ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on digital watermarking and digital steganography. Digital watermarking has been proposed as a suitable tool for identifying the source, creator, owner, distributor, or authorized consumer of a document or an image. Digital steganography aims at hiding digital information in covert channels so that one can conceal the information and prevent the detection of the hidden message. For digital steganographic systems, the fundamental requirement is that the stego-image be perceptually indistinguishable to the degree that it does not raise suspicion. The chapter also presents differences between watermarking and steganography. Watermarking mainly deals with image authentication, whereas steganography deals with hiding data. Embedded watermarking messages usually pertain to host image information such as copyright, so they are bound with the cover image. The digitization of our world has supplemented traditional watermarking with digital forms. While paper watermarks were originally used to differentiate between different manufacturers, today's digital watermarks have more widespread uses.