DATABASE WATERMARKING USING ELLIPTIC CURVE CRYPTOGRAPHY (ECC)

Abstract

The piracy of software, images, video, audio, and text has long been a concern for owners of these digital assets. Protection schemes are usually based upon the insertion of digital watermarks into the data. The watermarking software introduces small errors into the object being watermarked. These intentional errors are called marks, and all the marks together constitute the watermark. The marks are chosen so as to have an insignificant impact on the usefulness of the data and are placed in such a way that a malicious user cannot destroy them without making the data significantly less useful. Although watermarking does not prevent illegal copying, it deters such copying by providing a means for establishing the original ownership of a redistributed copy. The increasing use of databases in applications beyond “behind-the-firewalls data processing” is creating a similar need for watermarking databases. The Internet is exerting tremendous pressure on data providers to create services that allow users to search and access databases remotely. Although this trend is a boon to end users, it exposes the data providers to the threat of data theft. Providers are therefore demanding technology for identifying pirated copies of their databases. So database watermarking becomes a basic requirement of database owners.