Digital product transaction mechanism for electronic auction environment

Yen, C.-T.; Wu, T.-C.; Guo, M.-H.; Yang, C.-K.; Chao, H.-C.; Information Security, IET Volume: 4 , Issue: 4 Digital Object Identifier: 10.1049/iet-ifs.2009.0250 Publication Year: 2010 , Page(s): 248 - 257 IET Journals Abstract | Full Text: PDF (481 KB)

The rapid development in electronic commerce and information technology drives the traditional physical product trading evolved to digital product trading. With the effect of the multi-agents system in the Internet environment and the promotions of Government, digital product industry grows fast. The authors proposed a digital product transaction mechanism for electronic auction in the multi-agents system environment. The research introduced a convenient platform to protect the privacies of both buyers and sellers, and track digital product further in an electronic auction environment. In addition, by using simple cryptography techniques supplemented with encryption, the authors ensure the security of information transactions, thereby providing a mechanism of safe and fair digital product electronic auction. Read More

Near-Optimal Codes for Information Embedding in Gray-Scale Signals

Weiming Zhang; Xinpeng Zhang; Shuozhong Wang; Information Theory, IEEE Transactions on Volume: 56 , Issue: 3 Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TIT.2009.2039087 Publication Year: 2010 , Page(s): 1262 - 1270 Cited by: 1 IEEE Journals Abstract | Full Text: PDF (262 KB)

High-performance steganography requires large embedding rate and small distortion, i.e., high embedding efficiency. Steganographic codes (stego-codes) derived from covering codes can improve embedding efficiency. In this paper, a new method is proposed to construct binary stego-codes for LSB embedding in gray-scale signals, which shows that not just one but a family of stego-codes can be generated from a covering code by combining Hamming codes and wet paper codes. This method can greatly expand the set of embedding schemes as applied to

steganography. Performances of stego-code families (SCF) of structured codes and random codes are analyzed. SCFs of random codes can approach the rate-distortion bound on LSB embedding for any chosen embedding rate. Furthermore, SCFs are modified for applications in 1 embedding, and a treble layered embedding method for 2 embedding is obtained. By combining the modified SCFs and the treble layered method, a near-optimal scheme for 2 embedding is presented.

Skin tone enhancement and background change for mobile phones

Jong-Ho Lee; Jin Heo; Yo-Sung Ho; Consumer Electronics, IEEE Transactions on Volume: 56 , Issue: 4 Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TCE.2010.5681161 Publication Year: 2010 , Page(s): 2719 - 2726 IEEE Journals Abstract | Full Text: PDF (847 KB)

In this paper, we propose skin tone enhancement and background change algorithms for mobile phones. It is important to obtain natural results in skin tone enhancement and background change since only parts of an image, skin tone and background, are changed artificially. Moreover, since our target is a mobile application, the algorithm should be fast to satisfy mobile users and require small memory space to meet limited mobile conditions. From the experiments, we verified that the proposed algorithm generates the result images of people whose skin tone is enhanced to the preferred skin color and the original background is changed to other ones such that the foreground and the background are harmonized well. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm works fast, so it takes about 0.15 seconds with 360 480 images in our test conditions.

Fidelity-Aware Replication for Mobile Devices

Ramasubramanian, V.; Veeraraghavan, K.; Puttaswamy, K.P.N.; Rodeheffer, T.L.; Terry, D.B.; Wobber, T.; Mobile Computing, IEEE Transactions on Volume: 9 , Issue: 12 Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TMC.2010.118 Publication Year: 2010 , Page(s): 1697 - 1712 IEEE Journals Abstract | Full Text: PDF (3283 KB)

Mobile devices often store data in reduced resolutions or custom formats in order to accommodate resource constraints and tailor-made software. The Polyjuz framework enables sharing and synchronization of data across a collection of personal devices that use formats of different fidelity. Layered transparently between the application and an off-the-shelf replication platform, Polyjuz bridges the isolated worlds of different data formats. With Polyjuz, data items created or updated on high-fidelity devices-such as laptops and desktops-are automatically replicated onto low-fidelity, mobile devices. Similarly, data items updated on low-fidelity devices are reintegrated with their high-fidelity counterparts when possible. Polyjuz performs these fidelity reductions and reintegrations as devices exchange data in a peer-to-peer manner, ultimately extending the eventual-consistency guarantee of the underlying replication platform to the multifidelity universe. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of Polyjuz and demonstrate its benefits for fidelity-aware contacts management and picture sharing applications.

