A fast MPEG video encryption algorithm

Abstract

Multimedia data security is important for multimedia commerce. Previous cryptography studies have focused on text data. The encryption algorithms developed to secure text data may not be suitable to multimedia applications because of large data sizes and real time constraint. For multimedia applications, light weight encryption algorithms are attractive. We present a novel MPEG "Video Encryption Algorithm, called VEA- The basic idea of VEA is to use a secret key randomly changing the sign bits of all of the DCT coefficients of MPEG video. VEA's encryption effects are achieved by the IDCT during MPEG video decompression processing. VEA adds minimum overhead to MPEG codec, one bitwise XOR operation to each none zero DCT coefficient. A software implementation of VEA is fast enough to meet the real time requirement of MPEG video applications. Our experimental results show that VEA achieves satisfying results. We believe that it can be used to secure video-on-demand, video conferencing and video email applications. © 1998 ACM.