Watermarking screen capture content

• US 9,123,106 B2
• Filed: 12/13/2012
• Issued: 09/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Homme, Jeffrey M., Jakubowski, Mariusz H., Sadek, Mohamed
• Primary Examiner(s): Kassa, Yosef
• Application Number:
  US13/713,994
• Publication Number:
  US 20140169616A1
• Time in Patent Office: 992 Days
• Field of Search: 382/100, 382/209, 382/219, 340/5.8, 340/5.81, 340/5.86, 713/176, 713/179
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/16 Program or content traceability, e.g. by watermarking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/74 operating in dual or compartmented mode, i.e. at least one secure mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0021 Image watermarking

Abstract

Information is displayed on a device by writing data to a buffer in memory, the content of the buffer describing a screen display of the device at a particular point in time. A watermarked version of the buffer content is generated by watermarking the content of the buffer with data, such as data identifying a user of the device and/or a copy of a program (e.g., an operating system) running on the device. The watermarked version of the buffer content is then made available, such as in response to a screen capture request. The data embedded in the watermarked version of the content is undetectable (or nearly undetectable) to the human eye, but can nonetheless be extracted by other computing devices or data extraction systems.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable storage media having stored thereon multiple instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing device, cause the one or more processors to:

obtain content of a graphics buffer of the computing device, the content of the graphics buffer describing a screen display at a particular time;

watermark the content of the graphics buffer with data identifying a copy of a program running on the computing device; and

store the watermarked content of the graphics buffer.

2. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, the data comprising data identifying the copy of the program running on the computing device, the program comprising an operating system of the computing device.

3. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, the instructions causing the one or more processors to watermark the content of the graphics buffer comprising instructions causing the one or more processors to alter the content of the graphics buffer in a manner to embed the data so that the data is visually undetectable.

4. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, the data comprising a product key that can activate the copy of the program.

5. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, the instructions causing the one or more processors to watermark the content of the graphics buffer further causing the one or more processors to watermark the content of the graphics buffer with data identifying the computing device.

6. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, the instructions causing the one or more processors to store the watermarked content of the graphics buffer comprising instructions causing the one or more processors to store the watermarked content of the graphics buffer in the graphics buffer.

7. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, the instructions causing the one or more processors to store the watermarked content of the graphics buffer comprising instructions causing the one or more processors to store the watermarked content of the graphics buffer in a memory location where screen capture data is expected.

8. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, the instructions causing the one or more processors to watermark the content of the graphics buffer comprising instructions causing the one or more processors to watermark the graphics buffer content without a user of the computing device being aware of the watermarking.

9. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, the instructions causing the one or more processors to watermark the content of the graphics buffer comprising instructions causing the one or more processors to watermark the graphics buffer content by embedding the data in the graphics buffer content in a manner preventing extracting of the embedded data without knowledge of one or more aspects used to embed the data.

10. One or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 1, the instructions causing the one or more processors to watermark the content comprising instructions causing the one or more processors to watermark the graphics buffer content in a dynamic manner based on data in the graphics buffer content by embedding the data identifying the program in portions of the graphics buffer content having higher entropy than other portions of the graphics buffer content.

11. A method comprising:

receiving, at a device, a screen capture request;

retrieving, in response to the screen capture request, content of a graphics buffer of the device, the content of the graphics buffer describing a screen display at a particular time;

watermarking, with data identifying a copy of a program running on the device, the content of the graphics buffer; and

making the watermarked content of the graphics buffer available in response to the screen capture request.

12. A method as recited in claim 11, the data comprising data identifying the copy of the program running on the device, and the program comprising an operating system of the device.

13. A method as recited in claim 11, the watermarking comprising altering the content of the graphics buffer in a manner to embed the data so that the data is visually undetectable.

14. A method as recited in claim 11, the data comprising a product key that can activate the copy of the program.

15. A method as recited in claim 11, the watermarking further comprising watermarking the content of the graphics buffer with data identifying the device.

