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Digital crackdown
Aggies help combat digital piracy through watermarking technology
By David Barry
THE BATTALION
A :
Greek king, held captive by his enemies in
the fifth century B.C., shaved the head of a
trusted servant and tattooed a secret message
bn his bare scalp. Once the servant’s hair had grown
over the tattoo, the king sent him back to friendly terri-
ory, where his head was once again shaved to reveal the
iecret message. Why the servant didn’t just memorize
iveexd he message is anyone’s guess.
This ancient story, recorded by the Greek historian
iSfBierodotus, is one of the earliest documented uses of a
technique called data-hiding. 2,500 years later, data-hid-
ing has evolved into a high-tech science with enormous
implications for the future of digital technology.
As digital technology has enabled consumers to
freely copy and share copyrighted work, copyright hold
ers have recognized data-hiding as a means of control
ling the distribution of their work.
The hidden data in multimedia files, often called a
sys digital watermark or fingerprint, could act as a virtual
security tag, said Deepa Kundur, assistant electrical
re tile) engineering professor at Texas A&M. One of Kundur’s
’raduate students, William Luh, explained how it works:
‘With fingerprinting, you put an invisible serial number
in the media. If someone makes illegal copies, you can
emaapfjcg where they came from.”
The Motion Picture Association of America, which
claims to lose $3 billion annually to unauthorized copy-
, already uses watermarking to nab digital pirates.
The March 1 issue of Electronic Engineering Times
reported that traceable watermarks were embedded in
each of the DVDs distributed to the nearly 6,000 voters
for this year’s Academy Awards. Several of those copies
surfaced on the Internet earlier this year, including big-
name titles such as “Something’s Gotta Give,” “The Last
Samurai” and “Cold Mountain.” Authorities were able
to arrest an alleged member of an Internet piracy ring by
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reading the watermarks on the copied files and tracing
them back to the source.
Widespread use of digital watermarking is not yet a
reality, but the entertainment industry is moving toward
a standard technology that could watermark movies,
music and other digital media.
Even when watermarks are included in digital media,
few people will notice. Watermarks must be invisible to
be successful. To the human ear, a watermarked MP3
file should sound exactly like a file with no watermark
at all. The invisibility of watermarks also means that
hackers will have a difficult time finding and weeding
out the hidden codes.
A typical watermark is a series of a few bits hidden
within a media file that may contain millions of bits.
Kundur compared the watermarking process to hiding a
needle in a haystack.
“You’re making use of the idea of uncertainty,”
she said. “A third party has no clue of where to
begin looking in the haystack. Only an individual
with a secret key will know where to look for the
hidden data.”
Still, watermarks aren’t attack-proof. For example,
a hacker could alter a file in a way that damages the
watermark. Also, since copy-protection watermarks
contain individualized serial numbers, or fingerprints,
hackers could compare two otherwise identical media
files to locate the hidden serial numbers. Luh is look
ing for ways to hide this “fingerprinting” data from
hackers.
The biggest technical challenge, Kundur said, is to
find a balance between security and simplicity. Security
measures like watermarking and encryption must be
small enough to work on portable, battery-operated
devices like MP3 players, yet strong enough to resist the
efforts of hackers.
Overall, digital watermarking appears to be just
another battleground in the war between copyright hold
ers and media pirates. In a 2001 report to the journal
IEEE Multimedia entitled “Spies, Thieves, and Lies:
The Battle for Multimedia in the Digital Era,” Kundur
and two industry scientists wrote that they expected a
continuation of the “cycle of improving and then break
ing improved security.”
“Perfect security will probably not occur,” Kundur said.
Rather, she said, security measures should provide
“an obstacle that most people will not breach.”
Such security measures could pave the way to a sus
tainable business model for digital media commerce, in
which consumers willingly pay to download digital con
tent instead of copying it illegally.
“I don’t think that people by nature want to steal any
thing, and I think it’s more an issue
of expectation. When expecta
tions settle down, it will result in
a business model that is there for
everyone’s benefit,” Kundur said.
Luh gave another perspective.
“Everyone wants free music,”
Luh said.
But he said he thought a busi
ness model for selling
digital multimedia
over the Internet
would be successful if
copyright holders
made their products
cheaper. He suggested
50 cents as a reason
able price for a down
loaded music track.
“There will still
bp hackers who think
everything should be
free,” Luh said. “And
there will be at least
one detennined team
of researchers at
Texas A&M working
to fend them off.
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To the 8,700 Aggies that are Graduate and
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