The widespread use of image, audio, and video data makes media content protection increasingly necessary and urgent. For maximum safety, it is no longer sufficient to merely control access rights. In order to fully protect multimedia data from piracy or unauthorized use, it must be secured through encryption prior to its transmission or distribution. Multimedia Content Encryption: Techniques and Applications presents the latest research results in this dynamic field.

The book begins with the history of multimedia encryption and then examines general performance requirements of encryption and fundamental encrypting techniques. It discusses common techniques of complete, partial, and compression-combined encryption; as well as the more specialized forms, including perception, scalable, and commutative encryption. In addition, the author reviews watermarking and joint fingerprint embedding and decryption. Later chapters discuss typical attacks on multimedia encryption, as well as the principles for designing secure algorithms and various applications. An exploration of open issues, up-and-coming topics, and areas for further research rounds out the coverage.

Shiguo Lian is the author or co-author of more than fifty peer-reviewed journal and conference articles covering topics of network security and multimedia content protection, including cryptography, secure P2P content sharing, digital rights management (DRM), encryption, watermarking, digital fingerprinting, and authentication. By following the techniques outlined in this book, users will be better able to protect the integrity of their multimedia data and develop greater confidence that their data will not be misappropriated.