16. A method as recited in claim 11, the making the watermarked content of the graphics buffer available comprising storing the watermarked content of the graphics buffer in the graphics buffer.

17. A method as recited in claim 11, the making the watermarked content of the graphics buffer available comprising storing the watermarked content of the graphics buffer in a memory location where screen capture data is expected.

18. A method as recited in claim 11, the watermarking comprising watermarking the graphics buffer content by embedding the data in the content of the graphics buffer in a manner preventing extracting of the embedded data without knowledge of one or more aspects used to embed the data.

19. A method as recited in claim 11, the watermarking comprising watermarking the graphics buffer content in a dynamic manner based on data in the graphics buffer content by embedding the data identifying the program in portions of the graphics buffer content having higher entropy than other portions of the graphics buffer content.

20. A device comprising:

a graphics buffer having content describing a screen display of the device at a particular time;

a screen capture module configured to receive a screen capture request, and obtain, in response to the screen capture request, the graphics buffer content from the graphics buffer;

a watermarking module configured to obtain the graphics buffer content from the screen capture module, and watermark the content of the graphics buffer with data by altering the content of the graphics buffer in a manner to embed the data so that the data is visually undetectable, the data identifying a copy of an operating system of the device; and

the screen capture module being further configured to make the watermarked content of the graphics buffer available in response to the screen capture request.

21. A method comprising:

retrieving content of a graphics buffer of a device, the content of the graphics buffer describing a screen display at a particular time;

watermarking, with data identifying a copy of a program running on the device, the content of the graphics buffer; and

making the watermarked content of the graphics buffer available.

22. A method as recited in claim 21, the data being obtained from one or more of a registration data store, a secure memory location, information retrieved from the program, information generated based on instructions of the program, or information returned from the program in response to a request.

23. A method as recited in claim 21, the data comprising a fingerprint of the copy of the program used as the identifier of the copy of the program, the fingerprint including one or both of a user portion and a program portion, wherein the user portion includes information identifying a user and the program portion includes information about the program.

24. A device comprising:

a graphics buffer having content describing a screen display of the device at a particular time;

a screen capture module configured to obtain the graphics buffer content from the graphics buffer;

a watermarking module configured to obtain the graphics buffer content from the screen capture module, and watermark the content of the graphics buffer with data by altering the content of the graphics buffer in a manner to embed the data so that the data is visually undetectable, the data identifying a copy of an operating system of the device; and

the screen capture module being further configured to make the watermarked content of the graphics buffer available.

25. A device as recited in claim 24, the data further comprising a product key that can activate the copy of the operating system.

26. A device as recited in claim 24, the watermarking module being further configured to watermark the graphics buffer content by embedding the data in the graphics buffer content in a manner preventing extracting of the embedded data without knowledge of one or more aspects used to embed the data.

27. A device as recited in claim 24, the watermarking module being further configured to watermark the graphics buffer content by embedding the data identifying the program in portions of the graphics buffer content having higher entropy than other portions of the graphics buffer content.

28. A first device comprising:

an image acquisition module configured to obtain an image from which data embedded in a watermark is to be extracted, the image having been generated by watermarking, with data identifying a copy of a program running on a second device at a particular time, the content of a graphics buffer of the second device describing a screen display at the particular time; and

a data extraction module configured to analyze the obtained image and extract the data embedded in the watermark of the image.

29. A first device as recited in claim 28, the program comprising an operating system of the second device.

30. A first device as recited in claim 28, the data extraction module including knowledge of one or more aspects used to embed the data in the watermark, the knowledge of the one or more aspects including a pseudorandom number generator and seed value to select portions of the image used by the watermarking effective to identify the data embedded in the selected portions.

31. A first device as recited in claim 28, the data extraction module being further configured to identify the copy of the program that was running on the second device when a screen capture occurred.