Image Authentication for Low Complexity Applications

Hand-held mobile devices are having a wide spectrum of applications. Such devices which incorporate sending images of relevant legal significance require certifying the source of the image. Hand-held devices inherently have very limited energy resources. The aim of this work is to propose low energy authentication mechanism even when using public-key cryptography. We proposed a technique for fast public-key image authentication using fuzzy-computations for the El-Gamal authentication technique. The fuzzy operations are embedded in the authentication computations to sign images without performing high complexity operations such as exponentiations. The result is low complexity and low energy processing on the mobile device site. The technique is rather general and can be deployed similarly for other similar environments. The fact that power consumption/speed is becoming an essential issue for hand-held devices make this technique very promising for future applications.