Dept. Of Comp. Engg.

Digital Signature And Watermarking

SEMINAR REPORT ON DIGITAL SIGNATURE AND WATERMARKING

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Digital Signature And Watermarking INDEX 1) INTRODUCTION 2) HISTORY 3) SIGNATURES AND LAWS 4) METHODS TO CREATE DIGITAL SIGNATURE 5) DSS (DIGITAL SIGNATURE STANDARD) 6) DIGITAL CERTIFICATE 7) CHALLENGES AND OPPURTUNITIES 8) DIGITAL WATERMARKING 9) PURPOSE OF DIGITAL WATERMARK 10) TECHNIQUES FOR WATERMARKING 11) TYPES OF WATERMARK 12) HOW WATERMARKING WORKS 13) TYPES OF WATERMARKING 14) LIMITATIONS OF WATERMARKING 15) FUTURE OF WATERMARKING 16) CONCLUSION 17) REFRENCES AND BIBLOGRAPHY -1-1-4-5-9-10-14-15-16-19-20-22-23-26-27-30-31-

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Digital Signature And Watermarking

DIGITAL SIGNATURE INTRODUCTION:

In today's commercial environment, establishing a framework for the authentication of computer-based information requires a familiarity with concepts and professional skills from both the legal and computer security fields. Combining these two disciplines is not an easy task. Concepts from the information security field often correspond only loosely to concepts from the legal field, even in situations where the terminology is similar. For example, from the information security point of view, "digital signature" means the result of applying to specific information certain specific technical processes described below. The historical legal concept of "signature" is broader. It recognizes any mark made with the intention of authenticating the marked document.

HISTORY:
It is probably not surprising that the inventors of writing, the Sumerians, were also the inventors of an authentication mechanism. The Sumerians used intricate seals, applied into their clay cuneiform tablets using rollers, to authenticate their writings. Seals continued to be used as the primary authentication mechanism until recent times. Use of signatures is recorded in the Talmud (fourth century), complete with security procedures to prevent the alteration of documents after they are signed. The Talmud even describes use of a form of "signature card" by witnesses to deeds. The practice of authenticating documents by affixing handwritten signatures began to be used within the Roman Empire in the year AD 439, during the rule of Valentinian III. The subscripto - a short handwritten sentence at the end of a document stating that the signer "subscribed" to the document - was first used for authenticating wills. The practice of affixing signatures to documents spread rapidly from this initial usage, and the form of signatures (a hand-written

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Digital Signature And Watermarking representation of ones own name) remained essentially unchanged for over 1,400 years. It is from this Roman usage of signatures that the practice obtained its significance in Western legal tradition.

When do you need to verify identity?

New ways of verification are being developed daily. Biometrics and other methods keep getting formulated and incorporated into the information technology industry. One interesting biometric authentication mechanism developed by a leading Japanese biometric company has found a way to get your DNA into a pen. You sign a document and it is digitally scanned. This document then can be scanned in the future to verify its authenticity. Identity should be verified when ever there is doubt of the 3rd party being whom they say they are or when there is personal information at risk. Personal information like credit card details and banking information should be kept safe using digital certification as one of the security layers. Some banking institutions require that a user verifies his/her identity by validating identification credentials using a digital certificate. Important e-mail can also use Digital signatures that verify that the e-mail is from the originating sender and that it has not been tampered with. On many occasions users are unsure if they are dealing with reputable suppliers of institutions. Digital certification gives the user a sense of legitimacy and formalizes the process. It ensure that the company that the user is dealing with has a registration with a trusted authority and that the transaction is guaranteed to be done with the intended parties.

DIGITAL SIGNATURE:
Digital signatures are a way to ensure the integrity of a message or other data using public key cryptography. Like traditional signatures written with ink on paper, they can be used to authenticate the identity of the signer of the data. However, digital signatures go beyond traditional signatures in that they can also ensure that the data itself has not been altered. This is like signing a check in such a way that if someone changes the amount of the sum written on the check, an Invalid stamp becomes visible on the face of the check.Digital signatures take the concept of TheDirectData.com Page 4

Digital Signature And Watermarking traditional paper-based signing and turn it into a digital "fingerprint". This "fingerprint", or coded message, is unique to both the document and the signer. The digital signature ensures that the signatory is indeed the originator of the message. Any changes made to the document after it was signed invalidate the signature, thereby protecting against forgery. Digital signatures help organizations sustain signer authenticity, accountability, data integrity and non-repudiation of documents and transactions.

Reasons for using digital security.

It insures by means of verification and validation that the user is whom he/she

claims to be. This is done by combine the users credential to the digital certificate and in turn this method uses one point of authentication.

Digital certificates insure data Integrity giving the user piece of mind that the

message or transaction has not been accidentally or maliciously altered. This is done cryptographically.

Digital certificates ensure confidentiality and ensure that messages can only

be read by authorized intended recipients.

Digital certificates also verify date and time so that senders or recipients can

not dispute if the message was actually sent or received.

The components that a digital signature comprise of.

