Talal G. Shamoon

Resistance of digital watermarks to collusive attacks

In digital watermarking (also called digital fingerprinting), extra information is embedded imperceptibly into digital content (such as an audio track, a still image, or a movie). This extra information can be read by authorized parties, and other users attempting to remove the watermark cannot do so without destroying the value of the content by making perceptible changes to the content. This provides a disincentive to copying by allowing copies to be traced to their original owner. Unlike cryptography, digital watermarking provides protection to content that is in the clear. It is not easy to design watermarks that are hard to erase, especially if an attacker has access to several differently marked copies of the same base content. Cox et al. (see IEEE Trans. on Image Processing, vol.6, no.12, p.1673-87, 1997) have proposed the use of additive normally distributed values as watermarks, and have sketched an argument showing that, in a certain theoretical model, such watermarks are resistant to collusive attacks. Here, we fill in the mathematical justification for this claim.

Robustness and Security of Digital Watermarks

Digital watermarking is a nascent but promising technology that offers protection of unencrypted digital content. This paper is a brief technical survey of the multimedia watermarking landscape. The three main technical challenges faced by watermarking algorithms are fidelity, robustness and security. Current watermarking methods offer possibly acceptable fidelity and robustness against certain types of processing, such as data compression and noise addition, but are not sufficiently robust against geometric transforms such as scaling and cropping of images. Theoretical approaches have been developed that could lead to secure watermarking methods, but substantial gaps remain between theory and practice.

The car as an Internet-enabled device, or how to make trusted networked cars

This paper presents an overall approach to creating security and trust architecture for networked automotive vehicles and outlines basic principles for mitigating certain risks facing this new paradigm.

Culturally-induced information impactedness: a prescription for failure in software ventures

The impact of effective information flow in software ventures is analyzed through a recent case in which a hot, lucrative technology was lost on its way to the marketplace. The failure occurred despite the fact that the venture had many components crucial to success, including a proprietary intellectual property position, enormous market demand, a well-qualified, committed team and sufficient funding. One reason for this failure is the lack of information flows among several parties critical to the success of the venture. This case suggests that in software markets which operate at breakneck pace and have short development cycles, effective information flow is a first order priority. These blockages in information flows can stem from the nature of the cultures that are created to produce software ideas, especially proprietary technologies. The case also suggests that information can become impacted by the clash between US software market characteristics and Japanese business culture. Fortunately, there are inexpensive solutions that can substantially improve the return on investment, especially foreign investment, in new software technologies.