Hybrid digital watermarking for video authentication

• US 20040131184A1
• Filed: 11/19/2003
• Published: 07/08/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: My Ez Communications, LLC
• Original Assignee: My Ez Communications, LLC
• Inventors: Wu, Zhenyu, Yan, Xiao-Hong
• Granted Patent: US 7,409,556 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 380/202
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19647 Systems specially adapted for intrusion detection in or around a vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/1966 Wireless systems, other than telephone systems, used to communicate with a camera
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19667 Details realated to data compression, encryption or encoding, e.g. resolution modes for reducing data volume to lower transmission bandwidth or memory requirements
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19673 Addition of time stamp, i.e. time metadata, to video stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2005/91335 the copy protection signal being a watermark
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8358 involving watermark protecting executable software by watermarking G06F21/16; image watermarking in general G06T1/0021; watermarks inserted in still images for transmission purposes H04N1/32144; inserting watermarks during video coding H04N19/467
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/913 for scrambling ; for copy protection

Abstract

A hybrid digital watermarking system for video authentication includes an authenticated acquisition subsystem for digitally watermarking video data and a video management subsystem in signal communication with the authenticated acquisition subsystem for verifying the digitally watermarked video data, where the authenticated acquisition subsystem may include a watermarking device for applying each of an identity signature and a control signature to the video data within a hybrid digital watermark, and the hybrid digital watermark may achieve progressively varying robustness by means of error-correcting signature coding and/or rate-distortion guided bit embedding.

Claims

1. A hybrid digital watermarking system for video authentication, the system comprising:

an authenticated acquisition subsystem for digitally watermarking video data; and

a video management subsystem in signal communication with the authenticated acquisition subsystem for verifying the digitally watermarked video data.

2. A system as defined in claim 1 wherein the video management subsystem is in intermittent signal communication with the authenticated acquisition subsystem.

3. A system as defined in claim 1, the authenticated acquisition subsystem comprising a video imaging device for acquiring original video data.

4. A system as defined in claim 1, the authenticated acquisition subsystem comprising a watermarking device for applying each of an identity signature and a control signature to the video data.

5. A system as defined in claim 4 wherein the control signature comprises fragile control bits and robust control bits.

6. A system as defined in claim 4 wherein the identity signature and the control signature are applied to the video data concurrent with real-time acquisition of the video data.

7. A system as defined in claim 4 wherein the identity signature and the control signature are embodied in a single hybrid digital watermark.

8. A system as defined in claim 7 wherein the single hybrid digital watermark achieves progressively varying robustness in a single watermark by means of at least one of error-correcting signature coding and rate-distortion guided bit embedding.

9. A system as defined in claim 1, the video management subsystem comprising a verification device for verifying a control signature and an identity signature.

10. A system as defined in claim 9 wherein the identity signature and the control signature are extracted from a single digital watermark.

11. A system as defined in claim 1, the video management subsystem comprising a watermark verifying playback device for verifying a control signature and an identity signature and displaying verified video data.

12. A system as defined in claim 11 wherein the watermark verifying playback device alerts a user to the presence of altered video content.

44. A hybrid digital watermarking system for video authentication as defined in claim 1, the system further comprising watermark means for digitally watermarking the video data.

45. A system as defined in claim 44, further comprising verification means in signal communication with the watermark means for verifying the digitally watermarked video data.

46. A system as defined in claim 45, further comprising transmission means for intermittently transmitting the digitally watermarked video data prior to verification.

47. A system as defined in claim 45, further comprising compression means for compressing the digitally watermarked video data prior to verification.

48. A system as defined in claim 47 wherein the compression means comprises encoding means for Moving Pictures Expert Group (“

MPEG”

) encoding the digitally watermarked video data prior to verification.

49. A system as defined in claim 48 wherein the encoding means comprises MPEG-2 encoder means for encoding the digitally watermarked video data prior to verification.

50. A system as defined in claim 48 wherein the encoding means comprises MPEG-4 encoder means for encoding the digitally watermarked video data prior to verification.

51. A system as defined in claim 45, further comprising imaging means for acquiring original video data.

52. A system as defined in claim 51 wherein the imaging means acquires original video data in Digital Video (“

DV”

) format.

53. A system as defined in claim 45, further comprising signature means for applying each of an identity signature and a control signature to the video data.

54. A system as defined in claim 53 wherein the signature means applies the identity signature and the control signature to the video data concurrent with real-time acquisition of the video data.

55. A system as defined in claim 53 wherein the signature means is in signal communication with the watermark means for combining the identity signature and the control signature in a single hybrid digital watermark.

56. A system as defined in claim 55, further comprising at least one of:

coding means for coding error-correcting signatures in the single hybrid digital watermark; and

embedding means in signal communication with the encoding means for embedding rate-distortion guided bits in the single hybrid digital watermark to achieve progressively varying robustness.

57. A system as defined in claim 55, further comprising verification means for verifying a control signature and an identity signature.

58. A system as defined in claim 57 wherein the verification means extracts the identity signature and the control signature from a single digital watermark.

59. A system as defined in claim 55, further comprising:

signature verification means for verifying at least one of a control signature and an identity signature; and

display means in signal communication with the signature verification means for displaying verified video data.

