Authentication and cross-recovery for multiple images

This work presents an authentication and cross-recovery scheme to protect a group of n JPEG images. Given n images, the images are scaled down and then encoded using JPEG to create n recovery data. Based on a pre-determined threshold t, 2 ≤ t < n, the n recovery data are shared to create n shadows. Next, n authentication data are generated to identify malicious attacks on the system. Additionally, the n shadows and the n authentication data are embedded in the n JPEG codes of the n original images to form n JPEG stego codes, which can be stored in a distributed storage system. Moreover, in the daily maintenance of the storage system, the authentication data concealed inside these n JPEG stego codes are used to verify which ones have been attacked. If some (up to n − t) of the n JPEG stego codes are corrupted, the corrupted JPEG images can be recovered approximately using any t survived JPEG stego codes. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Comparisons with other image recovery methods are also included.