Tamper-proof watermark threatens to put digital pirates out to sea - Polidicks

[quote] [b]Tamper-proof watermark threatens to put digital pirates out to sea[/b] Illegal downloaders could soon sow the seeds of their own destruction. A new tamper-proof digital watermark that has been developed in Australia is promising to capture information about people who have downloaded and distributed copyright-protected material. Researchers from Deakin’s School of Information Technology, together with peers at Japan’s Aizu University, developed the technology which embeds metadata - such as a user's credit card and bank details, internet protocol (IP) address, transmission time, and received format - directly into a song or movie. That means that when you illegally download a song, your details could be recorded in the file and eventually retrieved by police. If the file was paid for, but purchased from an illegal website, which can sell songs as cheaply as 10¢ per track, the watermark records your payment details. According to Yong Xiang, associate professor at Deakin, the process doesn't affect the user's listening experience. [/quote] [url]http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/tamperproof-watermark-threatens-to-put-digital-pirates-out-to-sea-20140717-zti0s.html[/url]

Calling something tamper-proof might be the best way to make sure it will get tampered with.

Ahh Yes. A Digital Dog Whistle A noise that is inaudible by you, but you can't listen to it anyway because the family dog has gone batshit

[quote] If the file was paid for, but purchased from an illegal website, which can sell songs as cheaply as 10¢ per track, the watermark records your payment details.[/quote] Haha what daft idiot wrote this? Yes, sure, illegal license-less sites will sell you music and put the stamp into the file, totally. And even in general it's retarded because there's no way this will be resistant to just re-encoding the song which will lead to practically inaudible change in sound but completely demolish any digital data hidden in it.

[QUOTE=Fetret;45436342]Calling something tamper-proof might be the best way to make sure it will get tampered with.[/QUOTE] And rest assured, it will be tampered with. It's the classic "God himself cannot sink this ship" mentality.

Evidently the mob that invented this haven't figured out the advanced task of re-encoding audio. As it is a highly complex task, I can understand fully that they have not spent time researching it.

I give it a week.

[QUOTE=kaukassus;45436299]the technology which embeds metadata - such as a user's credit card and bank details, internet protocol (IP) address, transmission time, and received format - directly into a song or movie.[/QUOTE] Sounds more like this would only help getting info on the uploader of material, and even then, sounds like malware/BS.

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;45436360]Haha what daft idiot wrote this? Yes, sure, illegal license-less sites will sell you music and put the stamp into the file, totally. And even in general it's retarded because there's no way this will be resistant to just re-encoding the song which will lead to practically inaudible change in sound but completely demolish any digital data hidden in it.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=helifreak;45436370]Evidently the mob that invented this haven't figured out the advanced task of re-encoding audio. As it is a highly complex task, I can understand fully that they have not spent time researching it.[/QUOTE] Why do you incorrectly assume that the researchers are less knowledgeable in their field than you are? Previous research has come up with audio watermarking which is resistant to lossy encoding, noise and filtering. Image watermarking has had similar advancements.

[QUOTE=Ogris;45436397]I give it a week.[/QUOTE] I give it 11 minutes

[QUOTE=ThePuska;45436466]Why do you incorrectly assume that the researchers are less knowledgeable in their field than you are? Previous research has come up with audio watermarking which is resistant to lossy encoding, noise and filtering. Image watermarking has had similar advancements.[/QUOTE] And yet I don't think it's immune to being re-recorded

This ship is unsinkable.

"the watermark data can be recovered from the leaked copy to identify the source of leaked contents" "identify the source" So much for being an expert on software and piracy. The guy may not even know what a VPN is.

[QUOTE=gokiyono;45436475]And yet I don't think it's immune to being re-recorded[/QUOTE] Of course if you distort the signal enough you'll lose most of the confidence when trying to identify the watermark. But who would want to listen to mangled audio?

out of all the people to pirate, do these people really believe that the police really care enough to give chase to some guy that pirated some album? oh give us a break.

[quote]That means that when you illegally download a song, your details could be recorded in the file and eventually retrieved by police. If the file was paid for, but purchased from an illegal website, which can sell songs as cheaply as 10¢ per track, the watermark records your payment details.[/quote] This may well be the most inaccurate tech article I've ever read here in SH.

