Database Watermarking

report on database watermarking

1. INTRODUCTION

 1. INTRODUCTION

         The rapid growth of internet and related technologies has offered an unprecedented ability to access and redistribute digital contents. In such a context, enforcing data ownership is an important requirement which requires articulated solutions, encompassing technical, organizational and legal aspects. Though we are still far from such comprehensive solutions, in the last years watermarking techniques have emerged as an important building block which plays a crucial role in addressing the ownership problem. Such techniques allow the owner of the data to embed an imperceptible watermark into the data. A watermark describes information that can be used to prove the ownership of data, such as the owner, origin, or recipient of the content. Secure embedding requires that the embedded watermark must not be easily tampered with, forged, or removed from the watermarked data. Imperceptible embedding means that the presence of the watermark is unnoticeable in the data. Furthermore, the watermark detection is blinded, that is, it neither requires the knowledge of the original data nor the watermark. This is the case, for example, of weather data, stock market data, and power consumption, and consumer behavior data, medical and scientific data.

1. Background Problem

Database watermarking has received significant research attention in the current decade. Although, almost all watermarking models have been either irreversible (the original relation cannot be restored from the watermarked relation) and/or non-blind (requiring original relation to detect the watermark in watermarked relation). This model has several disadvantages over reversible and blind watermarking (requiring only watermarked relation and secret key from which the watermark is detected and original relation is restored) including inability to identify rightful owner in case of successful...