Secure and Inclusive Authentication with a Talking Mobile One-Time-Password Client

Fuglerud, K.; Dale, O.; Security & Privacy, IEEE Volume: 9 , Issue: 2 Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/MSP.2010.204 Publication Year: 2011 , Page(s): 27 - 34 IEEE Journals Abstract | Full Text: PDF (1929 KB)

Cumbersome and complicated authentication procedures to access sensitive online services such as Internet banking can be a nuisance. For people with disabilities or the elderly, poorly designed identity management systems can preclude usage altogether. This article presents a secure and accessible multimodal authentication method to log in to an Internet banking service. The method uses a one-time-password (OTP) client installed on a mobile phone that replaces dedicated OTP generators. The client provides both visual and auditory output, and is based on an application approved for secure log-in to sensitive online services. It allows usage by people whose functional impairments adversely affect their ability to use existing solutions. The authors also discuss implications for development, and make several recommendations for designing usable and accessible security applications and solutions.

Reversible data hiding with histogram-based difference expansion for QR code applications
Hsiang-Cheh Huang; Feng-Cheng Chang; Wai-Chi Fang; Consumer Electronics, IEEE Transactions on

Volume: 57 , Issue: 2 Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TCE.2011.5955222 Publication Year: 2011 , Page(s): 779 - 787 IEEE Journals Abstract | Full Text: PDF (4083 KB)

In this paper, we propose a new algorithm in reversible data hiding, with the application associated with the quick response (QR) codes. QR codes are random patterns, which can be commonly observed on the corner of posters or webpages. The goal of QR codes aims at convenienceoriented applications for mobile phone users. People can use the mobile phone cameras to capture QR code at the corner of web page, and then the hyperlink corresponding to the QR code can be accessed instantly. Since QR code looks like random noise and it occupies a corner of the original image, its existence can greatly reduce the value of the original content. Thus, how to retain the value of original image, while keeping the capability for the instant access for webpages, would be the major concern of this paper. With the aid of our reversible data hiding technique, the QR codes can be hidden into the original image, and considerable increase in embedding capacity can be expected. Next, we propose a scheme such that when the image containing the QR code is browsed, the hyperlink corresponding to the QR code is accessed first. Then, the QR code could get vanished and the original image would be recovered to retain the information conveyed therein. Simulation results demonstrate the applicability of the proposed algorithm.

Digital Image Authentication From JPEG Headers

Kee, E.; Johnson, M. K.; Farid, H.; Information Forensics and Security, IEEE Transactions on Volume: 6 , Issue: 3 , Part: 2 Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TIFS.2011.2128309 Publication Year: 2011 , Page(s): 1066 - 1075 IEEE Journals Abstract | Full Text: PDF (1443 KB)

It is often desirable to determine if an image has been modified in any way from its original recording. The JPEG format affords engineers many implementation trade-offs which give rise to widely varying JPEG headers. We exploit these variations for image authentication. A camera signature is extracted from a JPEG image consisting of information about quantization tables, Huffman codes, thumbnails, and exchangeable image file format (EXIF). We show that this

signature is highly distinct across 1.3 million images spanning 773 different cameras and cell phones. Specifically, 62% of images have a signature that is unique to a single camera, 80% of images have a signature that is shared by three or fewer cameras, and 99% of images have a signature that is unique to a single manufacturer. The signature of Adobe Photoshop is also shown to be unique relative to all 773 cameras. These signatures are simple to extract and offer an efficient method to establish the authenticity of a digital image.

Energy-Efficient VoIP over Wireless LANs

Namboodiri, V.; Lixin Gao; Mobile Computing, IEEE Transactions on Volume: 9 , Issue: 4 Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TMC.2009.150 Publication Year: 2010 , Page(s): 566 - 581 Cited by: 1 IEEE Journals Abstract | Full Text: PDF (2862 KB)

Emerging dual-mode phones incorporate a wireless LAN (WLAN) interface along with the traditional cellular interface. The additional benefits of the WLAN interface are, however, likely to be outweighed by its greater rate of energy consumption. This is especially of concern when real-time applications, that result in continuous traffic, are involved. WLAN radios typically conserve energy by staying in sleep mode. With real-time applications like voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), this can be challenging since packets delayed above a threshold are lost. Moreover, the continuous nature of traffic makes it difficult for the radio to stay in the lower power sleep mode enough to reduce energy consumption significantly. In this work, we propose the GreenCall algorithm to derive sleep/wake-up schedules for the WLAN radio to save energy during VoIP calls while ensuring that application quality is preserved within acceptable levels of users. We evaluate GreenCall on commodity hardware and study its performance over diverse network paths and describe our experiences in the process. We further extensively investigate the effect of different application parameters on possible energy savings through trace-based simulations. We show that, in spite of the interactive, real-time nature of voice, energy consumption during calls can be reduced by close to 80 percent in most instances.