1. Your public key: This is the part that any one can get a copy of and is part of the verification system. 2. Your name and e-mail address: This is necessary for contact information purposes and to enable the viewer to identify the details. 3. Expiration date of the public key: This part of the signature is used to set a shelf life and to ensure that in the event of prolonged abuse of a signature eventually the signature is reset.

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Digital Signature And Watermarking 4. Name of the company: This section identifies the company that the signature belongs too. 5. Serial number of the Digital ID: This part is a unique number that is bundled to the signature for tracking ad extra identification reasons. 6. Digital signature of the CA (certification Authority): This is a signature that is issued by the authority that issues the certificates.

Signatures and the Law

A signature is not part of the substance of a transaction, but rather of its representation or form. Signing writings serve the following general purposes:

Evidence: A signature authenticates a writing by identifying the signer with the signed document. When the signer makes a mark in a distinctive manner, the writing becomes attributable to the signer.

Ceremony: The act of signing a document calls to the signer's attention the legal significance of the signer's act, and thereby helps prevent "inconsiderate engagements.

Approval: In certain contexts defined by law or custom, a signature expresses the signer's approval or authorization of the writing, or the signer's intention that it have legal effect.

Efficiency and logistics: A signature on a written document often imparts a sense of clarity and finality to the transaction and may lessen the subsequent need to inquire beyond the face of a document. Negotiable instruments, for example, rely upon formal requirements, including a signature, for their ability to change hands with ease, rapidity, and minimal interruption.

The formal requirements for legal transactions, including the need for signatures, vary in different legal systems, and also vary with the passage of time. There is also variance in the legal consequences of failure to cast the transaction in a required form. The statute of frauds of the common law tradition, for example, does not render a transaction invalid for lack of a "writing signed by the party to be charged," but rather makes it unenforceable in court, a

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Digital Signature And Watermarking distinction which has caused the practical application of the statute to be greatly limited in case law.

DIGITAL SIGNATURE WORKS ON THE FOLLOWING PROCESS:

1) A Singing algorithm 2) A key generation algorithm 3) A verification algorithm

METHODS TO CREATE DIGITAL SIGNATURE:

MEHTOD 1:
Digital signatures are created and verified by cryptography, the branch of applied mathematics that concerns itself with transforming messages into seemingly unintelligible forms and back again. Digital signatures use what is known as "public key cryptography," which employs an algorithm using two different but mathematically related "keys;" one for creating a digital signature or transforming data into a seemingly unintelligible form, and another key for verifying a digital signature or returning the message to its original form. Computer equipment and software utilizing two such keys are often collectively termed an "asymmetric cryptosystem." The complementary keys of an asymmetric cryptosystem for digital signatures are arbitrarily termed the private key, which is known only to the signer and used to create the digital signature, and the public key, which is ordinarily more widely known and is used by a relying party to verify the digital signature. If many people need to verify the signer's digital signatures, the public key must be available or distributed to all of them, perhaps by publication in an on-line repository or directory where it is easily accessible. Although the keys of the pair are mathematically related, if the asymmetric cryptosystem has been designed and implemented securely it is "computationally infeasible to derive the private key from knowledge of the public key. Thus, although many people may know the public key of a given signer and use it to verify that signer's signatures, they cannot discover that signer's private key and use it to forge digital signatures. This is sometimes referred to as the principle of "irreversibility." TheDirectData.com Page 7

Digital Signature And Watermarking

METHOD 2:
Another fundamental process, termed a "hash function," is used in both creating and verifying a digital signature. A hash function is an algorithm which creates a digital representation or "fingerprint" in the form of a "hash value" or "hash result" of a standard length which is usually much smaller than the message but nevertheless substantially unique to it. Any change to the message invariably produces a different hash result when the same hash function is used. In the case of a secure hash function, sometimes termed a "one-way hash function," it is computationally infeasible to derive the original message from knowledge of its hash value. Hash functions therefore enable the software for creating digital signatures to operate on smaller and predictable amounts of data, while still providing robust evidentiary correlation to the original message content, thereby efficiently providing assurance that there has been no modification of the message since it was digitally signed. Thus, use of digital signatures usually involves two processes, one performed by the signer and the other by the receiver of the digital signature:

Digital signature creation uses a hash result derived from and unique to both the signed message and a given private key. For the hash result to be secure, there must be only a negligible possibility that the same digital signature could be created by the combination of any other message or private key.

Digital signature verification is the process of checking the digital signature by reference to the original message and a given public key, thereby determining whether the digital signature was created for that same message using the private key that corresponds to the referenced public key.

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The creation of a digital signature

In the simplest terms a digital signature is a stream of bits appended to a document. The purpose of a digital signature is to provide assurance about the origin of the message and the integrity of the message contents. When a message with a digital signature is transmitted and received, the following parties are involved:

the signer who signs the document; the verifier who receives the signed document and verifies the signature ; the arbitrator who arbitrates any disputes between the signer and the verifier if there is a disagreement on the validity of the digital signature.

