ELECTRONIC WATERMARK GENERATING APPARATUS, ELECTRONIC WATERMARK VERIFYING APPARATUS, METHOD OF GENERATING ELECTRONIC WATERMARK, AND METHOD OF VERIFYING ELECTRONIC WATERMARK

• US 20110184580A1
• Filed: 01/18/2011
• Published: 07/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/25/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: KAWAMOTO, Yohei, Ukita, Masakazu, Katagi, Masanobu, Asano, Tomoyuki, Yoshida, Asami, Moriai, Shiho, Matsuda, Seiichi, Tanaka, Yu
• Granted Patent: US 8,914,638 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/295
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 53/665 Methods related to measuring, billing or payment
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00004 characterised by the power network being locally controlled
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00028 involving the use of Internet protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00034 the elements or equipment being or involving an electric power substation
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2310/14 The load or loads being home appliances
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2310/64 The condition being economic, e.g. tariff based load management
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/14 by switching loads on to, or off from, network, e.g. progressively balanced loading
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0823 using certificates cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving certificates H04L9/3263
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1441 Countermeasures against malicious traffic countermeasures against attacks on cryptographic mechanisms H04L9/002
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/303 Terminal profiles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 70/30 Systems integrating technologies related to power network operation and communication or information technologies for improving the carbon footprint of the management of residential or tertiary loads, i.e. smart grids as climate change mitigation technology in the buildings sector, including also the last stages of power distribution and the control, monitoring or operating management systems at local level
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 70/3225 Demand response systems, e.g. load shedding, peak shaving
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/70 Energy storage systems for electromobility, e.g. batteries
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 10/7072 Electromobility specific charging systems or methods for batteries, ultracapacitors, supercapacitors or double-layer capacitors
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/12 Electric charging stations
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/14 Plug-in electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/16 Information or communication technologies improving the operation of electric vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 90/167 Systems integrating technologies related to power network operation and communication or information technologies for supporting the interoperability of electric or hybrid vehicles, i.e. smartgrids as interface for battery charging of electric vehicles [EV] or hybrid vehicles [HEV]
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/222 : Demand response systems, e.g. load shedding, peak shaving
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/242 : Home appliances
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 30/14 : Details associated with the interoperability, e.g. vehicle recognition, authentication, identification or billing
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 50/10 : Energy trading, including energy flowing from end-user application to grid

Abstract

There is provided an electronic watermark generating apparatus including an appliance characterizing information generating unit that generates appliance characterizing information that characterizes an electronic appliance, by using physical data acquired by a sensor that measures characteristics of the electronic appliance, an electronic watermark generating unit that generates, in relation to the appliance characterizing information, electronic watermark information that is used for detecting whether information has been tampered with or not, an embedded position deciding unit that analyzes the appliance characterizing information, and decides an embedded position for the electronic watermark information in the appliance characterizing information, and an electronic watermark embedding unit that embeds the electronic watermark information generated by the electronic watermark generating unit in a position on the appliance characterizing information decided by the embedded position deciding unit.

Claims

1. An electronic watermark generating apparatus comprising:

an appliance characterizing information generating unit that generates appliance characterizing information that characterizes an electronic appliance, by using physical data acquired by a sensor that measures characteristics of the electronic appliance;

an electronic watermark generating unit that generates, in relation to the appliance characterizing information, electronic watermark information that is used for detecting whether information has been tampered with or not;

an embedded position deciding unit that analyzes the appliance characterizing information, and decides an embedded position for the electronic watermark information in the appliance characterizing information; and

an electronic watermark embedding unit that embeds the electronic watermark information generated by the electronic watermark generating unit in a position on the appliance characterizing information decided by the embedded position deciding unit,

wherein the embedding position deciding unit decides, as the position where the electronic watermark information is to be embedded, any, in the appliance characterizing information, of a position where a noise is high, a position where an SN ratio is high and a high-frequency domain.

