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Another Audio Watermark Scheme Wins TI DSP Contest
CaptainTylor writes: "Texas Instruments' DSP and Analog Design Contest Challenge is over, and the winner is a group of students from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, who presented yet another scheme for digital-audio watermarking, and got US$100,000 for it. Here is a Dallas Morning News article on the winners, which is of course light on the tech details. Abstracts of the winner and the other two finalists are available, but I couldn't find the full submissions. It's worth noting that the competition was not specifically about copyright protection, just about using the TI TMS320 DSP in interesting ways. Wonder how long it'll take before someone cracks this scheme..."
And speaking of schemes, cracking, audio and contests, Logic Bomb writes: "According to an article from the Associated Press, the United States National Archives are holding a contest of sorts to see if anyone can finally figure out what was erased on the infamous Watergate tape that pushed Nixon's downfall over the brink. It would be amazing to have this national mystery put to rest."
It's not the tool that's bad, it's how it's used that can be bad...
The word on Free Software needs to go out to these kids, to show them that their admirable skill can help make the world a more free place. If they can program a DSP for watermarking, maybe they can help create better speech synthesis for the Stephen Hawkings of the world...
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
Is it possible to manufacture a player that is completely programmable? Like that first personal computer that came in a kit. People could buy a "blank" player and write their own firmware for it. The firmware images could be downloaded and installed so my kit player could be a cd/dvd/cdr/cdrw/something completely different. This would place TOTAL control in the hands of the "consumer" (don't you hate being called that?).
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
No matter how unrealistic it is as a business model, copy protection is still an interesting problem, especially through watermarking.
Inclusion of watermarking code into DSPs is inevitable. CD-R companies, for example, have been eager to embrace similar methods... try burning a SafeDisc2 protected image on a new Plextor drive. Even a perfect data source can just be blocked by hardware, by detecting patterns.
Obviously, some companies will see a way to make a profit by getting around this. Educated consumers will buy hardware without locks.
The question is, will Congress permit anyone to create CD-R writers (for example) in the future that do not have firmware copy protection.
I hope the DMCA was an anomaly, and not an example of things to come.
These things should be sponsored by universities or non-profit organizations like the ACM, not companies. I'd imagine the winning solutions are worth far more than the prizes offered.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
I just figured out how to crack it! Take great quality audio reproduction equipment (Speakers) and then some very high quality audio collection devices (Microphones) and put it all in a proper sound room, or box.
For right and left channel sound you will need to have at least two speakers and at least two microphones and some way of merging the two recordings.
It might be a little far from perfect, but so are MP3's and the sound from the "Cracked" watermarked music.
Wait a minute... Since Sklyarov was arrested for creating a tool to break a protection scheme, does this mean that speakers and microphones are now illegal?
I suppose it is all how you interpret the DMCA...
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
A safe bet: The 'watermarking scheme' is pretty trivial.
TI doesn't care about the algorithm - they just want engineering students to work with TI kit, get some experienced TI users and sell heaps of TI chips.