing it with privacy. While the uniqueness of biometric traits offers a convenient and reliable means of identification, it also poses the risk of unauthorized cross-referencing among databases using the same biometric trait. There is also a high risk in case of a biometric database being compromised, since it’s not possible to revoke the biometric trait and re-issue a new one as is the case with passwords and smart keys. This unique attribute of biometric based authentication system poses a challenge that might slow down public acceptance and the use of biometrics for authentication purposes in large scale applications. In this research we investigate the vulnerabilities of biometric systems focusing on template security in iris-based biometric recognition systems. The iris has been well studied for authentication purposes and has been proven accurate in large scale applications in several airports and border crossings around the world. The most widely accepted iris recognition systems are based on Daugman’s model that creates a binary iris template. In this research we develop different systems using watermarking, bio-cryptography as well as feature transformation to achieve revocability and security of binary templates in iris based biometric authentication systems, while maintaining the performance that enables widespread application of these systems. All algorithms developed in this research are applicable on already existing biometric authentication systems and do not require redesign of these existing, well established iris-based authentication systems that use binary templates.

This thesis presents novel research work on copyright protection of grey scale and colour digital images. New blind frequency domain watermarking algorithms using one dimensional and two dimensional Walsh coding were developed. Handwritten signatures and mobile phone numbers were used in this project as watermarks. In this research eight algorithms were developed based on the DCT using 1D and 2D Walsh coding. These algorithms used the low frequency coefficients of the 8 × 8 DCT blocks for embedding. A shuffle process was used in the watermarking algorithms to increase the robustness against the cropping attacks. All algorithms are blind since they do not require the original image. All algorithms caused minimum distortion to the host images and the watermarking is invisible. The watermark is embedded in the green channel of the RGB colour images. The Walsh coded watermark is inserted several times by using the shuffling process to improve its robustness. The effect of changing the Walsh lengths and the scaling strength of the watermark on the robustness and image quality were studied. All algorithms are examined by using several grey scale and colour images of sizes 512 × 512. The fidelity of the images was assessed by using the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), the structural similarity index measure (SSIM), normalized correlation (NC) and StirMark benchmark tools. The new algorithms were tested on several grey scale and colour images of different sizes. Evaluation techniques using several tools with different scaling factors have been considered in the thesis to assess the algorithms. Comparisons carried out against other methods of embedding without coding have shown the superiority of the algorithms. The results have shown that use of 1D and 2D Walsh coding with DCT Blocks offers significant improvement in the robustness against JPEG compression and some other image processing operations compared to the method of embedding without coding. The originality of the schemes enables them to achieve significant robustness compared to conventional non-coded watermarking methods. The new algorithms offer an optimal trade-off between perceptual distortion caused by embedding and robustness against certain attacks. The new techniques could offer significant advantages to the digital watermark field and provide additional benefits to the copyright protection industry.

