(Workshop Chairs) ECDL WS Generalized Documents 2001 Applications of Information Hiding and.pdf

D. W. Fellner, N. Fuhr, I. Witten (Workshop Chairs) ECDL WS Generalized Documents 2001 Applications of Information Hiding and Digital Watermarking J. J. Eggers and R. B?uml and R. Tzschoppe and J. Huber Telecommunications Laboratory, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany Abstract Digital watermarking denotes the hiding of information in general documents, where the embedded information can be exploited to combat copyright infringements or to verify the integrity of a document. We emphasize that blind watermarking, where the original document is not known to the watermark receiver, can be interpreted as communication with side information at the encoder. Significant improvements over state-of-the-art watermarking schemes can be achieved when using this side information. The new watermarking technology broadens the range of possible applications for digital watermarking and information hiding, which is demonstrated for three example applications. 1. Introduction Digital media has replaced analog media in many applica- tions within the last decade. This is mainly due to improved properties like simple noise-free transmission over general- purpose channels, compact storage, perfect copying and sim- ple editing. Further, the availability of the Internet as an open global network for the transmission of digital data acceler- ated the use of digital media. These first-view advantages of digital media over analog media turn into disadvantages with respect to the protection of intellectual property rights and the trustworthiness of the content. Simple noise-free trans- mission of digital data (e. g., images, audio, video) via the Internet enables pirates to reach a huge market, while pros- ecution is difficult. Even worse, perfect copies are obtained easily and can be stored on CDs or DVDs. Simple editing of digital data can destroy the trust in documents, e. g., by the replacement of a person’s face within a digital image. Digital watermarking has been proposed as an ap