We present a novel scheme for embedding secret data into a binary image without introducing noticeable artifacts. Unlike some block-based methods, the proposed scheme encodes the secret bits directly into boundary pixels by checking each pixel of the cover image in a pseudo-random order for embedding eligibility. A set of rules ensures correct identification of data-carrying pixels in blind extraction. The proposed scheme does not generate isolated dots, and can incorporate various coding methods such as matrix encoding to further improve the embedding performance. It is shown that up to one fourth of the boundary pixels may be used to carry secret data. Experimental results indicate that the method can achieve good visual quality with fairly large data capacity.
In this work, image feature vectors are formed for blocks containing sufficient information, which are selected using a singular-value criterion. When the ratio between the first two SVs axe below a given threshold, the block is considered informative. A total of 12 features including statistics of brightness, color components and texture measures are used to form intermediate vectors. Principal component analysis is then performed to reduce the dimension to 6 to give the final feature vectors. Relevance of the constructed feature vectors is demonstrated by experiments in which k-means clustering is used to group the vectors hence the blocks. Blocks falling into the same group show similar visual appearances.
The easy generation, storage, transmission and reproduction of digital images have caused serious abuse and security problems. Assurance of the rightful ownership, integrity, and authenticity is a major concern to the academia as well as the industry. On the other hand, efficient search of the huge amount of images has become a great challenge. Image hashing is a technique suitable for use in image authentication and content based image retrieval （CBIR）. In this article, we review some representative image hashing techniques proposed in the recent years, with emphases on how to meet the conflicting requirements of perceptual robustness and security. Following a brief introduction to some earlier methods, we focus on a typical two-stage structure and some geometric-distortion resilient techniques. We then introduce two image hashing approaches developed in our own research, and reveal security problems in some existing methods due to the absence of secret keys in certain stage of the image feature extraction, or availability of a large quantity of images, keys, or the hash function to the adversary. More research efforts are needed in developing truly robust and secure image hashing techniques.