[QUOTE=ThePuska;45436466]Why do you incorrectly assume that the researchers are less knowledgeable in their field than you are? Previous research has come up with audio watermarking which is resistant to lossy encoding, noise and filtering. Image watermarking has had similar advancements.[/QUOTE] Watermarking the original buyer is fine, and I have no doubt that it would work. But THIS part: [quote]That means that when you illegally download a song, your details could be recorded in the file and eventually retrieved by police. If the file was paid for, but purchased from an illegal website, which can sell songs as cheaply as 10c per track, the watermark records your payment details.[/quote] Is complete bullshit. To be fair though, I'm pretty sure that's due to the source misinterpreting what the researchers are saying, rather than the researchers being idiots. An illegal site is not going to watermark "John Smith paid 10 cents for this song, when he should have paid 1 dollar! Arrest him!" into songs. In fact, as far as I recall, no one really gives a shit about individuals having pirated songs. It would take far too much time to check countless individuals' songs just to see "hmm, you downloaded this 1$ song for 10c, ur goin 2 jail criminal scum". What judge would even sign a warrant to search for that? The big deal, and what this technology WOULD do, would be to encode the original buyer into a song. You would buy or download a song from an illegal site, look at the data, and you would be able to see who uploaded the song to the website. This technology would go after distributors, not pirates.

[QUOTE=Alfax;45436482]"the watermark data can be recovered from the leaked copy to identify the source of leaked contents" "identify the source" So much for being an expert on software and piracy. The guy may not even know what a VPN is.[/QUOTE] I think they are targeting leaks

Even IF this was foolproof what is to stop someone - finding it on youtube - going to youtube-mp3.org or any of the thousand of sites like it - and just downloading it? Seems like spore all over again. That claimed to have the best drm ever created, and yet it became the most pirated game of all time. :v:

Why would someone pay 10 cents for a pirated song

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;45436712]Seems like spore all over again. That claimed to have the best drm ever created, and yet it became the most pirated game of all time. :v:[/QUOTE] Wasn't the DRM of that game like hard-installed into your harddrive permanently (staying there even if you formatted it) and monitored everything you did with your disk activity or something like that? As in an actual trojan virus/malware but worse? Maybe I mixed it up with another thing or I was misinformed, but I swear I read something like that somewhere :v:

[QUOTE=Jorori;45436791]Wasn't the DRM of that game like hard-installed into your harddrive permanently (staying there even if you formatted it) and monitored everything you did with your disk activity or something like that? As in an actual trojan virus/malware but worse? Maybe I mixed it up with another thing or I was misinformed, but I swear I read something like that somewhere :v:[/QUOTE] no i think you might have mixed two up because spore's drm was "You can only install it 4 times then the disk becomes unusable" and it would count changing hardware too, so even if you never gave it away and just swapped computer parts around you would use them up and then have to buy the game again.

[QUOTE]the technology which embeds metadata - such as a user's credit card and bank details, internet protocol (IP) address, transmission time, and received format - directly into a song or movie.[/QUOTE] Ok having a file that records my credit card data and bank details does not sound safe at all to me. Or even legal for that matter.

Just convert the "secure" file to a different format, using whatever required software. Boom. Or maybe, if that ain't gonna fly, load the signals that output to the two speakers into an mp3. Problem solved. Files uploaded. Please seed.

Cool, they invented embeddable malware. Totally not been done before and totally wont set off some antivirus triggers.

[QUOTE=Electrocuter;45436831]Ok having a file that records my credit card data and bank details does not sound safe at all to me. Or even legal for that matter.[/QUOTE] This seems to be developed from the Australian branch of NSA.

[QUOTE=ThePuska;45436466]Why do you incorrectly assume that the researchers are less knowledgeable in their field than you are?[/QUOTE] Because they are spewing pure bullshit out their mouths. They (like the other anti-piracy groups) are cashing in on a gold mine of retarded publishers/politicians giving them money to fight piracy. They sell them this all amazing tamper-proof watermark crap for millions, which doesn't prevent jack shit, but the people paying are so computer illiterate they don't know it can't work that easy. My theory is based on the fact that this isn't the first tamper-proof watermark system to be sold, yet piracy still exists.

iirc this crap was already cracked so who cares now

[QUOTE=Kardia;45436867]Just convert the "secure" file to a different format, using whatever required software. Boom. Or maybe, if that ain't gonna fly, load the signals that output to the two speakers into an mp3. Problem solved. Files uploaded. Please seed.[/QUOTE] i dont think it'd be that easy

I'm sure police will find metadata on a Testdude Mctest from Test street 10000, Test city very useful. The data that would be embedded into song isn't the weakest link here, people will just register under names of dead people or fictious people. Don't even need to crack anything, just make them use invalid data before they catch it.