Image authenticating methods

Translation of description of equivalent WO 2004051596 A1

METHODS OF IMAGE AUTHENTICATION

The present invention relates to methods for 1 'image authentication including those taken in breach vehicles, such offenses being for example for exceeding the speed limit, a crossing red lights or in circulation an unauthorized vehicle in a lane reserved for public transport vehicles.

Indeed, so far, two control methods are used, namely methods requiring human intervention during the finding of infringement or semi-automatic methods to capture the image of the offending vehicles.

In the first case, speed controls require the physical intervention of the security forces who in general and at first seeing the offense.

The report resulting from this finding is then used to punish the offense and where appropriate implement means to pay the driver in violation of the corresponding fines.

However, such a sequence of operations requires human intervention at all stages of the process.

Thus, the probability of a speed control remains relatively low and cumbersome subsequent treatments of the minutes led to a collection rate fairly low fines.

This results in giving the impression to some motorists a sense of impunity, which is negative in terms of security. The same problem arises for crimes of different natures, for example, crossing a red light or in a traffic lane reserved.

In the second case, the introduction of automated procedures from the finding of the infringement up to the recovery of claims related fines seems likely to greatly improve the safety and compliance of traffic rules.

Several approaches have been proposed in the past to try to automate such procedures.

For example, it was proposed in US Patent 5381155 to use a Doppler radar, initially measure the speed of vehicles and thus be able to see if they are in violation, then trigger to enter camera images or the offending vehicles.

These images are then transmitted to a computer unit for the recognition and identification of license plates of vehicles in question, then the images can then be stored in non-volatile memories.

When said license plates were identified, it is then possible to transmit the registration numbers of offending vehicles by telecommunication systems dedicated to law enforcement and thus to allow the intervention of the latter.

The presence of representatives of law enforcement is necessary for a finding of infringement. In case of dispute of the offense by the conductor concerned, the images recorded at the time of the offense can be retrieved from the memory in which they were stored and be exploited.

Such an approach, however, faces a major obstacle.

It is a straightforward matter, for example by using a graphics editing software, edit the stored images and replace, for example, the numbers of license plates by others.

Since such manipulation can be easily implemented, the legal value of the transmitted images is greatly reduced.

In an attempt to overcome this disadvantage it has been proposed for example in WO 02 08400 A and EP 0

621572 A encrypt images to avoid easy handling.

Such an approach, however, presents serious disadvantages.

Indeed, the distribution of these images is then permitted only for law enforcement accessing the decryption algorithms and in any case the offender if challenged by the latter.

In addition, once the decrypted images, their alteration is possible again and the legal value of the images transmitted is greatly reduced again. In an attempt to avoid these drawbacks, it was proposed in US Patent No. 5,563,590 to insert in the image taken at the time of the offense, information relating to the vehicle speed, time and place of the offense, etc. in the form of alphanumeric characters.

From alphanumeric information collected constructing new alphanumeric control characters are also inserted in the image.

The corresponding photographs to the offending vehicles contain both characteristics above information and alphanumeric control characters.

Later, when challenged to these documents, it is possible to check that the alphanumeric control characters are those that were characteristic information taken during the offense.

However, the device described in this patent has significant disadvantages of various kinds.

In particular, he uses film photography techniques that require a chemical film development.

This causes a need for interventions sniffed<img id="imgf000006_0001" he="5" wi="36" file="imgf000006_0001.tif" img-format="tif" img-content="drawing" orientation="portrait" inline="no" /> and costly, for example to load the rolls of film in cameras and replaced if they were used.

The simple use of digital storage media instead of silver media does not solve these problems. Indeed, the alphanumeric characters used to characterize the images and ensure their control appear in this case directly identifiable manner of the images and is relatively easy to modify, for example with the previous graphic editing software.

In addition, this information obscure a part of the image which may result in challenges in some cases.

In another development it was proposed in US Patent 6,269,446 to calculate a digital signature from the images, this signature being placed hidden and non-standardized way in the header files of images.

