A technique for secure image authentication

A technique for secure image authentication is presented. It is based on a rather unconventional approach: the extremely high sensitivity of ill-posed operators to any change in the input data is turned into the tool to achieve fragile watermarking for secure image verification. Regarding general requirements for secure watermark-based authentication analytical and practical aspects of the introduced technique are discussed. It is shown that the proposed authentication schema is highly secure while providing excellent tamper localization. Several experiments were conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique when it is subject to different attacks including vector quantization counterfeiting and cropping.