Title: Anti-cropping digital image watermarking using Sudoku

Authors: Shamsul Kamal Ahmad Khalid; Mustafa Mat Deris; Kamaruddin Malik Mohamad

Addresses: Department of Information Security, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia ' Department of Software Engineering, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia ' Department of Information Security, Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia

Abstract: Many digital image watermarking schemes have been developed to embed copyright information into an image. However, an attacker may reuse parts of a watermarked image by cropping out unwanted parts. Several techniques have been designed to overcome this attack but due to their limited redundancy approach, some section of the images can still be retrieved without detectable watermark. In this paper, a new watermarking scheme that is robust against severe cropping using Sudoku is proposed. It is based on Sudoku's permutation property that allows evenly distributed copies of watermark pieces in all parts of the cover image. A valid Sudoku solution is used during the embedding as well as during the detection of the watermark. Using classic 9 × 9 Sudoku, the scheme demonstrated robustness of up to 94% of random cropping.

Keywords: image watermarking; Sudoku; image cropping; redundant embedding; digital images; copyright information; random cropping; security.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGUC.2013.056253

International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing, 2013 Vol.4 No.2/3, pp.169 - 177

Received: 27 Aug 2012
Accepted: 23 Sep 2012
Published online: 18 Sep 2014 *

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