However, this solution has at least three serious drawbacks:

- First, some image file formats do not possess stubborn, especially the most representative image files stored without processing of image compression type, that is, those bringing the best definition,

secondly, the signature in question is hidden, it can be challenged by offending motorists because it does not form part of the elements of the legal record of the offense,

Finally, due to the non-standardized nature of these operations this signature may be deleted irreversibly in simple file backup operations. The present invention is intended to provide a method of authentication of images including images of vehicles taken offense to that end, a method according to the invention comprises the following steps:

it distributes shooting systems, arranged to allow the taking of pictures and seizure of identification of offenders elements, means of shots providing data representative of images, hereinafter called data of images,

means are provided, hereinafter called informational systems triggered to capture physical information relating to the offense, measured from the &lt;=&gt; YWO &lt;= n, time, date, location, etc. hereinafter called data of offense,

are provided first storage means and / or data transmission of images and data of offense,

it provides operating systems to exploit the data stored and / or transmitted,

and is essentially characterized in that:

operating systems apply to taken image data, all clean-known treatment to improve or maintain the quality of the image in question and / or to reduce the number of data required for a reconstruction of these images, without significant loss of quality to reduce the necessary size of memory for storing the taken image data and / or the capacity of the transmission means of these data, the intermediate data representative of images after these treatments is called initial graphics data, operating systems calculate, based on the infringement data and a graphical representation of alphanumeric characters associated with these infringement data, new representative image data, called graphical offense data

operating systems merge graphics initial data and the data of violation graphics to obtain a new set of representative image data, called graphics identifying data, in which the initial data charts and graphs offense data are subassemblies accessible from this new set of data,

operating systems calculate, pursuant to the identifying graphics of a non bijective function f denoted data, a set of data, hereinafter referred summarized data, such as knowledge of only summary data, does not allow for qraphiques back to identifiable data,

operating systems apply to a data summarized noted encoding method c, having an associated decoding method denoted c^"1To obtain a new set of data called data signatures,

operating systems calculate, from signature data and a graphical representation of alphanumeric characters associated with these signatures data, new representative image data, graphics data called signatures,

operating systems merge graphics identifying data and graphics data signatures to obtain a new set of data representative of images, wherein the graphics identifying data and the graphics data signatures are subsets accessible from this new set of data, called data authenticatable graphic,

there are provided second storing means and / or transmission of graphics authenticatable data,

- It provides for control units that can each read and / or receive authenticatable graphics data stored in the second storage means and / or transmission, the actual data read and / or received data received being called graphics,

control units looking from the received data the graphics subset of identifying data graphics, hereinafter called identifying data graphics tested

control units looking from the received data graphs, the subset of graphic signatures data, hereinafter called data tested graphical signatures,

control units looking from the graphic signatures tested data and a tab^:w d &lt;? recognition of alphanumeric characters, a set of data representative of the signatures data, called data tested signatures,

control units calculated by applying, to the identifying graphics tested data, function f non-bijective, a set of data, called data summarized tested - I -

control units apply to tested signature data, the decoding method c^"1 to obtain a set of data called summarized data received,

and control units compare the summary data received and summarized data tested, and provide a warning signal when the data are not identical and / or a confirmation signal when they are.

In preferred embodiments of the method according to the invention, recourse is further had to one and / or the other of the following arrangements:

- Informational systems include means for measuring the speed of vehicles,

informative systems comprise means for detecting the presence of an unauthorized vehicle in a reserved lane,

informational systems have means for detecting the crossing of a red light for a vehicle,

- Shooting systems provide digital images,

the coding methods and / or decoding using cryptographic techniques,

the coding methods incorporate into the signatures data, a subset of data, a subset containing all accessible and sufficient alphanumeric characters to represent the signature data, operating systems apply to αυnneeb images taken successively a compression method and associated decompression method, and store and / or transfer data obtained to means for storing and / or transmission,

the first storage means and / or transmission and the second means for storing and / or transmission coincide,

the character recognition table is prepared by applying a character recognition program code,

- The character recognition table is made from graphics data signatures tested.

