[BS98] Collusion-secure fingerprinting for digital data

Authors: Dan Boneh, James Shaw | Venue: IEEE Transactions on Information Theory | Source

Abstract

This paper discusses methods for assigning code-words for the purpose of fingerprinting digital data, e.g., software, documents, music, and video. Fingerprinting consists of uniquely marking and registering each copy of the data. This marking allows a distributor to detect any unauthorized copy and trace it back to the user. This threat of detection will deter users from releasing unauthorized copies. A problem arises when users collude: for digital data, two different fingerprinted objects can be compared and the differences between them detected. Hence, a set of users can collude to detect the location of the fingerprint. They can then alter the fingerprint to mask their identities. We present a general fingerprinting solution which is secure in the context of collusion. In addition, we discuss methods for distributing fingerprinted data.

BibTeX

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@article{BS98,
  author  = {Dan Boneh and James Shaw},
  title   = {Collusion-Secure Fingerprinting for Digital Data},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Information Theory},
  volume  = {44},
  number  = {5},
  pages   = {1897--1905},
  year    = {1998}
}