Video stream modification to defeat detection

• US 20100158358A1
• Filed: 02/22/2010
• Published: 06/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Technology Patents & Licensing Incorporated
• Inventors: Eldering, Charles A., König, Richard, Lienhart, Rainer W.
• Granted Patent: US 8,365,216 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/162
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4394 involving operations for analysing the audio stream, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in audio streams arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4402 involving reformatting operations of video signals for household redistribution, storage or real-time display details of conversion of video standards at pixel level H04N7/01; video transcoding H04N19/40; adapting incoming signals to the display format of the display terminal G09G5/005; media handling at the source in data packet switching networks H04L65/764
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/76 Television signal recording

Abstract

A method and system for detecting automatic ad detection is presented in which video streams are modified such that features cannot be automatically recognized or statistical parameters and fingerprints derived from the video stream cannot be matched against fingerprints of known video segments in a database.

Claims

1. A method of altering an image to prevent the detection of the image, the method comprising:

receiving the image;

identifying a plurality of types of modifications to be made to the image, the modifications, when applied, causing a spatial alteration of the image;

randomly selecting a first type of the types of modifications; and

altering at least a portion of the image by applying the randomly selected first type of modification to the image, wherein the altering reduces the ability to detect the image.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the altering at least a portion of the image includes varying a portion of the image with static content.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the altering at least a portion of the image includes varying a set of pixels to alter a color histogram associated with image.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the altering at least a portion of the image includes varying a set of pixels to alter a color coherence vector associated with the image.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of types of modifications includes at least one of scaling, shifting, cropping, rotation, stretching and warping of the image.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the spatial modification does not perceivably degrade the image quality.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing the altered image to determine if the altered image has been sufficiently altered to reduce the ability to detect the image.

8. A method of altering at least one image of a series of images to prevent the detection of the series of images, the method comprising:

receiving the series of images;

identifying a plurality of types of modifications to be made to at least one image of the series of images, the modifications, when applied, causing a spatial alteration of the at least one image;

selecting a first type of the types of modifications;

randomly selecting at least one image of the series of images; and

altering at least a portion of the at least one selected image by applying the selected first type of modification to the at least one selected image, wherein the altering reduces the ability to detect the series of images.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein at least two images of the series are randomly selected.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein at least two types of modifications are applied to the at least two randomly selected images.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the altering at least a portion of the at least one selected image includes varying a portion of the at least one image that includes static content.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the altering at least a portion of the at least one selected image includes varying a set of pixels to alter a color histogram associated with the at least one selected image.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the altering at least a portion of the at least one selected image includes varying a set of pixels to alter a color coherence vector associated with the at least one selected image.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the series of images are frames of a video.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of types of modifications includes at least one of scaling, shifting, cropping, rotation, stretching and warping of the image.

16. The method of claim 8, wherein the spatial modification does not perceivably degrade the image quality.

17. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

analyzing the at least one image to determine if the at least one image has been sufficiently altered to reduce the ability to detect the series of images.