A Robust DWT-Based Blind Data Hiding Algorithm
'
Hongmei Liu Jiufen Liu' Jiwu Huang Daren Huang' Yun Q. Shi
1. Dept. of Electronics, Zhongshan Univ., Guangzhou 5 10275, P.R.China. E-mail: isshmG$zsu.cdu.cn
2. Dept. of ECE, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
ABSTRACT
The watermark embedding strategy is one of factors that affect
the robustness of watermark. In this paper, a new embedding
strategy based on discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is proposed.
Different from the existing schemes based on the DWT which
have explicitly excluded LL subband coefficients from
watermark embedding, we claim that watermarks should be
embedded in the LL subband first, and then in high frequency
subbands according to the visual significance of the subbands.
We have compared the performance of our new embedding
strategy with that of the commonly used ones, confirming the
superiority of the proposed embedding strategy. Based on this
strategy, a robust oblivious watermarking algorithm in the DWT
domain is presented. It takes advantage of error correcting
coding (ECC) and 2-D interleaving techniques to lower the
detection error probability. By taking a carehlly designed
measure in watermark bit embedding, watermarked images
achieve a 2dB improvement in PSNR. The experimental results
show that the watermark embedded with the proposed algorithm
is robust and invisible.
1. INTRODUCTION
Watermarking technology has recently becomes important in a
number of application areas and drawn extensive attention[']. The
oblivious systems (also referred to as blind systems) with blind
extraction of watermark have much wider application and remain
a challenging problem.
The major shortcomings with the existing algorithms are: 1) low
bit rate of watermark, e.g. [2] embeds 163 information bits
(including the ECC's redundant bits) in a image of 5 12 x 5 12 x 8
bits; 2) the hidden data are not robust enough to some attacks, e.g.
Stirmark; 3) the extraction of the hidden data needs too much
side information, e.g. [3] needs nine parameters and [4] needs to
record the significant coefficient address with the threshold
information.
Recent efforts for watermarking are mostly based on frequency-
domain techniques. It is known that the DWT is playing a more
important role in still image compression standard (JPEG2000)
than the DCT does due to its good spatial-frequency
characteristics. Therefore much effort has been devoted to
develop watermarking schemes using the DWT.
One of challenges in front of watermarking community is the
robustness of watermarks. Obviously, embedding strategy affects
robustness of watermarks. In the existing watermarking
techniques based on the DWT ['* S. 61, the coefficients in the LL
subband are explicitly excluded from watermark embedding.
Based on a quantitative analysis on magnitude distribution of the
DWT coefficients, we claim that watermark signals should be
0-7803-7448-7/02/$17.00 02002 IEEE I1 - 672
embedded in the LL subband first, and then in the high frequency
subbands according to the visual significance of the subbands .
Based on the proposed embedding strategy, we present a robust
oblivious watermarking algorithm The characteristics of the
proposed algorithm are as follows: 1) Embedding data in the LL
(first) and (then) high frequency subbands; 2) Exploiting the
ECC and 2-D interleaving to lower the detection error
probability of the hidden watermark; 3) Modulating watermark
signal to enhance the security of the watermark; 4) Achieving a
higher bit rate, imperceptibility ;and robustness of the hidden
watermark.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, a novel
embedding strategy is proposed. In Section 3, we describe the
techniques applied to the watermark signal, such as BCH coding,
2-D interleaving and modulation. Section 4 describes the
proposed embedding method. The experimental results are
presented in Section 5. Section 6 s:u"arizes and concludes this
paper.
2. EMBEDDING STIRATEGY IN DWT
Assume that the image is decomposed into K level subband
images by separable 2-D wavelet transform. It produces a low
frequency subband LLK, and three series of high frequency
subbands LH,, HL,, HH,. The Wow frequency subband is a
lowpass approximation of the original image, and contains most
energy of the image. The other subbands include edge
components of horizontal, vertical and diagonal directions at
different scale and resolution respectively. According to the
energy distribution, LLK is the most important, then HL,, LH,
and HH,. For different levels, the higher the level, the more
important the subbands. Hence the important order of subbands
iS LLk ,HLk, LHk, HHk HLk-1, L&l, HHk-1, ..., HLI, LHI, HHI.
9
Where should the watermark be embedded in the DWT domain?
First, Cox et al. [7] argued thaLt the watermarks should be
embedded in those perceptually significant components in order
for the watermarks to be robustness, which has now been well
accepted. But Cox et al. explicitly excluded DC components
from watermark embedding. The consideration behind this is to
avoid block artifacts in watermarked images. In DWT domain,
the low frequency subband is a llowpass approximation of the
original image, and contains most icnergy of the image. The other
subbands include mainly edge components. And because DWT is
a global transform, watermarks ernbedded in the low frequency
Coefficients does not result in block artifacts in watermarked
images.
