Omar Tayan

An enhanced Kashida-based watermarking approach for Arabic text-documents

Rapid advancements in communication technologies have enabled the digital community to benefit from the advantages of fast and simple digital information exchange over the internet. Such benefits, however, come in-hand with the problems and threats associated with ensuring digital copyright protection preventing digital counterfeiting, proof-of-authentication, tamper-detection, and content-originality verification for multimedia digital content. These issues have been largely addressed in the literature for the case of image, audio, and video, with notably less emphasis on addressing the challenge of text media. With text being the predominant communication medium on the internet, it is clear that more attention is required to secure and protect text document. In this work, invisible watermarking technique based on Kashida-marks is proposed. The watermarking key is predefined whereby a Kashida (redundant Arabic character extension) is placed for a bit 1 and omitted for a bit O. By going through the document, Kashidas are inserted before a specific list of characters (***) until the end of the key is reached. If the end of the document is not reached then we repeat the key-embedding for the remainder of the document in a round robin fashion until the end. In comparison to other Kashida methods in the literature, our proposed technique proved to achieve our goal of document protection and authenticity with enhanced robustness and improved perceptual similarity with the original cover-text.

A Hybrid Digital-Signature and Zero-Watermarking Approach for Authentication and Protection of Sensitive Electronic Documents

This paper addresses the problems and threats associated with verification of integrity, proof of authenticity, tamper detection, and copyright protection for digital-text content. Such issues were largely addressed in the literature for images, audio, and video, with only a few papers addressing the challenge of sensitive plain-text media under known constraints. Specifically, with text as the predominant online communication medium, it becomes crucial that techniques are deployed to protect such information. A number of digital-signature, hashing, and watermarking schemes have been proposed that essentially bind source data or embed invisible data in a cover media to achieve its goal. While many such complex schemes with resource redundancies are sufficient in offline and less-sensitive texts, this paper proposes a hybrid approach based on zero-watermarking and digital-signature-like manipulations for sensitive text documents in order to achieve content originality and integrity verification without physically modifying the cover text in anyway. The proposed algorithm was implemented and shown to be robust against undetected content modifications and is capable of confirming proof of originality whilst detecting and locating deliberate/nondeliberate tampering. Additionally, enhancements in resource utilisation and reduced redundancies were achieved in comparison to traditional encryption-based approaches. Finally, analysis and remarks are made about the current state of the art, and future research issues are discussed under the given constraints.

Preserving Content Integrity of Digital Holy Quran: Survey and Open Challenges

In recent years, a new trend has come up, which is that of reading the digital Quran online. This text was revealed more than 1400 years ago in the Arabic language and has been protected from all possible ways of distortion until today. Unfortunately, driven by the desire to make profit or gain publicity, fraudsters have started modifying certain Quranic verses. These alterations are misleading many people who are thus deprived of the original and accurate message of the Holy Quran. This paper focuses on systematically analyzing and categorizing existing research related to preserving and verifying the content integrity of the Quran. This paper further assesses these existing studies in terms of their evaluation parameters and findings. We find that the existing studies can be classified according to their format and methods, i.e., the online formats in which the Quranic content is available, methods employed to protect the Quranic content from modification, and last methods of verification. This paper concludes with the issue of future challenges and their possible solutions.

Concepts and Tools for Protecting Sensitive Data in the IT Industry: A Review of Trends, Challenges and Mechanisms for Data-Protection

Advancements in storage, dissemination and access of multimedia data content on the Internet continues to grow at exponential rates, while individuals, organizations and governments spend huge efforts to exert their fingerprint in this information age through the use of online multimedia resources to propagate thoughts, services, policies, ecommerce and other types of information. Furthermore, information at different levels may be classified into confidential, sensitive and critical data types. Such data has been subject to numerous tools and techniques for providing automated information processing, information management and storage mechanisms. Consequently, numerous security tools and techniques have also emerged for the protection of data at the various organizational levels and according to different requirements. This paper discusses three important types of information security aspects that includes; data-storage, in-transit data and data access-prevention for unauthorized users. In particular, the paper reviews and presents the latest trends and most common challenges in information security with regards to data-breaches and vulnerabilities found in industry today using simple brief summaries for the benefit of IT practitioners and academics. Thereafter, state-of-the-art techniques used to secure information content commonly required in applications-software, in-house operations software or websites are given. Mechanisms for enhancing data-protection under the given set of challenges and vulnerabilities are also discussed. Finally, the importance of using information security policies and standards for protecting organizational data content is discussed along with foreseeable open issues for future work.

Design and Architecture of a Location and Time-based Mobile-Learning System: A Case-Study for Interactive Islamic Content

This paper describes a software design, architecture and process of a novel mobile-learning (m-Learning) approach based on smart-phone devices for retrieving relevant content in real-time based on the user’s-location and the current-time and presenting the content to the user in a manner that support portable learning on-the-move. Mobile-learning using Islamic content is used as a case-study of the proposed system, which can easily be adapted for other learning-content. The proposed system is highly interactive and frequently purges the host-device for details of the current user-location and current-time (e.g. the time, day and month in the solar and the lunar calendars) before such details are used to retrieve the most relevant content. In this study, Quranic-verses, corresponding interpretations (Tafseer) and Hadith (Prophetic words or actions) relates to the online content being fetched in this application. For example, a user may be performing some travel/pilgrimage during Ramadan, in which the relevant content/teachings (based on the user’s location and the current time) are presented to the user in a timely manner in order to learn the rituals of that day or location. The information fetched is then presented and displayed in an interactive user-friendly manner. A summary and comparative analysis of some related applications is presented, showing the limitations of other m-Learning applications and demonstrating the new contribution of our architecture design. Finally, the described system allows authorized scholars to upload and report Islamic-decrees made in real-time based on findings/experience at a particular time and/or location-of-interest (e.g. the new rulings/decrees are then published online in real-time). It is anticipated that millions of end-users shall benefit from the proposed system through the benefits of fast, highly-accessible, user-friendly and relevant information retrieved online in real-time. Advantageously, the potential application and large impact of the proposed m-Learning approach for use with other learning-content/courses is notable.