A tecnologia atual não oferece prevenção contra cópia, adulteração ou plágio de uma imagem estática em meio digital sem autorização do verdadeiro autor. Dado que tais mal feitos não podem ser evitados, resta ao criador da obra original lutar a posteriori por seus direitos nos fóruns adequados (no tribunal, por exemplo). Na época da fotografia analógica com filme, o negativo poderia ser utilizado como prova. Hoje este recurso raramente está disponível e se faz necessária uma solução alternativa. A técnica de Marca d´Água é uma das possibilidades criptográficas existentes para apoiar o autor em sua defesa. O principio da Marca d´Água é o encapsulamento de informações relevantes, preferencialmente de forma imperceptível, na imagem a ser protegida. Tais informações, quando extraídas da imagem marcada, devem revelar o verdadeiro autor num processo de disputa. Soluções de Marca d´Água combinada com Criptografia Visual são encontradas na literatura. A principal vantagem deste caminho é a propriedade Imperceptível por segurança perfeita que a Marca d´Água assume quando tratada por Criptografia Visual. O segredo (neste caso, a Marca d´Água) é segmentado via Criptografia Visual em 2 transparências: uma delas é encapsulada na imagem a ser protegida e a outra é mantida pelo verdadeiro autor. Basta a sobreposição de tais transparências para que a Marca d´Água seja revelada. Nesta pesquisa propomos um novo método, denominado MACV, que combina Marca d´Água, Criptografia Visual e um algoritmo de hashing. O MACV apresenta, entre outras, as seguintes propriedades desejáveis de Marca d´Água: imperceptível por segurança perfeita, alta entropia, armazenamento na própria imagem e sem ambiguidade. Veremos em nossa pesquisa bibliográfica que há uma lacuna de soluções que apresentem, simultaneamente, todas estas propriedades. Esta lacuna torna o MACV único em sua categoria. / Current technology does not prevent copy, tamper or plagiarism of a still image in digital media without authorization of the true author. Since such misdeeds can not be avoided, the creator of the original work has to defend his rights a posteriori in the appropriate forum (in court, for example). A negative could be used as evidence in the era of analog photography. Currently this feature is rarely available and an alternative solution is needed. Watermark is one of the existing cryptographic possibilities to support the author in his defense. A Watermark is embedded into the image to be protected, preferably imperceptibly. Such information when extracted from the watermarked image should reveal the true author in a dispute process. Solutions using Watermark with Visual Cryptography are found in the literature. The main advantage of this way is the property Imperceptible by perfect secrecy that the Water- mark assumes when treated by Visual Cryptography. The key (in this case, the Watermark) is partitioned by Visual Cryptography in 2 transparencies: one is embedded in the image to be protected and the other is kept by the true author. The Watermark is revealed by overlapping such transparencies. In this research we propose a new method, called MACV, combining Watermark, Vi- sual Cryptography and a hashing algorithm. The MACV has, among others, the following desirable properties of Watermark: invisible by perfect secrecy, high entropy, stored into the image itself and unambiguously. We will see in our research that there is no solution that presents, simultaneously, all these properties. This fact makes the MACV the first one to show all these properties

The thesis deals with the security of static images. The main aim is to embed the watermark into the original data so effectively, to avoid removal of the watermark with the use of simple and fast attacks methods. With developing of the watermarking techniques the technique of attacks are improved and developed also. The main aim of the attacks is to remove and devalue the hidden watermark in the image. The goal of the thesis is to check current techniques of static image watermarking and implement two methods of watermarking, which are to be tested for robustness against attacks.

Digital watermarking is a technique for digital multimedia copyright protection. The robustness and the imperceptibility are the main requirements of the watermark. This thesis deals with watermarking audio signals using artificial neural networks. There is described audio watermarking method in the DCT domain. Method is based on human psychoacoustic model and the techniques of neural networks.

To protect the the copyright of multimedia works have been developed watermarking techniques, that insert an invisible watermark to the original data. The aim of this thesis was to explore modern watermarking techniques, choose three of them and realize them. Also test them, evaluate their properties and possibly improve them. All methods insert a watermark into luminance component of the original image, and work with binary or black and white watermark. All techniques work in the frequency domain using discrete wavelet transform. For the implementation of methods, have been developed software named "Watermarking" that has been programmed in JAVA Version 7. The first chapter describes the types of watermarks, the general process of insertion and extraction, watermarking systems and important feature requests of embedded water- marks. In addition, qualitative methods are mentioned for their comparisons and testing. The chapter also contains a theoretical description of the used transformations and functions. In the second chapter is described the user interface of the software "Water- marking". Chapters three and four contain a theoretical description of the implemented methods and description of implementation of insertion and extraction processes of the watermark. Also there are discussed the exact procedures for testing, the sample data, and the results which are clearly displayed in the tables. The fifth chapter discusses in detail the results obtained in testing the robustness of the watermark, using the software StirMark. In the conclusion are evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of methods and quality parameters.

Medical institutions adapt digital based archiving of patients records images to fulfil its advantages like availability, easy sharing, high resolution etc. Digital form of records brings apart from advantages also disadvantages at security risks. It is easier attacking, stealing, using without authorization etc. This thesiss deals with this security issues, describes the needs and approaches to security, explains the reasons for deployment of watermarking. It names three main methods of medical image watermarking and compares their plus and cons: zero, reversible and watermarking in Region Of Non Interest (RONI). New method of Zero-reversible-RONI watermarking, that combine advantages of described methods, is proposed. For practical tests of properities of proposed method was used huge database of medical images. Application of the proposed method on this database delivers very promising results. Practical results discussion and comparison with other medical imaging watermarkikng methods are at the end of this thesis.

