title: GenInfoGuard--a robust and distortion-free watermarking technique for genetic data.
abstract: Genetic data, in digital format, is used in different biological phenomena such as DNA translation, mRNA transcription and protein synthesis. The accuracy of these biological phenomena depend on genetic codes and all subsequent processes. To computerize the biological procedures, different domain experts are provided with the authorized access of the genetic codes; as a consequence, the ownership protection of such data is inevitable. For this purpose, watermarks serve as the proof of ownership of data. While protecting data, embedded hidden messages (watermarks) influence the genetic data; therefore, the accurate execution of the relevant processes and the overall result becomes questionable. Most of the DNA based watermarking techniques modify the genetic data and are therefore vulnerable to information loss. Distortion-free techniques make sure that no modifications occur during watermarking; however, they are fragile to malicious attacks and therefore cannot be used for ownership protection (particularly, in presence of a threat model). Therefore, there is a need for a technique that must be robust and should also prevent unwanted modifications. In this spirit, a watermarking technique with aforementioned characteristics has been proposed in this paper. The proposed technique makes sure that: (i) the ownership rights are protected by means of a robust watermark; and (ii) the integrity of genetic data is preserved. The proposed technique-GenInfoGuard-ensures its robustness through the "watermark encoding" in permuted values, and exhibits high decoding accuracy against various malicious attacks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computing, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Saman
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Iftikhar
authors.affiliation: Department of Computing, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Sharifullah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Department of Computing, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Zahid
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Anwar
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Wah Cantt, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Muhammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kamran
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016494:Computer Security; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D005823:Genetics