A Symmetric Chaos-Based Image Cipher with an Improved Bit-Level Permutation Strategy

Color Image Encryption Based on an Evolutionary Codebook and Chaotic Systems

Encryption of images is an important method that can effectively improve the security and privacy of crucial image data. Existing methods generally encrypt an image with a combination of scrambling and encoding operations. Currently, many applications require highly secure results for image encryption. New methods that can achieve improved randomness for both the scrambling and encoding processes in encryption are thus needed to further enhance the security of a cipher image. This paper proposes a new method that can securely encrypt color images. As the first step of the proposed method, a complete bit-level operation is utilized to scramble the binary bits in a color image to a full extent. For the second step, the bits in the scrambled image are processed with a sweeping operation to improve the encryption security. In the final step of encryption, a codebook that varies with evolutionary operations based on several chaotic systems is utilized to encrypt the partially encrypted image obtained in the second step. Experimental results on benchmark color images suggest that this new approach can securely encrypt color images and generate cipher images that remain secure under different types of attacks. The proposed approach is compared with several other state-of-the-art encryption approaches and the results show that it can achieve improved encryption security for cipher images. Experimental results thus suggest that this new approach can possibly be utilized practically in applications where color images need to be encrypted for content protection.

Encryption of Color Images with an Evolutionary Framework Controlled by Chaotic Systems

In the past decade, a large amount of important digital data has been created and stored in the form of color images; the protection of such data from undesirable accesses has become an important problem in information security. In this paper, a new approach based on an evolutionary framework is proposed for the secure encryption of color images. The image contents in a color image are first fully scrambled with a sequence of bit-level operations determined by a number of integer keys. A scrambled image is then encrypted with keys generated from an evolutionary process controlled by a set of chaotic systems. Analysis and experiments show that the proposed approach can generate encrypted color images with high security. In addition, the performance of the proposed approach is compared with that of a few state-of-the-art approaches for color image encryption. The results of the comparison suggest that the proposed approach outperforms the other approaches in the overall security of encrypted images. The proposed approach is thus potentially useful for applications that require color image encryption.

A Note on the Reproducibility of Chaos Simulation

An evergreen scientific feature is the ability for scientific works to be reproduced. Since chaotic systems are so hard to understand analytically, numerical simulations assume a key role in their investigation. Such simulations have been considered as reproducible in many works. However, few studies have focused on the effects of the finite precision of computers on the simulation reproducibility of chaotic systems; moreover, code sharing and details on how to reproduce simulation results are not present in many investigations. In this work, a case study of reproducibility is presented in the simulation of a chaotic jerk circuit, using the software LTspice. We also employ the OSF platform to share the project associated with this paper. Tests performed with LTspice XVII on four different computers show the difficulties of simulation reproducibility by this software. We compare these results with experimental data using a normalised root mean square error in order to identify the computer with the highest prediction horizon. We also calculate the entropy of the signals to check differences among computer simulations and the practical experiment. The methodology developed is efficient in identifying the computer with better performance, which allows applying it to other cases in the literature. This investigation is fully described and available on the OSF platform.

Implementing a Chaotic Cryptosystem by Performing Parallel Computing on Embedded Systems with Multiprocessors

Profiling and parallel computing techniques in a cluster of six embedded systems with multiprocessors are introduced herein to implement a chaotic cryptosystem for digital color images. The proposed encryption method is based on stream encryption using a pseudo-random number generator with high-precision arithmetic and data processing in parallel with collective communication. The profiling and parallel computing techniques allow discovery of the optimal number of processors that are necessary to improve the efficiency of the cryptosystem. That is, the processing speed improves the time for generating chaotic sequences and execution of the encryption algorithm. In addition, the high numerical precision reduces the digital degradation in a chaotic system and increases the security levels of the cryptosystem. The security analysis confirms that the proposed cryptosystem is secure and robust against different attacks that have been widely reported in the literature. Accordingly, we highlight that the proposed encryption method is potentially feasible to be implemented in practical applications, such as modern telecommunication devices employing multiprocessors, e.g., smart phones, tablets, and in any embedded system with multi-core hardware.

A Symmetric Plaintext-Related Color Image Encryption System Based on Bit Permutation

Recently, a variety of chaos-based image encryption algorithms adopting the traditional permutation-diffusion structure have been suggested. Most of these algorithms cannot resist the powerful chosen-plaintext attack and chosen-ciphertext attack efficiently for less sensitivity to plain-image. This paper presents a symmetric color image encryption system based on plaintext-related random access bit-permutation mechanism (PRRABPM). In the proposed scheme, a new random access bit-permutation mechanism is used to shuffle 3D bit matrix transformed from an original color image, making the RGB components of the color image interact with each other. Furthermore, the key streams used in random access bit-permutation mechanism operation are extremely dependent on plain image in an ingenious way. Therefore, the encryption system is sensitive to tiny differences in key and original images, which means that it can efficiently resist chosen-plaintext attack and chosen-ciphertext attack. In the diffusion stage, the previous encrypted pixel is used to encrypt the current pixel. The simulation results show that even though the permutation-diffusion operation in our encryption scheme is performed only one time, the proposed algorithm has favorable security performance. Considering real-time applications, the encryption speed can be further improved.