An Algorithm for Fragile Audio Watermarking by Bit Modification

Audio sample bit modification for steganography and watermarking is a viable technique with a simple time domain procedure. While high bit index is needed for robustly carrying hidden data in the presence of noise and low level attacks, an indication of tampering or verification of authenticity of received audio can be ensured using a fragile watermark spread throughout the audio. In this paper, an audio watermarking procedure for hiding an imperceptible and fragile watermark using bit modification is presented. Altering or attacking the watermarked audio, simulated by adding Gaussian noise, showed that the watermark was lost at an SNR of no less than 100 dB for a noise-free speech from the TIMIT database or for a noisy audio from communication from an aircraft cockpit, even when the perceptual quality of the audio in both cases remained the same as the original audio.