Traitor tracing for shortened and corrupted fingerprints

Abstract

We consider tracing fingerprinted media data such as images and video data. We consider pirate objects that are constructed by a group of up to c colluders who have used a range of attacks including 'cut and paste', averaging (to weaken the embedded marks), and cropping (to remove part of the fingerprint). We have two main results: First, we give an efficient algorithm for tracing shortened fingerprints that are obtained from a class of generalized Reed-Solomon codes. Second, we propose combined mark detection and tracing using soft-decision decoding and show that it gives a more powerful tracing algorithm. We conclude the paper by discussing our results and giving possible directions for future research. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.