A temporal domain audio watermarking technique

Audio watermarking techniques can be used to embed extra information into audio signals. The goal is to hide prespecified data carrying some information into the audio stream such that it is not audible to the human ear (i.e., transparent) and is, at the same time, resistant to removal attacks (i.e., robust). In the currently known watermarking systems, the above challenges are not always adequately resolved. In this paper, we present an alternative audio watermarking technique that mitigates these and other related shortcomings. The system is referred to as modified audio signal keying (MASK). In MASK, the short-time envelope of the audio signal is modified in such a way that the change is imperceptible to the human listener. The MASK system can easily be tailored for a wide range of applications. Moreover, informal experimental results show that it has a good robustness and audibility behavior.