FC: Microsoft shows off software, music watermarking prototypes

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Tue May 01 2001 - 15:58:58 PDT

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    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.
    
       [...]
    
    
    
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