Watermarking non-media content Rights Protection for Discrete Digital Data

    Information as an expression of knowledge, is probably the most valuable asset of humanity today. By enabling relatively cost-free, fast, and accurate access channels to information in digital form, computers have radically changed the way we think and express ideas. As increasingly more of it is produced, packaged and delivered in digital form in a fast, networked environment, one of its main features threatens to become its worst enemy: zero-cost verbatim copies. The inherent ability to produce duplicates of digital Works at virtually no cost can be now misused e.g. for illicit profit. This dramatically increases the requirement for effective rights protection mechanisms.

    Different avenues are available, each with its advantages and drawbacks. Enforcement by legal means is usually ineffective, unless augmented by a digital counter-part such as Information Hiding. Digital Watermarking deploys Information Hiding as a method of Rights Protection to conceal an indelible "rights witness" (watermark) within the digital Work to be protected. The soundness of such a method relies on the assumption that altering the Work in the process of hiding the mark does not destroy the value of the Work, and that it is difficult for a malicious adversary ("Mallory") to remove or alter the mark beyond detection without destroying the value of the Work. The ability to resist attacks from such an adversary (mostly aiming at removing the embedded watermark) is one of the major concerns in the design of a sound watermarking solution.

    With the notable exception of software watermarking, the overwhelming majority of research efforts have been invested in the framework of multimedia data (e.g. images, video and audio). In this effort , we analyze digital watermarking from a higher level, domain-independent perspective. We propose a theoretical model and ask: are there any limitations to what watermarking can do? What are these and when can they be reached? We then propose, design and analyze watermarking solutions for (i) numeric sets, (ii) numeric relational data, (iii) categorical data, (iv) streams and (v) semi-structures.

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