Performance analysis of a 2-D-multipulse amplitude modulation scheme for data hiding and watermarking of still images

A watermarking scheme for copyright protection of still images is modeled and analyzed. In this scheme a signal following a key-dependent two-dimensional multipulse modulation is added to the image for ownership enforcement purposes. The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of an analytical point of view to the estimation of performance measurements. Two topics are covered in the analysis: the ownership verification process, also called watermark detection test, and the data hiding process. In the first case, bounds and approximations to the receiver operating characteristic are derived. These results can be used to determine the threshold associated to a required probability of false alarm and the corresponding probability of detection. The data hiding process is modeled as a communications system and approximations for the bit error rate are derived. Finally, analytical expressions are contrasted with experimental results.