Nour El-Houda GOLEA and Kamal Eddine MELKEMI, University of Batna2, Algeria

In this paper, we have proposed a novel feature-based fragile watermarking scheme for image authentication. The proposed technique extracts Feature Points (FP) by performing the Harris corner detector and used them as germs to decomposes the host image in segments using Voronoi Diagram (VD). The authentication of each segment is guaranteed by using the Cyclic Redundancy Check code (CRC). Then, the CRC encoding procedure is applied to each segment to generate the watermark. Voronoi decomposition is employed because it has a good retrieval performance compared to similar geometrical decomposition algorithms. The security aspect of our proposed method is achieved by using the public key crypto-system RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) to encrypt the FP. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of our approach in terms of imperceptibility, the capability of detection of alterations, the capacity of embedding, and computation time. We have also prove the impact of VD decomposition on the quality of the watermarked image compared to block decomposition. The proposed method can be applicable in the case where the tamper detection is critical and only some regions of interest must be re-transmitted if they are corrupted, like in the case of medical images. An example of the application of our approach to medical image is briefly presented.

Fragile watermarking, feature-based image watermarking, image authentication, Voronoi diagram (VD).