Other features and advantages of the invention appear from the following detailed description of one of its embodiments, given by way of non-limiting example in the accompanying drawings.

In the drawings:

- Figure 1 is a schematic view of a method according to the prior art where a vehicle (1) traveling on the floor (100) in the direction indicated by the arrow (F), is intercepted by the radar beam (200 ) of an information system including a speedometer (2) connected to the operating systems (4), and in shooting systems (3)

Figure 2 is a schematic view of a process step of the invention wherein a processor (400) operating system merges the graphics input data (10) of a vehicle (1) taken from the front and having identification elements (101) and graphic data breach (11) for the graphics identifying data (12)

- Figure 3 is a schematic view of an intermediate step of the process according to the invention where a processor (400) operating system calculates from the graphics identifying data (12) and a share of a program code (40 ) proper placed in a nonvolatile storage means, the summary data (31),

Figure 4 is a schematic view of an intermediate step of the process according to the invention where a processor (400) Operating Systems (4) calculated from summary data (31) by action of a suitable program code (41) placed in a nonvolatile storage means, the signature data (33),

Figure 5 is a schematic view of an intermediate step of a method of the invention wherein a processor (400) operating systems (4) merges graphics identifying data (12) and the graphics data signatures (13) to form the authenticatable graphics data (14),

6 is a schematic view showing an example of steps of the method following the invention, operating systems and control units, here placed outside to avoid burdening the figure, being connected by any known means the different elements.

When the speed of a vehicle (1), comprising an identification element (101) such as a license plate, exceeds the speed limit, a device according to the prior art comprising a speedometer (2) and a shooting system (3) arranged to take images of the vehicle βr. ir.fr = ~ *^~ Xr, so as to enable its identification.

The radar can for example be formed from a Doppler radar, magnetic loops buried under the floor or a laser system.

Means are provided to provide physical information associated, such as the time and date of the offense, the location of the device, etc.

First means are provided for recording and / or transmitting data representative of images taken by shooting systems, hereinafter referred image data taken (30), and data physical information representat ves, hereinafter called infringement data (20), preferably in the form of digital data.

In the example of Figure 6, was placed storage means and / or transmission in three points of the figure, but such means may obviously be provided in any other part of this diagram the known manner naturally places determined per se by any skilled person.

The storage means may also be made in any known manner using, for example, semiconductor memories, magnetic, etc.

The data transmission means may be of various types: transmission by wire, radio communication or by bus.

operating system (4) is provided to exploit these data. Particularly to reduce transmission times infringement data and image data taken and / or perform the various treatments used in the process, it is advantageous to provide the operating systems of one or more processors (400) and first means of volatile and non-volatile storage and / or transmission (430A).

In specific embodiments, the processors can be integrated into FPGA components like semiconductors or specialized semiconductor components ASIC.

The content of the first storage means can be clearly read and written by the processors of these operating systems.

In known manner, it is possible to apply to data compression methods of the data to reduce the size of the memories used for storage or the capacity of the transmission means of the data.

Among the data compression methods, it is possible to use so-called processes without loss of information or processes called entropy, with loss of information, particularly applied to the representative image data, and thus to obtain data compressed.

then selects a compression factor for the unambiguous identification of vehicles taken offense when viewing these images.

The choice of the compression factor can be done for example when pr.ses systems installation views, operating systems recording in the memory means data representative of images taken for different compression factors and transmitting the contents of the storage means to the control units (5), used exceptionally during this installation phase.

These control units have display means in order to verify the quality of images reconstructed from the compressed data.

Similarly, when necessary, for example in case of bad lighting or bad weather, operating systems can be applied to any known processing image data taken in order to facilitate the identification of offending vehicles.

For example, and as is known, it is possible to enhance the contrast of the images and recognize alphanumeric characters inscribed on the license plate.

After the possible application of these treatments, we obtain new data representing images of the offending vehicles called graphics initial data (10) that can be stored and / or transmitted.

Any known method of storage may be used, and in particular non-volatile processes.

