Subjective perceptual image quality can be assessed in lab studies by human observers. Objective image quality assessment (IQA) refers to algorithms for estimation of the mean subjective quality ratings. Many such methods have been proposed, both for
blind IQA in which no original reference image is available as well as for the full-reference case. We compared 8 state-of-the-art algorithms for blind IQA and showed that an oracle, able to predict the best performing method for any given input image, yields a hybrid method that could outperform even the best single existing method by a large margin. In this contribution we address the research question whether established methods to learn such an oracle can improve blind IQA. We applied AutoFolio, a state-of-the-art system that trains an algorithm selector to choose a well-performing algorithm for a given instance. We also trained deep neural networks to predict the best method. Our results did not give a positive answer, algorithm selection did not yield a significant improvement over the single best method. Looking into the results in depth, we observed that the noise in images may have played a role in why our trained classifiers could not predict the oracle. This motivates the consideration of noisiness in IQA methods, a property that has so far not been observed and that opens up several interesting new research questions and applications.
This paper presents a new general framework of information hiding, in which the hidden information is embedded into a collection of activities conducted by selected human and computer entities (e.g., a number of online accounts of one or more online
social networks) in a selected digital world. Different from other traditional schemes, where the hidden information is embedded into one or more selected or generated cover objects, in the new framework the hidden information is embedded in the fact that some particular digital activities with some particular attributes took place in some particular ways in the receiver-observable digital world. In the new framework the concept of cover almost disappears, or one can say that now the whole digital world selected becomes the cover. The new framework can find applications in both security (e.g., steganography) and non-security domains (e.g., gaming). For security applications we expect that the new framework calls for completely new steganalysis techniques, which are likely more complicated, less effective and less efficient than existing ones due to the need to monitor and analyze the whole digital world constantly and in real time. A proof-of-concept system was developed as a mobile app based on Twitter activities to demonstrate the information hiding framework works. We are developing a more hybrid system involving several online social networks.
A general method for recovering missing DCT coefficients in DCT-transformed images is presented in this work. We model the DCT coefficients recovery problem as an optimization problem and recover all missing DCT coefficients via linear programming. T
he visual quality of the recovered image gradually decreases as the number of missing DCT coefficients increases. For some images, the quality is surprisingly good even when more than 10 most significant DCT coefficients are missing. When only the DC coefficient is missing, the proposed algorithm outperforms existing methods according to experimental results conducted on 200 test images. The proposed recovery method can be used for cryptanalysis of DCT based selective encryption schemes and other applications.
Motivated by the work of Uehara et al. [1], an improved method to recover DC coefficients from AC coefficients of DCT-transformed images is investigated in this work, which finds applications in cryptanalysis of selective multimedia encryption. The p
roposed under/over-flow rate minimization (FRM) method employs an optimization process to get a statistically more accurate estimation of unknown DC coefficients, thus achieving a better recovery performance. It was shown by experimental results based on 200 test images that the proposed DC recovery method significantly improves the quality of most recovered images in terms of the PSNR values and several state-of-the-art objective image quality assessment (IQA) metrics such as SSIM and MS-SSIM.
This paper analyzes the security of a recent cryptosystem based on the ergodicity property of chaotic maps. It is shown how to obtain the secret key using a chosen-ciphertext attack. Some other design weaknesses are also shown.
Recently, an image encryption scheme based on a compound chaotic sequence was proposed. In this paper, the security of the scheme is studied and the following problems are found: (1) a differential chosen-plaintext attack can break the scheme with on
ly three chosen plain-images; (2) there is a number of weak keys and some equivalent keys for encryption; (3) the scheme is not sensitive to the changes of plain-images; and (4) the compound chaotic sequence does not work as a good random number resource.
This paper analyzes the security of a recently-proposed signal encryption scheme based on a filter bank. A very critical weakness of this new signal encryption procedure is exploited in order to successfully recover the associated secret key.
Chaotic systems have been broadly exploited through the last two decades to build encryption methods. Recently, two new image encryption schemes have been proposed, where the encryption process involves a permutation operation and an XOR-like transfo
rmation of the shuffled pixels, which are controlled by three chaotic systems. This paper discusses some defects of the schemes and how to break them with a chosen-plaintext attack.
A large number of analog chaos-based secure communication systems have been proposed since the early 1990s exploiting the technique of chaos synchronization. A brief survey of these chaos-based cryptosystems and of related cryptanalytic results is gi
ven. Some recently proposed countermeasures against known attacks are also introduced.
Recently two encryption schemes were proposed by combining circular bit shift and XOR operations, under the control of a pseudorandom bit sequence (PRBS) generated from a chaotic system. This paper studies the security of these two encryption schemes
and reports the following findings: 1) there exist some security defects in both schemes; 2) the underlying chaotic PRBS can be reconstructed as an equivalent key by using only two chosen plaintexts; 3) most elements in the underlying chaotic PRBS can be obtained by a differential known-plaintext attack using only two known plaintexts. Experimental results are given to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed attack.