Digitally signing a document begins with producing a summary of the document using mathematical functions known as hash functions. Some examples are Message Digest-5 (MD5), Secure Hash Algorithm-1 (SHA-1) and Rseaux IP Europens (RIPE) Message Digest-160 (RIPMED-160). The output of a hash function, a document summary called the hash, always has the same number of bits e.g. 128 for MD5 and 160 for SHA-1, regardless of the length of the input document. It is obvious that different documents will produce different hashes. It is considered virtually impossible to have an identical hash even from two similar documents. The hash function is encrypted by the signer using his/her private key and forms the digital signature of the encrypted document. The verifier receives both the document and the signature, calculates the summary of the document using the same hash function used by the signer. The signature is decrypted using the signers public key. The last step is to compare the decrypted summary with the one previously computed by the verifier from the document. If the two summaries are identical then the signature has been verified. The verifier is now sure of the identity of the signer and that the data was not been modified.

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Digital Signature And Watermarking The figure below shows the signing process again in steps.

Let us suppose that Alice is the signer and Bob the verifier: Let us suppose that Alice is the signer and Bob the verifier:

Alice calculates the summary of the document, the hash; Alice encrypts the summary with her own private key to create the digital signature; Alice sends the digital signature and the document to Bob, the verifier; Bob calculates the summary of the document, the hash; Bob decrypts the digital signature with Alices public key and obtains a summary; Bob compares the two summaries he has made; if they are equal Bob is sure that the document was not modified and that Alice really did sign the document herself.

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DIGITAL SIGNATURE STANDARD (DSS)

Explanation: This Standard specifies a Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) appropriate for applications requiring a digital rather than written signature. The DSA digital signature is a pair of large numbers represented in a computer as strings of binary digits. The digital signature is computed using a set of rules (i.e., the DSA) and a set of parameters such that the identity of the signatory and integrity of the data can be verified. The DSA provides the capability to generate and verify signatures. Signature generation makes use of a private key to generate a digital signature. Signature verification makes use of a public key which corresponds to, but is not the same as, the private key. Each user possesses a private and public key pair. Public keys are assumed to be known to the public in general. Private keys are never shared. Anyone can verify the signature of a user by employing that user's public key. Signature generation can be performed only by the possessor of the user's private key.

A hash function is used in the signature generation process to obtain a condensed version of data, called a message digest . The message digest is then input to the DSA to generate the digital signature. The digital signature is sent to the intended verifier along with the signed data (often called the message). The verifier of the message and signature verifies the signature by using the sender's public key. The same hash function must also be used in the verification process. The hash function is specified in a separate standard, the Secure Hash Standard (SHS), FIPS 180. Similar procedures may be used to generate and verify signatures for stored as well as transmitted data.

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Digital Signature And Watermarking

Using the SHA with the DSA

What is a digital certificate?

An electronic credential that vouches for the holder's identity, a digital certificate has characteristics similar to those of a passport - it has identifying information, is forgery-proof, and is issued by a trusted third party. Digital certificates are published in on-line directories. Typically, a digital certificate contains:

The user's distinguished name (a unique identifier) The issuing Certification Authority's distinguished name The user's public key The validity period The certificate's serial number The issuing Certification Authority's digital signature, verifying the information in

the digital certificate.

How Strong are Signatures?

No security mechanism, whether manual or automated, provides absolute assurance. There is evidence that forgery was practiced shortly after the invention of writing, and that it has remained a problem ever since. TheDirectData.com Page 12

Digital Signature And Watermarking Modern forensic document examiners commonly compare a suspect signature with several examples of known valid signatures, and look for signs of forgery, which include: Signatures written at a speed which is significantly slower than the genuine signatures; Frequent change of the grasp of the writing implement; Blunt line endings and beginnings; Poor line quality with wavering and tremor of the line; Retracing and patching; Stops in places where the writing should be free. These techniques are supplemented with ink and paper analysis, electrostatic detection of writing imprints, and so on. If one were to argue in court that "I didnt sign this document, my pen did," the result would probably be tittering in the courtroom, a lost case, and a possible court-ordered psychiatric evaluation. However, if one were to argue in court that "I didnt sign the data, my computer did," the response from the court might be more sympathetic, as anyone who has used a computer has had the experience of the computer doing something the operator didnt want it to do. Ultimately, people do not sign electronically - they command their computers to sign electronically on behalf of the signer. Someday an attacker will seize control of a victims signing application to fraudulently sign data, and when this attack becomes public, confidence in digital signatures may be forever shaken. Digital signatures cryptographic authentication systems bind signatures to individuals through technical and procedural mechanisms. There are strong, mathematical links between a private signature key, its associated public key, and the message signature, but the association between the signer and her private key depends on the protection afforded the private key. The association between the signer and her public key depends on the honesty and diligence of the Certification Authority (CA) issuing the signers public key certificate (a TheDirectData.com Page 13

Digital Signature And Watermarking public key certificate is a digitally signed statement by a CA that binds a public key to a signers identity). Hence, the strength of the security services provided by a digital signature is a function of the methods used to safeguard the private signature key, methods used by the CA to identify and authenticate those applying for digital certificates, the protections provided against corrupt CAs, safeguards against the computers used by the CA being subverted, and so on. The standards, practices and procedures used to ensure the validity of the binding between a signer and the signers public key represent a "certificate policy." The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Public Key Infrastructure/X.509 (PKIX) working group has developed a guide for developing certificate policies that describes certificate policies more precisely as: "A named set of rules that indicate the applicability of a certificate to a particular community and/or class of application with common security requirements." The IETF goes on to list about 250 "policy elements" which can be factored into the establishment of a certificate policy. These policy elements include methods used to identify an individual, how the public/private key pairs are generated, how the private keys are protected, liability limits, and so on. Since different CAs establish and follow different policies, the strength of digital signatures varies according the policy of the CA who issued the signers certificates. Furthermore, digital signature certificates normally state a "validity interval," determined by the CA, during which the certificate may be used to verify signatures. The matter of what to do about signatures applied using a private key for which the associated public key has expired is one of many associated with the long-term validity of digital signatures.

