Novel quantum watermarking algorithm based on improved least significant qubit modification for quantum audio

As one of essential multimedia in quantum networks, the copyright protection of quantum audio has gradually become an important issue in the domain of quantum information hiding in the decades. In this paper, an improved quantum watermarking algorithm based on quantum audio by using least significant qubit (LSQb) modification is proposed. Compared with the previous achievements, it can effectively improve the robustness and security of watermark for copyright protection of quantum audio. In the new algorithm, the least significant bites and the peripheral least significant bits of the amplitudes are modified in terms of their logical consistency and correlation to enhance watermark robustness of resisting various illegal attacks. Furthermore, the new algorithm can avoid the weak robustness defect of many previous algorithms that directly embedded the watermark into the least significant bits. In order to implement the new algorithm, some specific quantum circuits are designed to obtain better applicability and scalability for embedding and extracting watermark. Finally, the simulation results including the values of audio waveforms and signal to noise ratios (SNR) prove that the new algorithm has good transparency, robustness, and security.