Unit(s) of Assessment	Weighting Towards Module Mark( %)
unseen examination (2 hours)	60
Coursework (Project) – Assessment based on group presentation of twenty minutes (20%) and individual project report of 10 pages (80%)	40
Qualifying Condition(s)  A weighted aggregate mark of 50% is required to pass the module

With the tremendous growth of the Internet and computer technologies, and the wide usage of multimedia content such as audio, image and video data, the protection and authentication of multimedia content is becoming increasingly important to industry and government sectors, as well as for individual personal usage. Moreover, recent terrorist events such as 9/11 and London bombings further highlight the necessity of information security technologies that can be applied to detect covert communication, such as steganography (data hiding) and cryptography, as well as deploying multimodal biometric techniques that can be used to accurately identify faked passports at airports and border checkpoints. Protection of ownership and authentication of multimedia contents and documents are also attracted significant attention in the digital arena through the application of digital watermarking and digital rights management technologies.

The main aim of this module is to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the fundamentals of multimedia security technologies for multimedia content currently available in the digital arena. The module will equip students with a critical awareness of current technologies including digital steganography and its counter-measure, steganalysis, watermarking and authentication, cryptographic techniques and biometric identification. Through lab sessions students will be able to apply their theoretical understanding in developing and evaluating a digital watermarking system prototype.     

• Demonstrate a critical awareness of digital steganography and steganalysis techniques for images and text documents
• Contrast the different types of digital watermarking systems for copyright protection and authentication applications
• Describe and account for the differences in multimodal biometrics systems

The module is divided into the following areas:

• Digital steganography, steganalysis and detection techniques for images
• Digital watermarking and applications
• Multimodal biometric identification systems

30 contact hours in weeks 1-10, consisting of:

• 20 hours of lecture and example classes

Cox, I.J., Miller, M.L., Bloom, J.A. (2002), Digital Watermarking, Morgan Kaufmann Series in Multimedia Information and Systems, ISBN: 1-55860-714-5

Pfleeger, C. & Pfleeger, S. (2007), Security in Computing, fourth Edition, Prentice Hall, ISBN-13: 9780132390774

Bolle, R.M., Connell, J.H., Pankanti, S., Ratha, N.K.,Senior, A.W. (2004), Guide to Biometrics, Springer Professional Computing, ISBN-13: 978-0387400891

Bishop, M. (2004), Introduction to computer Security, Addison-Wesley, ISBN-13: 978-0321247445

Watermarking World: http://www.watermarkingworld.org/