Property Protection and User Authentication in IP Networks Through Challenge-Response Mechanisms

Authentication is the way of identifying an individual. The techniques used to accomplish such practice strongly depend on the involved parties, their interconnection, and the required level of security. In all cases, authentication is used to enforce property protection, and may be specifically intended for the copyright protection of digital contents published on the Internet. This chapter introduces the basic concepts of authentication, explaining their relationship with property protection. The basic functionalities of challenge-response frameworks are presented, together with several applications and the future trends.

Masking Models and Watermarking

Many audio watermarking techniques presented in the last years make use of masking and psychological models derived from signal processing. Such a basic idea is winning because it guarantees a high level of robustness and bandwidth of the watermark as well as fidelity of the watermarked signal. This chapter first describes the relationship between digital right management, intellectual property, and use of watermarking techniques. Then, the crossing use of watermarking and masking models is detailed, providing schemes, examples, and references. Finally, the authors present two strategies that make use of a masking model, applied to a classic watermarking technique. The joint use of classic frameworks and masking models seems to be one of the trends for the future of research in watermarking. Several tests on the proposed strategies with the state of the art are also offered to give an idea of how to assess the effectiveness of a watermarking technique.

Secure Image Archiving Using Novel Digital Watermarking Techniques

With the rapid advance in digital network, digital libraries, and particularly WWW (World Wide Web) services, we can retrieve many kinds of images on personal and mobile computer anytime and anywhere. At the same time, secure image archiving is becoming a major research area because the serious concern is raised about copyright protection and authority identification in digital media. A more sophisticated technique is required for future multimedia copyright protection. In this chapter we propose a secure image archiving using novel digital-watermarking techniques. Firstly, a nonlinear adaptive system (neural network) is applied for frequency-based digital watermarking. Secondly, we discuss application-oriented watermarking method for GIS image archiving. This chapter is divided into two parts. First section is about the way to apply nonlinear adaptive system for frequency-based image watermarking. We propose a new asymmetric technique employing nonlinear adaptive system trained on frequency domain. Our system uses two public keys to prevent removal attack and archive more fragile watermarking. In embedding, location information of frequency domain, where adaptive system is trained, is binalized, expressed in hexadecimal number, and encrypted in asymmetric cryptosystem. Encrypted location information is embedded in several parts of digital host contents. In generating key, supervised neural networks learn to assign the array of coefficients to teacher signal corresponding to the message to insert. This is one kind of transform-based method to generate public key from private key. In extracting, we use key matrix created by one-way signal processing of adaptive system. Proposal method is tested in still image, and we have empirically obtained the results that the proposal model is functional in implementing more secure and fragile watermarking compared with previous techniques, such as correlation and transform-based asymmetric watermarking. Several experiments are reported to validate the effectiveness of our watermarking method. Second section is about the application of GIS image archiving using digital watermarking technique. Recently, the utilization of GIS (geographical information system) is becoming rapidly pervasive. Consequently, new methodology of archiving and managing images is a pressing problem for GIS users. It is also expected that as the utilization of GIS becomes widely spread, protecting copyright and confidential images will be more important. In this chapter, we propose a three-layer image data format that makes it possible to synthesize two kinds of related images and analysis information in one image data size. To achieve the confidentiality of one hidden image, we apply the private watermarking scheme, where the algorithm is closed to the public. In the proposal model, encoder netlist embedded in the third layer is generated by FOL prover to achieve more secure and less information to decode it, compared with one operation of another block cipher such as RSA. Proposal system users can process two images without the cost of maintaining key and decoding operation.

Visual Environment for DOM-Based Wrapping and Client-Side Linkage of Web Applications

Web applications, which are computer programs ported to the Web, allow end-users to use various remote services and tools through their Web browsers. There are an enormous number of Web applications on the Web, and they are becoming the basic infrastructure of everyday life. In spite of the remarkable development of Web-based infrastructure, it is still difficult for end-users to compose new integrated tools of both existing Web applications and legacy local applications, such as spreadsheets, chart tools, and database. In this chapter, the authors propose a new framework where end-users can wrap remote Web applications into visual components, called pads, and functionally combine them together through drag-and-drop operations. The authors use, as the basis, a meme media architecture IntelligentPad that was proposed by the second author. In the IntelligentPad architecture, each visual component, called a pad, has slots as data I/O ports. By pasting a pad onto another pad, users can integrate their functionalities. The framework presented in this chapter allows users to visually create a wrapper pad for any Web application by defining HTML nodes within the Web application to work as slots. Examples of such a node include input-forms and text strings on Web pages. Users can directly manipulate both wrapped Web applications and wrapped local legacy tools on their desktop screen to define application linkages among them. Since no programming expertise is required to wrap Web applications or to functionally combine them together, end-users can build new integrated tools of both wrapped Web applications and local legacy applications.

