An Authentication Method for Digital Audio Using a Discrete Wavelet Transform

Yasunari Yoshitomi, Taro Asada, Yohei Kinugawa, Masayoshi Tabuse

.

DOI: 10.4236/jis.2011.22006                

Abstract

Recently, several digital watermarking techniques have been proposed for hiding data in the frequency domain of audio files in order to protect their copyrights. In general, there is a tradeoff between the quality of watermarked audio and the tolerance of watermarks to signal processing methods, such as compression. In previous research, we simultaneously improved the performance of both by developing a multipurpose optimization problem for deciding the positions of watermarks in the frequency domain of audio data and obtaining a near-optimum solution to the problem. This solution was obtained using a wavelet transform and a genetic algorithm. However, obtaining the near-optimum solution was very time consuming. To overcome this issue essentially, we have developed an authentication method for digital audio using a discrete wavelet transform. In contrast to digital watermarking, no additional information is inserted into the original audio by the proposed method, and the audio is authenticated using features extracted by the wavelet transform and characteristic coding in the proposed method. Accordingly, one can always use copyright-protected original audio. The experimental results show that the method has high tolerance of authentication to all types of MP3, AAC, and WMA compression. In addition, the processing time of the method is acceptable for every-day use.

Keywords

Authentication, Audio, Copyright Protection, Tolerance to Compression, Wavelet Transforms

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	D. Kirovski and H. S. Malvar, “Spread-Spectrum Watermarking of Audio Signals,” IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 51, No. 4, April 2003, pp. 1020-1033. doi:10.1109/TSP.2003.809384
[2]	K. Yeo and H. J. Kim, “Modified Patchwork Algorithm: A Novel Audio Watermarking Scheme,” IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing, Vol. 11, No. 4, July 2003, pp. 381-386.
[3]	S. Wu, J. Huang, D. Huang and Y. Q. Shi, “Efficiently Self-synchronized Audio Watermarking for Assured Audio Data Transmission,” IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, Vol. 51, No. 1, March 2005, pp. 69-76. doi:10.1109/TBC.2004.838265
[4]	X. Y. Wang and H. Zhao, “A Novel Synchronization Invariant Audio Watermarking Scheme Based on DWT and DCT,” IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 54, No. 12, December 2006, pp. 4835-4840. doi:10.1109/TSP.2006.881258
[5]	S. Xiang and J. Huang, “Histogram-based Audio Watermarking against Time-scale Modification and Cropping Attacks,” IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, Vol. 9, No. 7, November 2007, pp. 1357-1372. doi:10.1109/TMM.2007.906580
[6]	S. Kirbiz, A. N. Lemma, M. U. Celik and S. Katzenbeisser, “Decode-Time Forensic Watermarking of AAC Bitstreams,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, Vol. 2, No. 4, December 2007, pp. 683-696. doi:10.1109/TIFS.2007.908194
[7]	D. J. Coumou and G. Sharma, “Insertion, Deletion Codes with Fea-ture-Based Embedding: A New Paradigm for Watermark Syn-chronization with Applications to Speech Watermarking,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, Vol. 3, No. 2, June 2008, pp. 153-165. doi:10.1109/TIFS.2008.920728
[8]	S. Xianga, H. J. Kimb and J. Huanga, “Audio Watermarking Robust against Time-Scale Modification and MP3 Compression,” Signal Processing, Vol. 88, No. 10, October 2008, pp. 2372-2387. doi:10.1016/j.sigpro.2008.03.019
[9]	X. Y. Wang, P. P. Niu and H. Y. Yang, “A Robust, Digital-audio Watermarking Me-thod,” IEEE Multimedia, Vol. 16, No. 3, July 2009, pp. 60- 69. doi:10.1109/MMUL.2009.44
[10]	N. K. Kalantari, M. A. Ak-haee, S. M. Ahadi and H. Amindavar, “Robust Multiplicative Patchwork Method for Audio Watermarking,” IEEE Transac-tions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, Vol. 17, No. 6, August 2009, pp. 1133-1141.
[11]	X. Y. Wanga, P. P. Niub and H. Y. Yangb, “A Robust Digital Audio Watermarking Based on Statistics Characteristics,” Pattern Recognition, Vol. 42, No. 11, November 2009, pp. 3057-3064. doi:10.1016/j.patcog.2009.01.015
[12]	K. Yamamoto and M. Iwakiri, “Real-Time Audio Watermarking Based on Characte-ristics of PCM in Digital Instrument,” Journal of Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 2010, pp. 59-71.
[13]	S. Murata, Y. Yoshitomi and H. Ishii, “Optimization of Embedding Position in an Audio Watermarking Method Using Wavelet Transform,” In Abstracts of Autumn Research Presentation Forums of ORSJ, In Japanese, October 2007, pp. 210-211.
[14]	S. Murata, “Optimization of Embed-ding Position in an Audio Watermarking Method Using Wavelet Transform,” Master’s Thesis, Osaka University, Suita, In Japanese, 2006, pp. 53.
[15]	D. Inoue and Y. Yoshitomi, “Watermarking Using Wavelet Transform and Genetic Algo-rithm for Realizing High Tolerance to Image Compression,” Journal of the IIEEJ, Vol. 38, No. 2, March 2009, pp. 136-144.
[16]	M. Shino, Y. Choi and K. Aizawa, “Wavelet Domain Digital Watermarking Based on Threshold-variable Decision,” Technical Report of IEICE, DSP2000-86, In Japa-nese, Vol. 100, No. 325, September 2000, pp. 29-34.
[17]	M. Goto, H. Hashiguchi, T. Nishimura and R. Oka, “RWC Music Database: Database of Copyright-Cleared Musical Pieces and Instrument Sounds for Research Purposes,” Transactions of IPSJ, In Japanese, Vol. 45, No. 3, March 2004, pp. 728-738.
[18]	M. Tanaka and Y. Yoshitomi, “Optimization Problem for Embedding Position in an Audio Watermarking Based on Logarithmic Amplitude Modification for Rea-lizing High Tolerance to MP3 Compression,” In Abstracts of Autumn Research Presentation Forums of ORSJ, In Japanese, September 2006, pp. 70-71.
[19]	M. Tanaka and Y. Yoshitomi, “Digital Audio Watermarking Method with MP3 Tolerance Using Genetic Algorithm,” Proceedings of 11th Czech-Japan Seminar on Data Analysis and Decision Making Under Uncer-tainty, Sendai, September 2008, pp. 81-85.
[20]	R. Tachibana, “Capacity Analysis of Audio Watermarking Based on Loga-rithmic Amplitude Modification against Additive Noise,” IEICE Transactions on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences, In Japanese, Vol. J86-A, No. 11, November 2003, pp. 1197-1206.