Cette thèse traite de ce verrou théorique pour des vidéos naturelles. Les contributions scientifiques développées ont permis : 1. De réfuter mathématiquement le modèle gaussien en général adopté dans la littérature pour représenter le bruit de canal ; 2. D’établir pour la première fois, le caractère stationnaire des processus aléatoires représentant le bruit de canal, la méthode développée étant indépendante du type de données, de leur traitement et de la procédure d’estimation ; 3. De proposer une méthodologie de modélisation du bruit de canal à partir d’un mélange de gaussiennes pour une transformée aussi bien en cosinus discrète qu’en ondelette discrète et pour un large ensemble d’attaques (filtrage, rotation, compression, StirMark, …). L’intérêt de cette approche est entre autres de permettre le calcul exact de la capacité du canal alors que la littérature ne fournissait que des bornes supérieure et inférieure. 4. Les contributions technologique concernent l’intégration et l’implémentions de ces modèles dans la méthode du tatouage IProtect brevetée Institut Télécom/ARTEMIS et SFR avec un gain en temps d’exécution d’un facteur 100 par rapport à l’état de l’art. / The thesis is focus on natural video and attack modelling for uncompressed video watermarking purposes. By reconsidering a statistical investigation combining four types of statistical tests, the thesis starts by identifying with accuracy the drawbacks and limitations of the popular Gaussian model in watermarking applications. Further on, an advanced statistical approach is developed in order to establish with mathematical rigour: 1. That a mathematical model for the original video content and/or attacks exists; 2. The model parameters. From the theoretical point of view, this means to prove for the first time the stationarity of the random processes representing the natural video and/or the watermarking attacks. These general results have been already validated under applicative and theoretical frameworks. On the one hand, when integrating the attack models into the IProtect watermarking method patented by Institut Télécom/ARTEMIS and SFR, a speed-up by a factor of 100 of the insertion procedure has been obtained. On the other hand, accurate models for natural video and attacks allowed the increasing of the precision in the computation of some basic information theory entities (entropies and capacity).

The tremendous spreading of multimedia via Internet motivates the watermarking as a new promising technology for copyright protection. This work is concerned with the design and development of novel algorithms in the spatial and transform domains for robust and secure watermarking of coloured images. These algorithms are adaptive, content-dependent and compatible with the Human Visual System (HVS). The host channels have the ability to host a large information payload. Furthermore, it has enough capacity to accept multiple watermarks. Abstract This work achieves several contributions in the area of coloured images watermarking. The most challenging problem is to get a robust algorithm that can overcome geometric attacks, which is solved in this work. Also, the search for a very secure algorithm has been achieved via using double secret keys. In addition, the problem of multiple claims of ownership is solved here using an unusual approach. Furthermore, this work differentiates between terms, which are usually confusing the researchers and lead to misunderstanding in most of the previous algorithms. One of the drawbacks in most of the previous algorithms is that the watermark consists of a small numbers of bits without strict meaning. This work overcomes this weakness III in using meaningful images and text with large amounts of data. Contrary to what is found in literature, this work shows that the green-channel is better than the blue-channel to host the watermarks. A more general and comprehensive test bed besides a broad band of performance evaluation is used to fairly judge the algorithms.

With the rapid growth of the internet and digital media techniques over the last decade, multimedia data such as images, video and audio can easily be copied, altered and distributed over the internet without any loss in quality. Therefore, protection of ownership of multimedia data has become a very significant and challenging issue. Three novel image watermarking algorithms have been designed and implemented for copyright protection. The first proposed algorithm is based on embedding multiple watermarks in the blue channel of colour images to achieve more robustness against attacks. The second proposed algorithm aims to achieve better trade-offs between imperceptibility and robustness requirements of a digital watermarking system. It embeds a watermark in adaptive manner via classification of DCT blocks with three levels: smooth, edges and texture, implemented in the DCT domain by analyzing the values of AC coefficients. The third algorithm aims to achieve robustness against geometric attacks, which can desynchronize the location of the watermark and hence cause incorrect watermark detection. It uses geometrically invariant feature points and image normalization to overcome the problem of synchronization errors caused by geometric attacks. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms are robust and outperform related techniques found in literature.