A selective encryption for heterogenous color JPEG images based on VLC and AES stream cipher

Abstract

Nowadays, the most important engine to provide confidentiality is encryption. Therefore, the classical and modern ciphers are not suitable for huge quantity of data in real-time environment. Selective encryption (SE) is an approach to encode only the most important portion of the data in order to provide a proportional privacy and to reduce computational requirements. The objective of our work is to leave free the low-resolution image and give full-resolution access only for authorized person. This approach is based on AES stream ciphering using VLC (Variable Length Coding) of the Huffman's vector. The proposed scheme allows decryption of a specific region of image and result in a significant reduction in encrypting and decrypting processing time. It also provides a constant bit rate and keep the JPEG bit-stream compliance. We have illustrated our method on a digital painting of the Louvre Museum of Paris, France.