Digital Signatures - Will They Last?

When considering digital data archival, it is important to remember digital signature verification requires each and every bit in the signed document be preserved and read correctly, just as it was when the signer applied the signature. For example, the flipping of a bit that changes an "s" character to an "S," while undesirable in any electronic document, would render a digitally signed document completely unverifiable, just as if every word in the document had been changed. TheDirectData.com Page 14

Digital Signature And Watermarking There are at least four problems associated with the long-term archival of signed electronic records. Briefly, they are: Deterioration of the source media; Obsolescence of the record data format; Evolution of cryptographic algorithms and related standards; and, Certificate life-cycle. Source media (tapes, optical disks, floppy disks, etc.) are subject to deterioration over time. Magnetic media are prone to hydrolysis of the binder in which the magnetic particles are embedded. Hydrolysis causes the binder to become soft and sticky, and transfer from the media substrate to read/write heads and other surfaces. Another problem with magnetic media is the magnetic domains within the media "top coat" can reverse, thus changing recorded 1s to 0s and vice versa. The length of time a tape may be used to archive data varies from a minimum of about one year under tropical conditions, to about 64 years under ideal (cool, dry) conditions. The "weak link" in terms of optical disk archival is the metal reflecting layer, used to reflect the optical disk readers laser. This reflecting layer is typically made of aluminum, and subject to oxidation, because the reflecting surface is enclosed in materials that can be oxygen-permeable. As with magnetic tape, quality of the media and storage conditions play the dominant role in determining the useful archive lifetime, but manufacturers estimates and independent studies indicate that read-only optical disks should last for 100 years under ideal conditions. Lifetimes for writable optical disks are usually less - between 10 - 50 years (Dual alloy disks being an exception, with an estimated life of 100 years.) Digital signatures exacerbate the problem of technological obsolescence. They make the most common coping technique - conversion to new formats during transition periods impossible unless the original signer can resign under the new format - a solution which is always burdensome and often impossible. From a digital signature perspective, a change to a document format is indistinguishable from a change to the document content, and will result in an unverifiable signature. TheDirectData.com Page 15

Digital Signature And Watermarking A similar problem is associated with the mercurial nature of cryptographic algorithms and standards. Aside from the signers private signature key, a digital signature is a function of:

The message being signed (including any encoding of the data); The hashing algorithm used; and, The signature algorithm used.

We have already seen that the formatting of data is changing continuously. It appears that digital signature standards are also likely to undergo continuous evolution. Hashing algorithms that have been used in the short history of digital signatures include MD2, MD4, MD5, and the Secure Hashing Algorithm - 1 (SHA-1). There are frequent proposals for improving upon these algorithms as new cryptanalytic attacks are found, more efficient hashing mechanisms are devised, and computer hardware (for example the move from 16 bit to 32 bit machines) changes algorithm requirements. Earlier we explored the role of the Certification Authorities in binding identities to public keys. It must be stressed that digital signatures cannot be verified without certificates. Certificates expire. VeriSign Corporation, for example, issues certificates to end-entities for one year periods. Certificate validity dates vary from one Certification Authority to another, and a single CA can support several certificate policies with different certificate validity periods. Certificates can be renewed, but if they are not renewed, they expire, and are not supposed to be used to verify signatures thereafter.

Challenges and Opportunities

The prospect of fully implementing digital signatures in general commerce presents both benefits and costs. The costs consist mainly of:

Institutional overhead: The cost of establishing and utilizing certification authorities, repositories, and other important services, as well as assuring quality in the performance of their functions.

Subscriber and Relying Party Costs: A digital signer will require software, and will probably have to pay a certification authority some price to issue a certificate.

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Digital Signature And Watermarking Hardware to secure the subscriber's private key may also be advisable. Persons relying on digital signatures will incur expenses for verification software and perhaps for access to certificates and certificate revocation lists (CRL) in a repository. On the plus side, the principal advantage to be gained is more reliable authentication of messages. Digital signatures, if properly implemented and utilized offer promising solutions to the problems of:

Imposters, by minimizing the risk of dealing with imposters or persons who attempt to escape responsibility by claiming to have been impersonated; Message integrity, by minimizing the risk of undetected message tampering and forgery, and of false claims that a message was altered after it was sent; Formal legal requirements, by strengthening the view that legal requirements of form, such as writing, signature, and an original document, are satisfied, since digital signatures are functionally on a par with, or superior to paper forms; and

