|
|
Piracy diminished by watermarks
By Luis Jiménez
Summer
Reporter
Two Purdue professors have teamed up to develop
a way to embed electronic watermarks into "natural language" text documents
and electronic documents that are usually prone to counterfeiting and
piracy.
Mikhail Atallah, professor of computer science,
and Victor Raskin, professor of English, have been working for two years
in the development of this technology, which would provide means for
software companies and governments to protect important documentation.
Atallah said electronic watermarks are nothing
new as they have been used in the past to watermark images placed on
the Web. But the new twist to the research is the implementation of
these watermarks into the syntactic structure of the language and even
into the meaning of the language as well.
"Storing watermarks in the syntactic structure
of the text it's not as good as storing it in the meaning," said Atallah.
"If done this way, it'll survive translating to other languages. It'll
be more resilient (to tampering)."
Raskin explained that the electronic watermarks
are made by introducing slight changes to the grammatical structure
of the language. So, although the grammar and even the words of a certain
document can change, the watermark can still be found intact. The watermarks
are introduced using an computer instructions based in a code.
According to Raskin, watermarks can be as long
as someone would want them to be. He said that electronic watermarks
are important because of security and proprietary concerns. "Watermarks
can be used by organizations issuing information that nobody can appropriate
and declare them their own.
Atallah said electronic watermarks would have many
practical uses in the near future. "People use watermark (in paper)
for the same reason watermarks are used in images or electronic documents,"
he said. "If something is pirated, watermarks will say the source of
the piracy. People use watermarks to protect ownership."
|
Aquatic
Center hopes for June completion
Schools’
programs receive high international scholar rankings
New
building construction to convert Purdue Village to research complex
Scientists
study enzyme structures in biological systems
Purdue
researchers study connection between health, religious convictions
Piracy
diminished by watermarks
CAMPUS DESK PHONE:
(765)
743-1111 ext. 253
Campus editor:
Laura Pelner
Assistant campus
editors: Kurt Esposito,
Dave Stephens
To
send a letter to the editor, please email opinions@purdueexponent.org
|
