A watermarking technique to secure printed QR codes using a statistical test

The QR (Quick Response) code is a two-dimensional barcode, which was designed for storage information and high-speed reading applications. Being cheap to produce and fast to read, it becomes actually a popular solution for product labeling. Ones try to make QR code a solution against counterfeiting. In this paper, we present a novel technique that permits to create a secure printed QR code which is robust against Scan & Reprint attack. The code is constructed by replacing the background of the standard one by a specific textured pattern which does not affect the normal reading of the encoded message. Scan & Reprint attacks lead to the degradation of the texture and change its statistical characteristics, which can be detected thanks to a statistical hypothesis testing. The experimental results show a good performance of the proposed solution.

[1]  Hoai Phuong Nguyen,et al.  Face spoofing attack detection based on the behavior of noises , 2016, 2016 IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing (GlobalSIP).

[2]  J. Villaseñor,et al.  A variance ratio test of fit for Gamma distributions , 2015 .

[3]  Nai Fovino Igor,et al.  Survey of techniques for fight against counterfeit goods and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) infringing , 2015 .

[4]  François Cayre,et al.  2D bar-codes for authentication: A security approach , 2012, 2012 Proceedings of the 20th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO).

[5]  Justin Picard.  Digital authentication with copy-detection patterns , 2004, IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging.

[6]  Florent Retraint,et al.  Quality factor estimation of JPEG compressed images , 2016, 2016 IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing (GlobalSIP).

[7]  Ahmet Emir Dirik,et al.  Copy detection pattern-based document protection for variable media , 2012 .

[8]  Patrick Bas,et al.  Document authentication using graphical codes: reliable performance analysis and channel optimization , 2014, EURASIP Journal on Information Security.

[9]  William Puech,et al.  Two-Level QR Code for Private Message Sharing and Document Authentication , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security.