Second, watermarking can be viewed as superimposing a week
signal (watermark) onto a strong background signal (image). The
superimposed signals can be detected by H V S only if they
exceed the detection threshold of HVS. According to Weber's
law[], the detection threshold of visibility for an embedded
signal is proportional to the magnitude of the background signal.
In DWT domain, the magnitude of low frequency coefficients is
much larger than that of any high frequency coefficients in
general. This means the low frequency coefficients have larger
perceptual capacity, which allows strong watermarks to be
embedded without perceptual distortion.
Third, according to the theory of signal, common image
processing procedures, which watermarked images may
encounter, such as data compression, low-pass filtering,
subsampling, D/A and A/Dconversions, tend to change the low
frequency coefficients less than high frequency coefficients.
In a summary, watermarks. should be embedded in the low
frequency wavelet coefficients first, and then in high frequency
subbands according to the visual significance of the subbands.
We conducted experiments on less complicated image Lena
and relatively more complicated image Baboon. Maintaining
the same PSNR for the watermarked images, we cast watermark
signal, a Gaussian random number sequence, into the low
frequency subband and high frequency subband, respectively.
Then, compare the visual quality of the watermarked images
with different embedding strategies. Figure 1 shows a magnified
part of Lena and demonstrates that with the same PSNR, the
LL3 watermarked image (Figure 1 (a)) is perceptually transparent
and the HL3 watermarked image (Figure 1 (b)) contains visible
distortion. This indicates that the low frequency DWT
coefficients have larger perceptual capacity.
In addition, we also conducted experiments to compare the
performance of different embedding strategies in terms of
robustness against P E G compression and additive noise. Figure
2 demonstrates that the watermark, a Gaussian random number
sequence, cast into low frequency subband is more robust than
that cast into a high frequency subband HL3. Take a look at a
pair of curves in the right side of Figure 2 (a) and (b). The curve
in solid line is watermarked Lena image with the LL,
(a) LL3watermarked image (b) HL3watermarked image
Figure 1. Comparison of invisibility
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embedding, while the curve in dashed line is the watermarked
Lena image with the HL3 embedding. There the vertical axes
are the similarities (correlations) between the extracted corrupted
watermarks and the original watermark. Similar results can be
achieved for embedding watermarks in different high frequency
subbands.
3. PREPROCESSING OF WATERMARK
Watermarking can be viewed as a digital communication
In this section, we apply some commonly used
techniques such as modulation, BCH channel coding, and 2-D
interleaving, in the communication theory to digital
watermarking in order to enhance the robustness and secrecy of
the hidden watermark. The block diagram of the proposed
watermarking algorithm is show in Figure 3.
Wdtemrarkedhg
/(X.Y)
Figure 3. The block diagram of the proposed algorithm
1
3.1 Modulation and Secret Key
To make watermark signal random and hence secret, we firstly
use a random binary sequence to modulate the watermark.
W i = W j G3 P N , , i = 0,1,2;., wi
L-1 , where is the i,,, byte of
the watermark; L, the number of bytes in the watermark; , the
mod 2 addition; and PN, a random binary sequence generated by
a secret key. Without a valid key, it will be hard for an attacker
to break the hidden data even when he knows the embedding
method.
3.2 Error Correcting Coding
To lower the detection error probability, we encode the
watermark signal by using some error correcting code.
Let W = {W;, 0 I i < L } denotes the modulated watermark
signal with a length of L. We apply the BCH code (r,8) to each
byte w! , where r denotes the length of BCH codewords. A
signal set with 256 BCH codewords, S,,,, 0Im<256, is designed
to represent 256 distinct values of a byte. Each T. ,
corresponding to a prototype signal S,, is mapped into a BCH
codeword.the determination of r is a tradeoff of capacity and the
error correcting capability. We chose r to be 61 and the generator
polynomial of BCH (61,8) in hex is:
g ( z ) = (2759262D5D506D) (I)
According to the theory of ECC[], the Hamming distance
between any two different codewords is 27. And so up to 13
random error bits can be corrected.
3.3 2-D Interleaving
Increasing the robustness of watermark signals against attacks
(e.g. StirMarkl2) is important and challenging. Among the
StirMark attack functions, the cropping and jitter attacks can be the DWT coefficient magnitude variation range during the
considered as some sort of bursts of errors. Interleaving is watermark bits embedding. Our experimental results demonstrate
commonly used in communication systems to correct bursts of that the PSNRs of the watermaiked images can be improved by
errors with some simple random error correcting codes. In order more than 2dB.
to make digital watermarking robust against bursts of errors, a
newly developed efficient 2-D interleaving has been proposed in As discussed, without the original image, the proposed algorithm
[ 131. In our algorithm, we apply this 2-D interleaving algorithm can extract the embedded watermark from a possibly distorted
to the LL3coefficients before the embedding step. watermarked image. The extraction procedure is the reverse of
the embedding procedure in figure 3.