2. The electronic watermark generating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the electronic watermark generating unit generates the electronic watermark information by using at least any of the physical data, time information and shared information shared with a verifying apparatus that verifies the electronic watermark information.

3. The electronic watermark generating apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein the appliance characterizing information in which the electronic watermark information is embedded is transmitted to the verifying apparatus via a relay apparatus located between the electronic watermark generating apparatus and the verifying apparatus,

wherein the electronic watermark generating unit generates the electronic watermark information by using at least the time information, and

wherein the electronic watermark generating apparatus regularly transmits to the verifying apparatus the appliance characterizing information in which the electronic watermark information is embedded.

4. An electronic watermark verifying apparatus comprising:

an embedded position specifying unit that analyzes appliance characterizing information in which electronic watermark information used for detecting whether information has been tampered with or not is embedded and which is generated by using physical data acquired by a sensor measuring characteristics of an electronic appliance, and that specifies an embedded position of the electronic watermark information;

an electronic watermark extracting unit that extracts the electronic watermark information from the position, in the appliance characterizing information in which the electronic watermark information is embedded, specified by the embedded position specifying unit; and

an electronic watermark verifying unit that verifies the electronic watermark information extracted by the electronic watermark extracting unit,

wherein the embedded position specifying unit specifies as the position where the electronic watermark information is embedded, any, in the appliance characterizing information, of a position where a noise is high, a position where an SN ratio is high and a high-frequency domain.

5. The electronic watermark verifying apparatus according to claim 4,

wherein the electronic watermark information is generated by using at least any of the physical data, time information and shared information shared with a generating apparatus that generates the electronic watermark information, and type of information used for generating the electronic watermark information is shared with the generating apparatus, and

wherein the electronic watermark verifying unit

generates the electronic watermark information based on the type of the information, shared with the generating apparatus, used for generating the electronic watermark information, and

performs generation of the electronic watermark information by comparing the electronic watermark information extracted by the electronic watermark extracting unit and the electronic watermark information which has been generated.

6. The electronic watermark verifying apparatus according to claim 5,

wherein the appliance characterizing information in which the electronic watermark information is embedded is transmitted from the generating apparatus via a relay apparatus located between the electronic watermark verifying apparatus and the generating apparatus,

wherein the electronic watermark information is generated by using at least the time information, and

wherein the electronic watermark verifying unit detects an abnormality occurred in the relay apparatus based on whether verification of the electronic watermark information is successful or not.

7. A method of generating an electronic watermark, comprising the steps of:

generating appliance characterizing information that characterizes an electronic appliance, by using physical data acquired by a sensor that measures characteristics of the electronic appliance;

generating, in relation to the appliance characterizing information, electronic watermark information that is used for detecting whether information has been tampered with or not;

analyzing the appliance characterizing information, and deciding an embedded position for the electronic watermark information in the appliance characterizing information; and

embedding the electronic watermark information generated in the step of generating electronic watermark information in a position on the appliance characterizing information decided in the step of analyzing and deciding,

wherein, in the step of analyzing and deciding, any, in the appliance characterizing information, of a position where a noise is high, a position where an SN ratio is high and a high-frequency domain is decided as a position where the electronic watermark information is to be embedded.

8. A method of verifying an electronic watermark, comprising the steps of:

analyzing appliance characterizing information in which electronic watermark information used for detecting whether information has been tampered with or not is embedded and which is generated by using physical data acquired by a sensor measuring characteristics of an electronic appliance, and specifying an embedded position of the electronic watermark information;

extracting the electronic watermark information from a position, in the appliance characterizing information in which the electronic watermark information is embedded, specified in the step of analyzing and specifying; and

verifying the electronic watermark information extracted in the step of extracting,

wherein, in the step of analyzing and specifying, any, in the appliance characterizing information, of a position where a noise is high, a position where an SN ratio is high and a high-frequency domain is specified as a position where the electronic watermark information is embedded.