Non-volatile memory means are used to store the graphical representation of alphanumeric characters from the informative systems, these storage means being called non-volatile memory fonts (410). In a first embodiment, the nonvolatile memory of fonts contains the graphical representation of the alphanumeric characters in the form of dot matrices.

In a second embodiment, the non-volatile memory fonts contains the graphical representation of characters alphanuπieπ flood soυ ^ form of bar codes.

Is determined from data of offense and the graphical representation of alphanumeric characters, new representative image data visualizing infringement data, these images being eg 123 km / h -01 / 01 / 02- 10h : 30- Alma Paris

as illustrated in Figure 2, these data being called by the following graphic data breach (11).

In the particular case was not applied compression proceeds struggling and or image data is desired to simultaneously view ι image vehicle caught breaking and images visualizing the data of infringement, it is developing a new data set, called graphics identifying data (12) by the following steps:

determining the relative dimensions of the image data representing images incorporating graphics initial data and graphics data breach, this operation has also been made during the installation of the system,

- And recorded in a memory graphics initial data and graphics data breach. In Figure 6, the dotted lines in the storage means and / or transmitting (430A) are a symbolic representation of that data from graphics offense were obtained from offense data (20) and the graphics data are initial taken from the image data (30).

In this way, the graphical offense data and graphics are good initial data two subsets accessible graphical identifying data.

On the particular example shown in Figure 2, the images representing the offense data is placed under the images taken by shooting systems.

Obviously, these images representing the offense data could equivalently be, for instance, placed over the images taken by shooting systems, or on the sides or in any other manner.

Note that when a method of compressing data was used, fusion of graphics data and identifying data of graphics offense is also possible.

In this case, it is for example possible to apply an intermediate step in the associated decompression method to both sets of data, which allows to reduce to the previous case, and then applying once again the compression process to obtain graphics identifying data. A program code (40) necessary for the application to a set of selected data, a non bijective calculation method known from the prior art hereinafter called function f is stored in a nonvolatile memory.

For example, it is possible to use the method of calculation described in FIPS PUB 180-1 standardization, published by the National Technical Information Service, US Department of Commerce, CA 22161 Spnngfield.

The implementation of this process the graphics identifying data led to a new set of data hereinafter referred summarized data (31).

In the case above, the summary data are sets of 160 bits of information.

It should be noted, with images whose definition allows identification of offending vehicles, ie with several tens of thousands of pixels, it is obviously impossible, from the summarized data 160 bits to reconstitute the identifying graphics data using a reverse calculation method.

is then applied to the data summarized encryption process called public key / private key, as described for example in US Patent 4,405,829, which leads to new data, hereinafter referred summarized encoded data (32).

Again, the program code (41) necessary for the implementation of the encryption method in question is stored in nonvolatile memory. The private key above is known only to authorized personnel.

The private key can be stored in the permanently operating systems or preferably in volatile memories, which improves process safety.

In the latter case, this key can be downloaded from a base of highly secure data.

Thus, in case of theft of a device implementing the process, the private key remains inaccessible, even when analysis of the elements of the device.

In a particular embodiment, the operating systems merge summarized encoded data with another set of data, called alphabet data (420), for example by placing a result summarized data encoded all alphanumeric characters sufficient to represent the coded summary data.

For example, when the encoded data summarized are represented in a hexadecimal base, operating systems placed following coded data summarized alphanumeric characters 0 to 9 and A to F which are in this case the data alphabet.

It should be noted that in the particular example of implementation of the above method, the data alphabet are placed with the coded summary data but these data alphabet could be placed in an equivalent manner before these summarized encoded data or in any other manner for reconstructing the entire subset of data alphabet. The summarized data encoded eventually merged with the alphabet of data are called data signatures (33).

It is also noted that the merger of the alphabet coded data with summary data does not alter the existence of the decoding process c^-1Since the coded summary data remain a sub set of signatures available data.

is then determined from the signature data and the graphic representation of the alphanumeric characters, new data representative of images visualizing the signatures data, these images being eg 13579BDF02468ACE1357

as shown in Figure 5, the new data being called later data signatures <img id="imgf000021_0001" he="5" wi="26" file="imgf000021_0001.tif" img-format="tif" img-content="drawing" orientation="portrait" inline="no" /> (13).

