http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,43389,00.html MS May Have File-Trading Answer By Declan McCullagh (declanat_private) 2:00 a.m. May. 1, 2001 PDT PITTSBURGH -- Microsoft has developed a prototype system that limits unauthorized playback of music by embedding a watermark that remains permanently attached to audio files. During a security workshop on Friday, a Microsoft Research scientist demonstrated how the hidden copyright fingerprint is so securely affixed to the audio that it remains intact even if a jazz song is played aloud on speakers in a noisy room and then re-recorded. Such technology could be included as a default playback mechanism in future versions of the Windows operating system. If the music industry begins to include watermarks in its song files, Windows would refuse to play copyrighted music released after a certain date that was obtained illegally. Microsoft Research has also invented a separate watermarking system that relies on graph theory -- a concept borrowed from computer science -- to hide watermarks in software. The paper presented at the Fourth Information Hiding Workshop, principally authored by Microsoft's Ramarathnam Venkatesan, says analyzing program flow through a graph and then subtly altering it to hide a secret watermark "seems to be a viable scheme for large applications." Probably the most likely application is using the watermark to encode licensing information, such as date of expiration or Ethernet addresses of computers permitted to run the program. When a user double-clicks on a program, Windows would read in the license information and could prevent the program from executing. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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