A Digital Watermark Algorithm for QR Code

Abstract

Technology that combines a 2D BarCode with a digital watermark is a topic of great interest in current research related to the security field. This paper presents a new digital watermark method for the QR Code(Quick Response Code). An invisible watermark is embedded in the QR Code image using watermark technology, and while this is being done, the DCT intermediate frequency coefficients are compared. To prevent the overflow of the QR Code in the DCT domain of the image, QR image need fuzzy processing and be added noise to. In order to resist image distortion after print and scan operations, the watermark is embedded repeatedly. The watermark is extracted by using the two maximum membership degree of fuzzy pattern recognition, without the original image. Experimental results have demonstrated the feasibility of the algorithm.

Blind QR Code Steganographic Approach Based upon Error Correction Capability

“…Besides, the marked QR code of the proposed scheme still maintains a portion of error correction capability (as shown in σ) and can be used to resist certain distortions. On the other hand, the new scheme conceals the secret by flipping the QR modules rather than hiding the secret in the pixels of spatial domain [10,11]; in the coefficients of frequency domain [8,9,12,13,15]; and in the width of rows and columns of the QR image [14]. Hence, the robustness of the entire modules can be enhanced than that of the related schemes [8][9][10][11][12][13][14].…”

“…Recently, many studies have focused on providing barcode applications. In general, the applications can be classified into three categories: the image hiding [8][9][10][11], the watermarking [12][13][14][15], and the visual cryptography [7,16,17] techniques. The image hiding schemes [8][9][10][11] convert the secret to a QR code tag and then embed the secret QR tag into a cover image.…”

“…On the contrary, the watermarking schemes [12,13,15] embed the watermark into the QR code image by utilizing the transforms, such as the discrete cosine transform (DCT), discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and discrete Fourier transform (DFT). Nevertheless, the computational load of the transform operation is complex and heavy.…”

“…Based on the observation of the related QR schemes, the proposed mechanism aims to conceal the secret into a QR code directly rather than through the schemes [8][9][10][11], and to provide an efficient and feasible secret application for the low-power barcode readers [12,13,15]. In order to preserve the original QR content but also carry a larger secret payload than related works, the designed mechanism exploits the QR feature to convey the secret into QR code modules based on the concept of wet paper code [18,19].…”

“…Due to the fact that the QR code is a small image, to embed the secret into a QR code with limited size is inefficient and restricted. Most of articles are designed to embed a secret QR code into a cover image for the image hiding application [8][9][10][11], or embed a small watermark into a QR code for protecting the copyright of the QR code [12][13][14][15]. To the best of Copyright ⓒ 2013 KSII our knowledge, the secret hiding application of the QR code is limited; the proposed scheme is a novel algorithm to provide the steganography mechanism for conveying the secret information into the QR code directly.…”