Analysis of a Transportation System With Correlated Network Intersections: A Case Study for a Central Urban City With High Seasonal Fluctuation Trends

Intelligent transportation systems (ITSs) providing efficient road-transportation strategies have recently become a very active research area. Efficient transportation of visitors to/from highly congested sites is one of the most important challenges addressed by ITS. A transportation-system analysis is presented here and is applied on an urban city ring road network that encompasses a major attraction site characterized by correlated network-intersections and large vehicle-pedestrian movement conflicts. The presented model analysis first examines the influences exerted by network-correlations at intersection-points, and second, presents case-study evacuation scenarios examined under varying circumstances and flow-requirements within each segment of the modeled network. The significance of this paper is clearly evident in emergency/evacuation scenarios or in design considerations in which the influence of correlated network-intersections must be known beforehand. As a main contribution, a mathematical model was developed with simulations evaluating the current system using real-life data as statistical input to our model. Results had demonstrated the counter-propagation effect between adjacent intersections along the ring road of an urban congested city. Furthermore, the study modeled and investigated two emergency-evacuation scenarios within chosen segments at road network sites entering and exiting the central area in order to demonstrate how efficient evacuation can be conducted during an emergency scenario. It is expected that the results of this model can also be extended and applied for evacuation analyses for other sites with similar practical conditions or in other congested cities in which correlated intersections have a significant presence that must be included in the real-life analysis of a transportation system.

Quran-on-Chip (QoC): An Embedded System Framework and Design for Electronic Quran Dissemination for Internet-Enabled Devices

This paper demonstrates the concept of applied and embedded system design for authentic Quran propagation within a single-chip by embedding the digital Quran content onto an ARM micro controller that provides programming and playing capabilities for the publisher/manufacturer with only playing/reading functionality for end-user devices. Significantly, such functionality can be easily deployed by integrating the Quran-on-Chip (QoC) subsystem within future multimedia product designs or via USB communications for present devices. Quran multimedia content is embedded/programmed using the Embedded-C language, with the advantage that the developed program is also compatible for embedding in other micro controller architectures. Significantly, this paper presents a complete framework for the QoC design approach with the results of implementation being demonstrated. Finally, an outlook into the prospect of embedded-system design for multimedia Quran dissemination shall be explored with comments on challenges and opportunities for future work.

Residual-based approach for authenticating pattern of multi-style diacritical Arabic texts

Arabic script is highly sensitive to changes in meaning with respect to the accurate arrangement of diacritics and other related symbols. The most sensitive Arabic text available online is the Digital Qur’an, the sacred book of Revelation in Islam that all Muslims including non-Arabs recite as part of their worship. Due to the different characteristics of the Arabic letters like diacritics (punctuation symbols), kashida (extended letters) and other symbols, it is written and available in different styles like Kufi, Naskh, Thuluth, Uthmani, etc. As social media has become part of our daily life, posting downloaded Qur’anic verses from the web is common. This leads to the problem of authenticating the selected Qur’anic passages available in different styles. This paper presents a residual approach for authenticating Uthmani and plain Qur’an verses using one common database. Residual (difference) is obtained by analyzing the differences between Uthmani and plain Quranic styles using XOR operation. Based on predefined data, the proposed approach converts Uthmani text into plain text. Furthermore, we propose to use the Tuned BM algorithm (BMT) exact pattern matching algorithm to verify the substituted Uthmani verse with a given database of plain Qur’anic style. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is useful and effective in authenticating multi-style texts of the Qur’an with 87.1% accuracy.

A secure framework for digital Quran certification

This paper presents a digital Quran certification framework by utilizing modern digital authentication and certification techniques to certify and authenticate digital Quran applications available in multimedia format. A certification authority and a religious panel scrutinize the certification process and upon fulfillment of all the requirements, a digital certificate is issued to the digital Quran application. A general consumer of the service can easily verify the issued digital certificate in an online manner. The presented framework aims at diminishing the chances of modifying digital contents of the holy book for its consumers belief and trust.

Authenticating Sensitive Speech-Recitation in Distance-Learning Applications using Real-Time Audio Watermarking

Thispaper focuses on audio-watermarking authentication and integrity-protection within the context of the speech-data transmitted over the Internet in a real-time learning environment.The Arabic Quran recitation through distance learning is used as a case-study example that is characteristic of sensitive data requiring robust authentication and integrity measures. Thisworkproposes an approach for the purpose ofauthenticating and validatingaudio-data transmitted by a publisher or during communications between an instructor and students reciting via Internet communications.The watermarking approach proposed here is based on detection of the key patternswithin the audio signal as an input to the algorithm before the embedding phase is performed.The developed application could be easily used at both sides of the communication for ensuring authenticity and integrity of the transmitted speech signal and is proved effective for many distance-learning applications that require low-complexity processing in real-time