Asymmetric Watermarking Using Public Key Infrastructure

This paper proposes an asymmetric watermarking system using Public Key Infrastructure. The distinguishing characteristic of the proposed method connects between the two different techniques, cryptography technique and watermarking technique, by using the authentication technique. The connection between the two techniques are established based on the special qualities of each technique. Watermarks that are inserted into the digital contents consist of a digital signature described as an encrypted copyright information with the private key of a distributor or a copyright holder, and an authentication code. In the situation where the ownership of the digital contents has to be decided, authentication technique examines the data integrity of the digital contents based on an authentication and decides the ownership of the digital contents by examining whether it satisfies or not satisfies the integrity test. The formal case uses decryption method which compares the user defined copyright information, and the decrypted copyright information extracted from the watermark in the digital contents that are decrypted by distributors' public key The latter case determines the ownership by comparing the similarity between encrypted copyright information separated from the watermark that are extracted from the digital contents, and the user defined encrypted copyright information that are separated from the watermark The proposed method provides protection from the assault which attempts to identify or erase the encoding key.