Damageless Watermark Extraction Using Nonlinear Feature Extraction Scheme Trained on Frequency Domain

In this chapter, we propose a new information hiding and extracting method without embedding any information into the target content by using a nonlinear feature extraction scheme trained on frequency domain. The proposed method can detect hidden bit patterns from the content by processing the coefficients of the selected feature subblocks to the trained neural network. The coefficients are taken from the frequency domain of the decomposed target content by frequency transform. The bit patterns are retrieved from the network only with the proper extraction keys provided. The extraction keys, in the proposed method, are the coordinates of the selected feature subblocks and the neural network weights generated by the supervised learning of the neural network. The supervised learning uses the coefficients of the selected feature subblocks as the set of input values, and the hidden bit patterns are used as the teacher signal values of the neural network, which is the watermark signal in the proposed method. With our proposed method, we are able to introduce a watermark scheme with no damage to the target content.

Digital Library Protection Using Patent of Retrieval Process

In this chapter, we present a formulation for protecting digital library as intellectual property, especially image digital library. The entire content of digital library assembled by database designers is to be differentiated from its individual contents. The digital library community demands an innovative approach for protecting digital library associated with content-based retrieval that dynamically generates indexes to its contents. The entire content with dynamically assigned indexes goes beyond the scope of the conventional copyright protection of the database with statically assigned indexes. The proposed formulation uses the patent of content-based retrieval process, and protects its object digital library in the specified domain without any excessively exclusive protection in general domains. That formulation determines whether the problem retrieval process identifies a classification of the entire content stored in its object digital library as a single and unique collection, or its equivalents within the scope of its specified domain. The similar collection realized in other digital libraries evidences unauthorized use of the problem retrieval process, or its equivalents, as far as it is patented. The patent of content-based retrieval process works as a catalyst of digital library protection, and restricts any other assembling of equivalent digital libraries in the scope of its specified domain. We provide mathematical foundation and reasoning of the proposed formulation, and confirm its feasibility and accountability in several case studies.

Patents and Standards in the ICT Sector

Multiple cases have been reported in which patents have posed dilemmas in the context of cooperative standard setting. Problems have come to the fore with regard to GSM, WCDMA, and CDMA standards, for example. Furthermore, JPEG and HTML standards, as well as VL-bus and SDRAM technologies, have faced patent-related difficulties. Nevertheless, it could be argued that complications have arisen in only a small fraction of standardization efforts, and that patents do not therefore constitute a real quandary. This article assesses the extent and the causes of the patent dilemma in the ICT sector through a brief analysis of how ICT companies’ patent strategies and technology-licensing practices relate to standard setting and by exemplifying and quantifying the problem on the basis of relevant articles, academic research papers, court cases and on-line discussions. Particular attention is paid to so-called submarine patents, which bear most significance with respect to the prevailing policy concern regarding the efficacy of the patent system.

Online Personal Data Licensing

We propose a new technical and legal approach, called online personal data licensing (OPDL), for responding to concerns about the privacy of personal data. Unlike traditional privacy-enhancing technologies that typically aim to hide personal data, OPDL enables individuals to concretize their consent to allow others to use their personal data as licenses. Service providers must obtain licenses before legally collecting, processing, or using a person’s data. By allowing individuals to issue their own licenses and to determine the content of the licenses, OPDL brings the control of personal data back to their owner, and ensures that the use of the data is strictly under the owner’s consent. In contrast, most Web-based service providers today use passive consent, which usually results in situations in which users have inadvertently given the providers the authorization to use their personal data. Besides, users generally do not have information on who still owns a copy of their data, and how their data have been, or will be, used.

Multimedia Encryption Technology for Content Protection

The principal concern of this chapter is to provide those in the multimedia or content protection community with an overview of multimedia content encryption technology. Multimedia (image, audio, or video) content encryption technologies are reviewed, from the background, brief history, performance requirement, to research progress. Additionally, the general encryption algorithms are classified, and their performances are analyzed and compared. Furthermore, some special encryption algorithms are introduced. Finally, some open issues and potential research topics are presented, followed by some conclusions. The author hopes that the chapter will not only inform researchers of the progress of multimedia content encryption, but also guide the design of practical applications in the industry field.

Intellectual Property Protection in Multimedia Grids

The Grid environment is rapidly emerging as the dominant paradigm for wide-area-distributed application systems. The multimedia applications demand intense problem-solving capabilities, and Grid-computing makes it possible to share computing resources on an unprecedented scale among geographically distributed participants. In a Grid environment, virtual organisations are formulated and managed from a computing resource point of view. The Grid provider allows for the dynamic discovery of computing resources, the immediate allocation and provision of the resources, and the management and provision of secure access. Although the security problem in Grid environment is being addressed from the technological point of view, there is no work to identify the legal issues that are arising in Grid multimedia transactions.