Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
14
Database Watermarking: A Systematic View
Yingjiu Li
School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University
80 Stamford Road, Singapore 178902
yjli@smu.edu.sg
Summary.
In this chapter, a systematic review of database watermarking is pro-
vided. The existing database watermarking approaches are classified along six di-
mensions: data type, distortion to underlying data, sensitivity to database attacks,
watermark information, verifiability, and data structure. At the end of this chapter,
some open issues are discussed.
1 Introduction
The motivation for database watermarking is to protect databases, especially
those published online (e.g., parametric specifications, surveys, and life sci-
ences data), from tampering and pirated copies. A watermark can be consid-
ered to be some kind of information that is embedded into underlying data
for tamper detection, localization, ownership proof, and/or traitor tracing
purposes. Database watermarking techniques complement the Database Pro-
tection Act [24] and are becoming increasingly important as people realize
that “the law does not now provide sucient protection to the comprehensive
and commercially and publicly useful databases that are at the heart of the
information economy” [5].
Basic watermarking processes
Database watermarking consists of two basic processes: watermark insertion
and watermark detection, as illustrated in Figure 1. For watermark insertion,
a key is used to embed watermark information into an original database so as
to produce the watermarked database for publication or distribution. Given
appropriate key and watermark information, a watermark detection process
can be applied to any suspicious database so as to determine whether or
not a legitimate watermark can be detected. A suspicious database can be
any watermarked database or innocent database, or a mixture of them under
various database attacks.
