A novel dual purpose spatial domain algorithm for digital image watermarking and cryptography using Extended Hamming Code

The tremendous growth of internet in the recent years has made possible easier copying, manipulation and redistribution of digital media. As a result, the problem of security and copyright violation has greatly increased. To combat this problem, mechanisms like watermarking and cryptography are required. In this paper we have proposed a dual purpose spatial domain robust algorithm for both image cryptography and digital image watermarking where a key is generated using `Extended Hamming Code´ to make the code self-correcting. A comparative study of the proposed algorithm with other spatial domain algorithms in terms of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Normalized Correlation (NC) claims better performance in terms of robustness and imperceptibility. Cryptographic performance analysis shows that the algorithm is secure, consistent and fast to perform transmission of binary messages.