Title: A two-tier scheme for greyscale quantum image watermarking and recovery

Authors: Abdullah M. Iliyasu; Phuc Q. Le; Fei Yan; Bo Sun; Jesus A.S. Garcia; Fangyan Dong; Kaoru Hirota

Addresses: Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, G3-49, 4259 Nagatsuta Midori-ku, 226-8502, Yokohama, Japan ' Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, G3-49, 4259 Nagatsuta Midori-ku, 226-8502, Yokohama, Japan ' Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, G3-49, 4259 Nagatsuta Midori-ku, 226-8502, Yokohama, Japan ' Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, G3-49, 4259 Nagatsuta Midori-ku, 226-8502, Yokohama, Japan ' Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, G3-49, 4259 Nagatsuta Midori-ku, 226-8502, Yokohama, Japan ' Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, G3-49, 4259 Nagatsuta Midori-ku, 226-8502, Yokohama, Japan ' Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, G3-49, 4259 Nagatsuta Midori-ku, 226-8502, Yokohama, Japan

Abstract: A scheme is proposed to watermark and recover unmarked greyscale images on quantum computers. The hitherto inaccessible data from a quantum image-watermark pair is extracted from their classical (conventional or non-quantum) versions using which two quantum sub-circuits are used to execute the two-tier transformations comprising of changes that: 1) embed a visible and translucent watermark logo in a predetermined sub-area of the quantum replica of the cover image; 2) modify the remaining content of the cover image in a manner dictated by the watermark signal, so that the resulting distortions on the watermarked image are not easily discernible. Classical simulations of the image-watermark pairs and the various sub-circuits required to obtain the marked and unmarked images demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed scheme when the necessary quantum hardware are realised. The proposal advances available literature geared towards safeguarding quantum resources from unauthorised reproduction and confirmation of their proprietorship in cases of dispute thereby leading to commercial applications of quantum information.

Keywords: quantum compting; quantum images; greyscale images; human visual system; HVS; colour angle; visible watermarking; watermark recovery; watermark circuit; image recovery; simulation; unauthorised reproduction; proprietorship; quantum information; security.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICA.2013.053179

International Journal of Innovative Computing and Applications, 2013 Vol.5 No.2, pp.85 - 101

Received: 12 Nov 2011
Accepted: 01 May 2012
Published online: 31 Jul 2014 *

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