DIGITAL WATERMARKING
Digital watermarking is a technique which allows an individual to add hidden copyright notices or other verification messages to digital audio, video, or image signals and documents. Such hidden message is a group of bits describing information pertaining to the signal or to the author of the signal (name, place, etc.). The technique takes its name from watermarking of paper or money as a security measure. Digital watermarking is not a form of steganography, in which data is hidden in the message without the end user's knowledge, although some watermarking techniques have the steganographic feature of not being perceivable by the human eye. The enormous popularity of the World Wide Web in the early 1990's demonstrated the commercial potential of offering multimedia resources through the digital networks. Since commercial interests seek to use the digital networks to offer digital media for profit, they have a strong interest in protecting their ownership rights. Digital watermarking has been proposed as one way to accomplish this. TheDirectData.com Page 17

Digital Signature And Watermarking A digital watermark is a digital signal or pattern inserted into a digital image. Since this signal or pattern is present in each unaltered copy of the original image, the digital watermark may also serve as a digital signature for the copies. A given watermark may be unique to each copy (e.g., to identify the intended recipient), or be common to multiple copies (e.g., to identify the document source). In either case, the watermarking of the document involves the transformation of the original into another form. This distinguishes digital watermarking from digital fingerprinting where the original file remains intact, but another file is created that "describes" the original file's content. As a simple example, the checksum field for a disk sector would be a fingerprint of the preceding block of data. Similarly, hash algorithms produce fingerprint files.

THE PURPOSE OF DIGITAL WATERMARKS

Two types of digital watermarks may be distinguished, depending upon whether the watermark appears visible or invisible to the casual viewer. Visible watermarks are used in much the same way as their bond paper ancestors, where the opacity of paper is altered by physically stamping it with an identifying pattern.This is done to mark the paper manufacturer or paper type. One might view digitally watermarked documents and images as digitally "stamped". The visible watermarks which appear in Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the technique. The watermark in Figure 1 appears is quite obtrusive because of the high contrast between the background and foreground drawing. There is no place for the watermark to "hide" as it were. The colored image in Figure 2 renders the visible watermark less obvious. Figure 1.Digital Copy of fifteenth century drawing with digital watermark superimposed.

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Figure 2.Digitized copy of artwork from a sixteenth century Aztec manuscript.

Invisible watermarks, on the other hand, are potentially useful as a means of identifying the source, author, creator, owner, distributor or authorized consumer of a document or image. For this purpose, the objective is to permanently and unalterably mark the image so that the credit or assignment is beyond dispute. In the event of illicit usage, the watermark would facilitate the claim of ownership, the receipt of copyright revenues, or the success of prosecution. Watermarking has also been proposed to trace images in the event of their illicit redistribution. Whereas past infringement with copyrighted documents was often limited by the unfeasibility of large-scale photocopying and distribution, modern digital networks make large-scale dissemination simple and inexpensive. Digital watermarking makes it possible to uniquely mark each image for every buyer. If that buyer then makes an illicit copy, the illicit duplication may be convincingly demonstrated. VISIBLE VS. INVISIBLE WATERMARKS Visible and invisible watermarks both serve to deter theft but they do so in very different ways. Visible watermarks are especially useful for conveying an immediate claim of ownership. The main advantage of visible watermarks, in principle at least, is that they virtually eliminate the commercial value of the document to a would-be thief without lessening the document's utility for legitimate, authorized purposes. A familiar example of a visible watermark is in the video domain where CNN and other television networks place their translucent logo at the bottom right of the screen image.

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Digital Signature And Watermarking Invisible watermarks, on the other hand, are more of an aid in catching the thief than discouraging the theft in the first place. Though neither exhaustive nor definitive, Table 1 shows some anticipated primary (p) and secondary (s) benefits to digital watermarking. Table 1. Purpose validation of intended recipient non-repudiable transmission deterrence against theft diminish commercial value without utility discourage unauthorized duplication digital notarization and authentication identify source REQUIREMENTS OF WATERMARKS To be effective in the protection of the ownership of intellectual property, the invisibly watermarked document should satisfy several criteria: 1. the watermark must be difficult or impossible to remove, at least without visibly degrading the original image, 2. the watermark must survive image modifications that are common to typical imageprocessing applications (e.g., scaling, color requantization, dithering, cropping, and image compression), 3. an invisible watermark should be imperceptible so as not to affect the experience of viewing the image, and 4. for some invisible watermarking applications, watermarks should be readily detectable by the proper authorities, even if imperceptible to the average observer. Such decodability without requiring the original, un-watermarked image would be necessary for efficient recovery of property and subsequent prosecution.

visible p p s p

invisible P P P P S P S

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Digital Signature And Watermarking One can understand the challenge of researchers in this field since the above requirements compete, each with the others. The litmus test of a watermarking method would be that it is accepted and used on a large, commercial scale, and that it stands up in a court of law. None of the digital techniques have yet to meet these tests.