60. A system as defined in claim 59, further comprising alert means for producing an alert responsive to the presence of altered video content.

61. A system as defined in claim 47, the verification means comprising tamper detection means responsive to knowledge specific to the compression domain.

62. A system as defined in claim 61 wherein the compression domain comprises DCT encoded data.

63. A system as defined in claim 61 wherein the knowledge specific to the compression domain comprises at least one of spatial and temporal dependencies.

64. A system as defined in claim 61, further comprising:

likelihood means for assigning a likelihood value for possible tampering to each error block based its number of neighbors; and

temporal integration means for temporally integrating the likelihood values to compute a score map indicative of potentially tampered regions.

65. A system as defined in claim 53 wherein the signature means embeds signature bits into data blocks in accordance with a pseudo-random sequence that introduces a dependency among the blocks.

66. A system as defined in claim 65 wherein the pseudo-random sequence is generated from a data-dependent seed extracted from at least one frame.

67. A system as defined in claim 66 wherein the seed for generating the pseudo-random sequence is itself generated using a hash function.

68. A system as defined in claim 67 wherein the seed is responsive to at least one DC coefficient.

69. A system as defined in claim 68 wherein the at least one DC coefficient is coarsely quantized prior to seed generation.

13. A method of hybrid digital watermarking for video authentication, the method comprising:

digitally watermarking video data; and

verifying the digitally watermarked video data.

14. A method as defined in claim 13, further comprising intermittently transmitting the digitally watermarked video data prior to verification.

15. A method as defined in claim 13, further comprising compressing the digitally watermarked video data prior to verification.

16. A method as defined in claim 15 wherein compressing comprises Moving Pictures Expert Group (“

MPEG”

) encoding the digitally watermarked video data prior to verification.

17. A method as defined in claim 16 wherein compressing comprises MPEG-2 encoding the digitally watermarked video data prior to verification.

18. A method as defined in claim 16 wherein compressing comprises MPEG-4 encoding the digitally watermarked video data prior to verification.

19. A method as defined in claim 13, further comprising acquiring original video data.

20. A method as defined in claim 19 wherein the acquired original video data is in Digital Video (“

DV”

) format.

21. A method as defined in claim 13, further comprising applying each of an identity signature and a control signature to the video data.

22. A method as defined in claim 21 wherein the control signature comprises fragile control bits and robust control bits.

23. A method as defined in claim 21, further comprising embedding bits of the control signature into data blocks in accordance with a pseudo-random sequence that introduces a dependency among the blocks.

24. A method as defined in claim 23, further comprising:

extracting a data-dependent seed from at least one frame; and

generating the pseudo-random sequence from the extracted seed.

25. A method as defined in claim 24, further comprising generating the seed for the pseudo-random sequence in accordance with a hash function.

26. A method as defined in claim 25 wherein the seed is responsive to at least one DC coefficient.

27. A method as defined in claim 26, further comprising applying a coarse quantizer to the at least one DC coefficient prior to seed generation.

28. A method as defined in claim 27 wherein the at least one DC coefficient is selected from a plurality of data blocks having a DC coefficient value close to a quantization level of the coarse quantizer.

29. A method as defined in claim 21 wherein the identity signature and the control signature are applied to the video data concurrent with real-time acquisition of the video data.

30. A method as defined in claim 21 wherein the identity signature and the control signature are embodied in a single hybrid digital watermark.

31. A method as defined in claim 30, further comprising at least one of:

coding error-correcting signatures in the single hybrid digital watermark; and

embedding rate-distortion guided bits in the single hybrid digital watermark to achieve progressively varying robustness.

32. A method as defined in claim 13, further comprising verifying a control signature and an identity signature.

33. A method as defined in claim 32 wherein the identity signature and the control signature are extracted from a single digital watermark.

34. A method as defined in claim 13, further comprising:

verifying a control signature and an identity signature; and

displaying verified video data.

35. A method as defined in claim 34, further comprising producing an alert responsive to the presence of altered video content.

36. A method as defined in claim 15, further comprising detecting tampering in coordination with knowledge specific to the compression domain.

37. A method as defined in claim 36 wherein the compression domain comprises DCT encoded data.

38. A method as defined in claim 36 wherein the knowledge specific to the compression domain comprises at least one of spatial and temporal dependencies.

39. A method as defined in claim 36, further comprising:

assigning a likelihood value for possible tampering to each error block based its number of neighbors; and

temporally integrating the likelihood values to compute a score map indicative of potentially tampered regions.

40. A digital video data file encoded with signal data comprising a plurality of block transform coefficients, the coefficients collectively indicative of an original video data sequence with an added hybrid watermark, the watermark comprising each of an identity signature and a control signature.

41. A digital video data file as defined in claim 40 wherein the control signature comprises fragile control bits and robust control bits.

42. A digital video data file as defined in claim 40, the data file achieving progressively varying robustness in a single watermark by means of at least one of error-correcting signature coding and rate-distortion guided bit embedding.

43. A digital video data file as defined in claim 42, the data file being embodied in a Digital Video Disk (“

DVD”

).