Development of tools for information protection of optical text recognition systems

The subject of research. There has been studying a new universal method of information protection in optical text recognition systems when transmitting confidential data over open communication channels. This work develops the concept of creating a modern, simple and reliable method for protecting information during its transmission over communication channels, to determine the objective criteria for the quality of its work, to create a set of algorithms for implementing the proposed method and software for conducting experimental studies. The current work puts on the concept of creation of a simple and reliable current method for protecting information when passing it through communication channels, also to define the objective criteria for assessing the tool operation quality and to exercise the dedicated programs, which implement the proposed methods and developed algorithms. Based on the results of these studies, it must evaluate the practice effectiveness of the proposed method in terms of both the transmitted data coding/decoding reliability and the secrecy of the fact of special information transmission. Results. It is described the universal concept of producing and use of the contemporary methods of information protection in optical text recognition systems in a confidential data transmission over open communication channels. The main criteria for these systems performance quality are determined. A new combined method for encrypting transmitted messages using QR-codes with subsequent masking of the fact of data transmission by various methods of LSB-steganography is proposed. To conduct experimental studies, a text recognition program based on Tesseract OCR software version 4.0 was developed. The program in Python uses the recent resources of the OpenCV library. The dedicated software technique contributed to assessing the efficiency of the algorithms, which realized the transmitted data encryption and therefore communication links privacy. There are examples of the system operation and results of the software testing in modes of messages encoding for subsequent hidden transmission. Conclusion. The case studies acknowledge the high efficiency of the proposed method of confidential data protection when transmitting them via open networks. The technique can be taken as a basis for developing software aimed at protecting information in OCR systems offered by various manufacturers.