TECHNIQUES FOR WATERMARKING

Watermarking techniques tend to divide into two categories, text and image, according to the type of document to be watermarked. Techniques for images: Several different methods enable watermarking in the spatial domain. The simplest (too simple for many applications) is to just flip the lowest-order bit of chosen pixels in a gray scale or color image. This will work well only if the image will not be subject to any human or noisy modification. A more robust watermark can be embedded in an image in the same way that a watermark is added to paper. Such techniques may superimpose a watermark symbol over an area of the picture and then add some fixed intensity value for the watermark to the varied pixel values of the image. The resulting watermark may be visible or invisible depending upon the value (large or small, respectively) of the watermark intensity. One disadvantage of spatial domain watermarks is that picture cropping (a common operation of image editors) can be used to eliminate the watermark. Spatial watermarking can also be applied using color separation. in this way, the watermark appears in only one of the color bands. This renders the watermark visibly subtle such that it is difficult to detect under regular viewing. However, the watermark appears immediately when the colors are separated for printing or xerography. This renders the document useless to the printer unless the watermark can be removed from the color band. This approach is used commercially for journalists to inspect digital pictures from a photo-stockhouse before buying un-watermarked versions. Watermarking can be applied in the frequency domain (and other transform domains) by first applying a transform like the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). In a similar manner to spatial domain watermarking, the values of chosen frequencies can be altered from the original. Since high frequencies will be lost by compression or scaling, the watermark signal is applied to lower frequencies, or better yet, applied adaptively to frequencies that contain important information of the original picture (feature-based TheDirectData.com Page 21

Digital Signature And Watermarking schemes). Since watermarks applied to the frequency domain will be dispersed over the entirety of the spatial image upon inverse transformation, this method is not as susceptible to defeat by cropping as the spatial technique. However, there is more of a tradeoff here between invisibility and decodability, since the watermark is in effect applied indiscriminately across the spatial image. Watermarking can be applied to text images as well. Three proposed methods are: text line coding, word space coding, and character encoding. For text line coding, the text lines of a document page are shifted imperceptibly up or down. For a 40-line text page, for instance, this yields 2**40 possible codewords. For word-shift coding, the spacing between words in a line of justified text is altered (see Figure 3). For character coding, a feature such as the endline at the top of a letter, "t" is imperceptibly extended. An advantage of these methods over those applied to picture images is that, by combining two or three of these to one document, two documents with different watermarks cannot be spatially registered to extract the watermark. Of course, the watermark can be defeated by retyping the text.

Types of Watermark
Visible watermarks: Visible watermarks are an extension of the concept of logos. Such
watermarks are applicable to images only. These logos are inlaid into the image but they are transparent. Such watermarks cannot be removed by cropping the center part of the image. Further, such watermarks are protected against attacks such as statistical analysis. The drawbacks of visible watermarks are degrading the quality of image and detection by visual means only. Thus, it is not possible to detect them by dedicated programs or devices. Such watermarks have applications in maps, graphics and software user interface.

Invisible watermark: Invisible watermark is hidden in the content. It can be detected by

an authorized agency only. Such watermarks are used for content and/or author authentication and for detecting unauthorized copier.

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Public watermark: Such a watermark can be read or retrieved by anyone using the
specialized algorithm. In this sense, public watermarks are not secure. However, public watermarks are useful for carrying IPR information. They are good alternatives to labels.

Fragile watermark: Fragile watermarks are also known as tamper-proof watermarks.

Such watermarks are destroyed by data manipulation.

Private Watermark: Private watermarks are also known as secure watermarks. To read
or retrieve such a watermark, it is necessary to have the secret key.

Perceptual watermarks: A perceptual watermark exploits the aspects of human

sensory system to provide invisible yet robust watermark. Such watermarks are also known as transparent watermarks that provide extremely high quality contents.

Bit-stream watermarking: The term is sometimes used for watermarking of

compressed data such as video. Text document watermark Text document is a discrete information source. In discrete sources, contents cannot be modified. Thus, generic watermarking schemes are not applicable. The approaches for text watermarking are hiding watermark information in semantics and hiding watermark in text format. In semantic-based watermarking, the text is designed around the message to be hidden. Thus, misleading information covers watermark information. Such techniques defy scientific approach. By text format, we mean layout and appearance. Commonly used techniques to hide watermark information are line shift coding, word shift coding and feature coding.

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Digital Signature And Watermarking

How It Works
Digital Watermarking software looks for noise in digital media and replaces it with useful information. A digital media file is nothing more than a large list of 0s and 1s. The watermarking software determines which of these 0s and 1s correspond to redundant or irrelevant details. For example, the software might identify details in an image that are too fine for the human eye to see and flag the corresponding 0s and 1s as irrelevant noise. Later the flagged 0s and 1s can be replaced by a digital watermark.

A real-world example The following two sequences of images demonstrate a typical watermark embedding and extraction process applied to a static image. It is notable that a slight degradation of the original image occurs when the watermark is embedded. However, the retrieved watermark is very close to the original watermark, which can help resolve ownership issues.

