Key-based scrambling for secure image communication

Abstract

Secure image communication is becoming increasingly important due to theft and manipulation of its content. Law enforcement agents may find it increasingly difficult to stay afloat above the ill intentions of hackers. We have been able to develop an image scrambling algorithm that is very simple to implement but almost impossible to breach with a probability less than 5×10 -300. This is possible due to the fact that a user may purchase or acquire rights for an intended image by specifying a 'key' that can form a sequence of numbers 10 to 100 in length. The content provider uses this sequence as a base in developing another key sequence to scramble the image and transmit it to the user through regular channels such as an email attachment. Since the user is the only party apart from the provider to possess the key for descrambling, any third party will not be able to descramble it successfully as will be shown in this paper. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.