4. WATERMARK EMBEDDING 5. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
In the proposed algorithm, we embed watermark bits by
We have tested the proposed algorithm on various images,
replacing some least significant bits of the selected DWT
coefficients in LL3 subband with the representative value of including Lena, Baboon, Goldhill, and Playboy. The
experimental results with the Lena image of 5 12 x 5 12 x 8 bits
binary 1 or 0.
are shown in Figure 5 and Table 1. The five least significant bits
Due to the constraint of watermark invisibility, the maximum are modified to embed data using Equations 2 and 3. We hide a
number of the least significant bits of a selected DWT coefficient characters string with 536 bits: Dept. of Electronics,
in the LL3 subband that can be modified to embed a watermark Zhongshan Univ., Guangzhou, Guangdong, P. R. China
bit is chosen to be five based 0
\O.The three spaces, which follow Dept., of, and
on our numerous experiments Zhongshan, respectively, and the string ending character 90
on many commonly used in the string are considered characters in our experiments.
images. In order to maximize , , ~ The PSNRs of the marked images are 44.8 dB. The marked
the watermark robustness, we
images are perceptually invisible when we compare them with
select two binary numbers 11ooOb
1 1000b and 01000b (where 24
the corresponding original image.
b denotes that the numbers The robustness of the proposed algorithm against PEG
are in binary) to represent the ioim OllWb compression and Gaussian additive noise is illustrated in Figure
bits 1 and O, respectively. lOooOb 5. The embedded character string can be error-freely retrieved
In detection procedure, we 16 from the marked images when the PSNRs of the watermarked
just examine the fifth least images corrupted by additive Gaussian noise is 32.2 dB for
Figure 4. The distance diagram
significant bit to decode the Lena, and when
ofS bits number (in binav )
embedded bit. the PSNRs of the
Let us consider the attacks applied to a watermarked image as watermarked
additive noise. We only examine the fifth least significant bit in images corrupted by 40
P E G compression
decoding. Figure 4 shows that 1 lOOOb and OlOOOb are the best
is 34.2 dB for !N
choice to represent the bits 1 and O,respectively.
But if the original five least significant bits are simply replaced
by 1 1000 or 01000, in embedding a bit 1 or 0,the range of
Lena
(compression ratio
= 16.9 ).
E

-5i
gzl \/ \ \
the DWT coefficient amplitude change, A , is from -7 to 24
We also test our
when 1 is embedded and from -23 to 8 when 0 is embedded.
In some applications, this amplitude change A may be too large,
resulting in visual distortion. Aiming at improving the
performance of invisibility while keeping the same robustness,
algorithm by the
well-known
benchmark
StirMark 3.1. The
* L A
?6
!
PSNRfdRl
Figure 5. Robustness to JPEG
we propose the following embedding method. test results for crnd Gaussian additive noise
Let us define two operators, S-LSBS (a. b) and G-LSBS (a). Lena are shown
S-LSBS (a, b) replaces the five least significant bits of a with 6. in Table 1, where BER denotes Byte Error Rate. The similar
G-LSBS ( a ) takes the five least significant bits of a. When results for other images can be obtained. It is seen that our
watermark bit 1 is to be embedded, we do the following: algorithm can successfully resist randomly removal of some
rows and some columns, which is referred to as jitter attack.
s - L s B s ( ~ ( ~-,8~, )~ ) G_LSBS(~(~.~))SB According to [12, 141, most simple spread-spectrum based
Fir(U. v) =
{ S-LSBS(e(u ,v),24) otherwise
(2)
marking techniques have been defeated by the jitter attack. It is
also shown in Table 1 that the proposed algorithm can
When watermark bit 0 is to be embedded, we do the following successfully resist JPEG compression (quality factor 30), aspect

&yu,v) =
1 S-LSBS(F,(u,v)+16,B)
SLSBS(q(u ,v),8)
G-LSBS(F,(u.v))t 24
otherwise
(3)
ratio variations, scaling (0.5 and 2.0), cropping (IO). It is noted
that our algorithm can recover embedded characters error-freely
for P E G with a quality factor as low as 30, while according to
With such an embedding method, for all the instances, the A is [ 12, 141, most of watermarking schemes break down when JPEG
-
limited within -15 +16. That is, this special measure reduces quality factor is below 50. The success achieved with our

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7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Authors appreciate, respectively, the support received from NSF
of China (6997501 I , 60172067, 60133020), NSF of Guangdong
STIRMARK PSNR 1 BER(%)
(980442, 013164), Key Project of Science and Technology of 1-row- 1-col-removed 35.49
National Education Ministry, China, Key Project of Science and 1-row-5-col-removed 33.88
Technology of Guangzhou, China, New Jersey Commission of 5-row-l -col-removed 32.04
Science and Technology via NJCMR, New Jersey Commission 17-row-5-col-removed 3 1.25
of High Education via NJ-ITOWER, and NSF via IUCRC. 5-row-l7-col-removed 3 1.18
cropping- IO. 0
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