Graphic representations in question may be made of dot matrix or bar code for example.

It then merges the graphics identifying data (12) with graphics data signatures (13), for example, according to the method already used to merge the graphics offense data (11) with the graphics input data (10) and one thus obtained graphics authenticatable data (14).

On the particular example of Figure 5, the images representing the signatures data is placed under the images represent graphic identifying data. Obviously, these images representing the signatures data could equivalently be, for example, placed above images represent graphic identifying data, or on the sides or in any other way.

The operating systems are also equipped with second means for storing and / or transmission (430B) to allow the dissemination of graphic authenticatable data.

In a first embodiment, the operating systems include these second nonvolatile storage means, in removable form, such as a memory card that can be removed from the system by an operator and placed in a control unit (5).

Such a control unit may consist of a laptop or a much smaller housing apt to read the contents of the card when it is associated.

In this first embodiment, the removable non-volatile storage means may also be used as first memory means.

In a second embodiment, operating systems include telecommunication means for example, connected to a phone line, to allow the transmission of authenticatable graphics data to a control unit.

Such a control unit may consist of a computer with a modem connected to a telephone line. In this second embodiment, the transmission means may also be used as first transmission means for telecommunication with the shooting systems.

In a third embodiment, operating systems include wireless telecommunication means and are arranged to transmit the data authenticatable graphics to a control unit.

The control unit may be constituted by a computer comprising a radio modem.

In this third embodiment, the first transmission means may be of the same nature as those above.

The data actually read and / or received by the control units are called graphics data received (50).

The control units comprise one or more processors.

The control units can record in the third storing means (530A), such as hard drives for example, the received data graphics in the form of computer files.

These storage means may also be used to hold all the algorithms and data needed for research dimensions and positions of the identifying data charts and graphs data signatures. Is then separated from the set of data received graphics in two subsets of data called graphics tested identifying data (51) and data tested graphic signatures (52), these two sub-assembly being associated with respective subsets of the identifying graphics data and graphic data of all the stored data signatures and / or transmitted by the operating systems.

In a first embodiment, the control units have in the nonvolatile storage means, a recognition program code (510A) characters that converts graphic signatures data tested in alphanumeric characters to form a new set of data called data tested signatures.

In a second embodiment, and when the coded data were summarized were merged as described above with the alphabet of data (420) to form the signature data is performed at the control units the following steps:

we search the graphic signatures tested data in the received data graphic,

we research the graphical representations of data in graphic alphabet signatures data, called alphabet graphics data tested (510B)

calculating the tested data signatures (53) by comparing the graphic signatures data tested with alphabet graphics data tested.

The storage means may also contain the execution program code of non-bijective calculation used above, defined by the function f and the execution of program code decoding program c^-1, Known by the public key associated with the private key that was used to encode the data summarized.

We respectively applies the function f to graphics identifying data tested (51) which leads to new data called data summarized tested (55) and the decoding program c^"1 signatures tested data leading to new data, called summarized data received (54).

Comparing the data summarized tested and summarized data received.

When these two sets of data are identical, it is considered that the images have been authenticated.

It can display on a screen alphanumeric validation message directly readable by a human operator.

In contrast, when these two data sets are not identical, one can provide a signal displayable on a screen or by any other method that indicates that an image manipulation has been detected.

Using the method which has just been described it is thus possible to verify that there is no falsification of an image for example by setting a vehicle in violation of the identifying characteristics of another vehicle .

The authentication of resulting images and resolves outstanding issues presented above.

As is evident and as it follows moreover that above, the invention is not limited to the particular embodiment which has just been described; it embraces on the contrary all variants including one in which the process is implemented lor ^ σue the offense other than that associated with speeding authorized by a vehicle, for example when on the detection of a person in a protected access area for which it does not have a clearance.