FUNDAMENTALS OF RELATIONAL DATA WATERMARKING

The course introduces the basic elements of digital watermarking. It mainly targets schemes created for relational database protection, although it presents examples of how watermarks can be applied to other types of digital assets. Protection topics addressed are ownership protection, tampering detection, and traitor tracing.
This course offers students a valuable tool for analyzing different scenarios and determining more convenient protection methods outside traditional security approaches. Moreover, given the main threats presented in a particular scenario, the students will be able to design a technique prioritizing some requirements over others to overcome attacks focused on damaging data quality or compromising digital assets' copyright.

At the end of the course, the student should be able to understand the main concepts associated with the watermarking scheme. In addition, he/she should understand the security model associated with different scenarios to design a scheme adapted to the given environment.
In particular, the student should know:
1. How to set up the development and execution environment of a watermarking scheme for relational databases.
2. How to ensure data protection, even outside the data deployment controlled environment.
3. How to design and implement a watermarking scheme for relational databases containing different attributes and considering diverse threats and challenges.
4. How to ensure data usability preservation, particularly in terms of semantics and statistics.

The main prerequisites of the course are:
- to master the English language well enough to comprehend the course content and communicate with classmates and the professor.
- to know the basics of set theory, linear algebra, and mathematical logic, as well as the basics for the design and programming of algorithms.
While a basic understanding of relational database theory is desirable, this is not a mandatory requirement, considering that a brief introduction to relational databases is included in the course.

Lesson 1: Introduction to digital watermarking
Lesson 2: Robust and fragile watermarking techniques
Lesson 3 (laboratory 1): Protection based on the digital asset type
Lesson 4: The relational data. Types of carriers
Lesson 5 (laboratory 2): Relational database management
Lesson 6: Basic watermarking architecture
Lesson 7 (laboratory 3): Setting up the development environment
Lesson 8: The Agrawal & Kiernan (AHK) algorithm
Lesson 9 (laboratory 4): Development of a simple watermarking scheme
Lesson 10: Watermark properties and requirements
Lesson 11 (laboratory 5): Implementation of watermark properties
Lesson 12: Natural degradation of the watermark
Lesson 13 (laboratory 6): Implementing the incremental watermarking
Lesson 14: The adversary model
Lesson 15 (laboratory 7): Simulation of first-degree attacks
Lesson 16: Virtual Primary Key (VPK) based synchronization
Lesson 17 (laboratory 8): Implementation and evaluation of VPK schemes
Lesson 18: Pseudo-random selection and majority voting
Lesson 19 (laboratory 9): Implementing sequential selection, pseudo-random selection, and majority voting.
Lesson 20: Management of capacity
Lesson 21 (laboratory 10): Implementation of a practical study case for increasing capacity
Lesson 22: Management of distortion
Lesson 23 (laboratory 11): Implementation of a practical study case for reducing distortion
Lesson 24: Robustness vs. security
Lesson 25: False ownership claims
Lesson 26 (laboratory 12): Adding resiliency to false ownership claims
Lesson 27: Brute force attacks
Lesson 28 (laboratory 13): Implementation of a practical study case to face brute force attacks
Lesson 29: Advanced approaches
Lesson 30: Advanced and interdisciplinary topics

- Cox, I., Miller, M., Bloom, J., Fridrich, J. and Kalker, T., 2007. Digital watermarking and steganography. Second Ed. Morgan kaufmann.
- Stefan K. and Fabien A. P., 2000. Information Hiding Techniques for Steganography and Digital Watermarking (1st. ed.). Artech House, Inc., USA.
- C.J. Date. 2003. An Introduction to Database Systems (8th. ed.). Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., USA.

Presentation of a manuscript (paper proposal) addressing the details of a watermarking technique designed by the student. The approach must be original and focused on one of the issues discussed in the course. The student should clarify the proposal's contributions with respect to the rest of the techniques described in the related work section.

Lectures, practice lessons and laboratories.
Students will have the opportunity to consolidate new content through practice.
In addition, group activities will help students consolidate their roles in the class, provide constructive criticism of their work, and improve its quality.

English

Some lessons will contain topics for designing and implementing a watermarking system to illustrate and consolidate the content taught. These activities aim to build a client/server architecture system through iterations that can help understand the concepts. The system obtained at the end can be used as the core by students for the final implementation of their proposal.

written and oral