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Digital Signature And Watermarking

TYPES OF WATERMARKING:
Video watermarking Video watermarking can be considered as a superset of normal image watermarking. As such, all the techniques applicable to static images can be applied to video images. However, due to the high frame rate of video, the embedding process must occur almost in real time for live transmissions (it takes a finite time to embed the watermark, which might influence the transmission rate). If the content is generated off-line, this limitation does not exist. A very popular form of on-line (live) video watermarking is the usage of a visible watermark (normally a logo or other distinguishing sign placed in an unobtrusive place on each frame of video footage). Audio watermarking Audio watermarking is currently at the forefront of technology development in an attempt to prevent illegal reproduction and redistribution. One implementation receiving widespread attention is the MP3 approach to audio compression and watermarking. Audio watermarking can be successfully implemented at frequencies outside the normal human audible range. (This is also the approach followed by compression schemes, in which frequencies outside the human audible range are removed from the original audio soundtrack.) Text watermarking Text can be subdivided into two categories: raw unformatted ASCII text and formatted text (typically Postscript, PDF or RTF formats). Watermark information can be embedded into a formatted document using an approach based on the slight adjustment of inter-line and inter-word spacings. Another approach to watermark embedding is to consider the typeset text as one large image and thus to use the typical approaches used for images. TheDirectData.com Page 25

Digital Signature And Watermarking Raw text presents a big problem to the watermark process. At this stage no successful approach is known. One possible approach is based on adding white space characters after each sentence (and is thus hidden to the casual observer). However, this approach is easily bypassed using a normal text editor.

WATERMARKS IN USE Authentication is but one use of digital watermarking. Both symmetric and asymmetric hashing algorithms can be used to embed a unique digital imprint on a document or file. If the removal of an imprint yields the original document (which is to say that the "stripped" watermark is identical to the embedded watermark), then the copy is authentic. Once again, this assumes that the "stripping" algorithm is available to the end-user. Such authentication techniques are usually associated with some sort of encryption for the distribution of keys, programs, etc. which are related to the watermarked documents. In addition, watermarks are also used as a check for non-repudiable duplication and transmission. In this case, the owner, creator or sender imprints a watermark which is unique for each receiver. The watermark holds under subsequent re-transmission, so the "authorized" source of unauthorized copies may be easily identified after extraction. A collateral benefit is that the intended recipient of a document token could always be identified. However, these applications really only apply to the class of invisible watermarks. Visible watermarks (as in Figure 1) contribute to document and transmission security in different ways. To illustrate, visible watermarks are more overt means of discouraging theft and unauthorized use both by reducing the commercial value of a document and making it obvious to the criminally inclined that the document's ownership has been definitively established . We observe that invisible watermarks only have this effect if the digital thief is aware of the technology and the possibility that watermarks may be present on a document of interest.

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Digital Signature And Watermarking There are several characteristics of effective watermarks. For one, they must be difficult or impossible to remove. For another, they must survive common document modifications and transformations (e.g., cropping and compressing image files). Third, they must, in principle at least, be easily detectable and removable by authorized users with such privileges (e.g., law enforcement agencies). Invisible watermarks should also be imperceptible, while visible watermarks should be perceptible enough to discourage theft but not perceptible enough to decrease the utility or appreciation of the document.

WATERMARKING PRACTICE
Watermarking techniques tend to divide into two categories, text and image, according to the type of document to be watermarked. In the case of imagery, several different methods enable watermarking in the spatial domain from simply flipping low-order bits of selected pixels to superimposing watermark symbols over an area of a graphic. Spatial domain watermarking is illustrated in Figures 2a and 2b that demonstrate how the degree of visibility of the watermark depends upon its intensity and the nature of the background.

Figures Figures 2a and 2b.Two (of many) Two watermarked images identical but for the intensity of the image. Considerable latitude is available, in terms of placement, size and intensity to blend the watermark into a graphic. Another spatial watermarking technique uses color separation. In this way, the watermark appears in only one of the color bands. This renders the watermark visibly subtle such that it is difficult to detect under regular viewing. However, the watermark appears immediately TheDirectData.com Page 27

Digital Signature And Watermarking when the colors are separated for printing. This renders the document useless to the printer unless the watermark can be removed from the color band. This approach is used commercially for journalists to inspect digital pictures from a photo-stockhouse before buying un-watermarked versions.

LIMITATIONS OF DIGITAL WATERMARKING

As of this writing, a counterfeiting scheme has been demonstrated for a class of invertible, feature-based, frequency domain, invisible watermarking algorithms. This counterfeiting scheme could be used to subvert ownership claims because the recovery of the digital signature from a watermarked image requires a comparison with an original. The counterfeiting scheme works by first creating a counterfeit watermarked copy from the genuine watermarked copy by effectively inverting the genuine watermark. This inversion creates a counterfeit of the original image which satisfies two properties: (a) a comparison of the decoded versions of both the original and counterfeit original yields the owner's (authorized) signature, and (b) a comparison of decoded versions of both the original and counterfeit original yield the forged (inverted) signature. This, the technique of establishing legitimate ownership recovering the signature watermark by comparing a watermarked image with the original image breaks down. It can be shown that both the legitimate signature and counterfeiter's signature inhere in both the watermarked and counterfeit watermarked copies. Thus, while it may be demonstrated that at least one recipient has a counterfeit watermarked copy, it can not be determined which it is. This research suggests that not all watermarking techniques will be useful in resolving ownership disputes in courts of law. There will likely be non-commercial applications, or those with limited vulnerability to theft, where "good enough watermarking" will suffice. More sensitive applications may require non-invertable or non-extracting watermarking techniques. These issues are under consideration at this writing. Standard watermarking involves the creation of a watermarked image by encoding a signature into an original image. Authentication proceeds in two stages. First, the watermarks signature is "removed" from the watermarked copy. The watermark signature is the "difference" between the original (white)

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Digital Signature And Watermarking and the watermarked copy of the original (blue). Next, the extracted signature (blue) is compared against the original signature (gold). Identity signifies authenticity of the copy.

THE FUTURE OF WATERMARKING

Though publishers have been clamoring for some means to protect their material on electronic networks, there has been no rush yet to embrace any of the current schemes. This could be just due to a period of inspection and appraisal, but our opinion is that publishers and scientists have yet to fully understand the practical specifications associated with the problem. Should the watermarks be visible or invisible? What constitutes invisibility? How difficult should it be to remove watermarks from images? How might one characterize "Good-Enough Watermarking" for different commercial and non-commercial applications? What constitutes a "reasonable" level of photo-editing? Or of degradation? Can the original image be required for decoding? Is transferal of the watermark from the electronic medium to the printed medium important? How are the watermarks to be policed? Etc. As scientists propose solutions and publishers experiment with them and debate their merits, some methods of watermarking will emerge as useful and widely used. When that happens, there will also be the emergence of external agencies for monitoring electronic copyright infringement (much the same as there are agencies for music and print copyright management). In the meantime, the challenge is for the scientists to develop ever more invisible, decodable, and permanent watermarking methods, and perhaps to meet even more specifications as they are demanded.

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Digital Signature And Watermarking Here are some problems that you might encounter when deploying a watermark: Ease of Destruction: Although watermarks are designed to survive manipulation of the source media, it is nonetheless possible to perform manipulations that irrecoverably break the watermark. Furthermore, the small number of watermark software vendors results in easily detectable watermark signature patterns. There are numerous effective techniques for identifying and disabling commercial watermarks in media. Efficient Detection of Watermarks: Imagine youre working for a stock photography company. Browsing the web one day, you come across an image that looks very familiar. Suspicious, you scan the image with your companys watermarking software. Sure enough, its one of your images, and the site never purchased the right to use it! The watermark gives your legal team the ammunition it needs to force payment from the freeloaders. This scenario makes watermarking sound incredibly useful. Unfortunately, the method of detection (accidental) is not very reproducible or reliable. Automated watermark search engines exist, but they have some significant limitations. For starters, the amount of digital media on the Internet is staggering. It could take hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment to effectively scan a significant amount of Internet data for watermarks. Then theres traditional media -- scanning newspapers, magazines, TV broadcasts and films for watermarks requires a lot of manual work and therefore is rarely cost effective. Stock photography, clip art, and other variants of digital artwork are ideal candidates for watermarking. Without watermarks, a visual artist cant display their commercial images online without worrying that someone will just download and use their imagery without paying. By using a watermark search engine, our example scenario becomes a business saving strategy for these companies.

The following figure presents a very abstract watermark-embedding process. TheDirectData.com Page 30

Digital Signature And Watermarking

The extraction of the embedded watermark is depicted in the next figure. Upon successful extraction of the watermark, ownership information (and other information initially embedded in the original image) is available for inspection.

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Conclusion
In this paper we introduced the concept of digital watermarking used to protect intellectual property rights, copyrights and rightful ownership. We presented required criteria for a watermarking scheme to be successful. We also identified areas (types of digital media) where watermarking can be applied as well as other areas (such as raw text) where no current watermarking scheme exists. We finally addressed the issue of whether the presence of a watermark can prove ownership and concluded that this is only possible through the use of a higher, controlling governing body where all original media can be registered. A final conclusion: Digital watermarking can successfully be employed if the value of the digital media warrants the added expense. If not, it is an exercise in futility. Digital signature relies on the protection afforded a private signature key by the signer, and the procedures implemented by a Certification Authority. Digital signatures must be applied by a computer commanded by the signer. Forgery of digital signatures, in the absence of compromise of the private signature key, or hijacking of the signature mechanism, is virtually impossible. Due to the cryptographic nature of digital signatures, attempted forgeries are immediately obvious to any verifier, except in the case where a private signature key has been compromised, or control of the signing mechanism has been seized. In these cases, distinguishing between a valid and invalid digital signature may be impossible, even for a computer forensics specialist. . Digital signatures are fiendishly complex, involving arcane number theory, the workings of computer operating systems, communications protocols, certificate chain processing, certificate policies, and so on. There are very few people on this planet (if any) who completely understand every process involved in generating and verifying a digital signature. The potential for confused lawyers, judges and juries is extreme. TheDirectData.com Page 32

Digital Signature And Watermarking Digital signatures have the potential to have the greatest impact on commerce since the invention of money. Digital signatures allow us to identify ourselves and make commitments in cyberspace in much the same way as we do in actual space. Nonetheless, digital signature have important limitations, the most significant being their temporary nature:

REFRENCES AND BIBLOGRAPHY: www.qmw.ac.uk www.itl.nist.gov www.digsigstrust.com www.info.com www.watermarkingworld.org

www.acm.org

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