Digital watermarking for securing remote display protocol output

• US 9,774,877 B2
• Filed: 01/08/2016
• Issued: 09/26/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/08/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Kumar, Amit, Sarfraz, Mohammed
• Primary Examiner(s): Cunningham, Gregory F
• Application Number:
  US14/991,019
• Publication Number:
  US 20170201763A1
• Time in Patent Office: 627 Days
• Field of Search: 382100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/14 Digital output to display device ; Cooperation and interconnection of the display device with other functional units
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/005 Robust watermarking, e.g. average attack or collusion attack resistant
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2201/0051 Embedding of the watermark in the spatial domain
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2201/0065 Extraction of an embedded watermark; Reliable detection
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2340/06 Colour space transformation
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2358/00 Arrangements for display data security
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/08 Power processing, i.e. workload management for processors involved in display operations, such as CPUs or GPUs
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/12 Frame memory handling
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/122 Tiling
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/022 Centralised management of display operation, e.g. in a server instead of locally
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/04 Exchange of auxiliary data, i.e. other than image data, between monitor and graphics controller
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/10 Use of a protocol of communication by packets in interfaces along the display data pipeline
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/006 Details of the interface to the display terminal specific for a display terminal using a CRT G09G1/167; using a flat panel G09G3/2096; circuits for interfacing with colour displays G09G5/04
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/04 using circuits for interfacing with colour displays
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8358 involving watermark protecting executable software by watermarking G06F21/16; image watermarking in general G06T1/0021; watermarks inserted in still images for transmission purposes H04N1/32144; inserting watermarks during video coding H04N19/467

Abstract

A digital watermark can be embedded within remote display protocol output. When host-side rendering is employed, the decoder on the client side can include a digital watermark component that can add a digital watermark to the remote display protocol output during the decoding process. This digital watermark can be specific to the end user and/or client device to thereby enable any misappropriation of the remote display protocol output to be traced back to the end user. The digital watermark can be added as a clearly visible portion of the remote display protocol output or can be added as an invisible (i.e., hidden) portion of the remote display protocol output.

Claims

1. A method, implemented by a remote display protocol client that employs a remote display protocol to receive remote display protocol output from a server, for embedding a watermark within the remote display protocol output during decoding of the remote display protocol output, the method comprising:

establishing a remote display protocol connection with the server;

receiving, from the server and over the remote display protocol connection, encoded remote display protocol output;

identifying a watermark to be embedded within the remote display protocol output;

during decoding of the remote display protocol output, modifying pixel values of the remote display protocol output such that the remote display protocol output includes the watermark; and

outputting the remote display protocol output with the watermark for display.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the remote display protocol output is encoded in accordance with an H.264 encoder.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the encoded remote display protocol output comprises tile data structures.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein decoding comprises identifying tile data structures pertaining to a particular location of the display, and wherein modifying pixel values of the remote display protocol output comprises modifying pixel values within tile data structures pertaining to the particular location.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the pixel values of each tile data structure pertaining to the particular location are modified so that the watermark continuously appears in the display.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the pixel values of selective tile data structures pertaining to the particular location are modified so that the watermark does not appear continuously in the displayed remote display protocol output.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the particular location is updated during the decoding of the remote display protocol output such that the relative location of the watermark within the displayed remote display protocol output changes.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the watermark comprises identifying an identifier of an end user of the remote display protocol client.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the identifier of the end user is a username employed to establish the remote display protocol connection.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the watermark comprises an identifier of an entity that provides the remote display protocol output.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

maintaining a database that maps the watermark to an end user.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the watermark comprises identifying a characteristic of a computing device on which the remote display protocol client is executed.

12. One or more computer storage media storing computer executable instructions which when executed implement a remote display protocol client that is configured to perform a method for embedding a watermark within remote display protocol output, the method comprising:

receiving, over a remote display protocol connection, remote display protocol output that is encoded, the encoded remote display protocol output including data structures that each define pixel values for a corresponding area of a frame buffer;

decoding the remote display protocol output including;

monitoring the data structures to identify data structures pertaining to a particular area of the frame buffer, and

modifying pixel values of at least some of the data structures pertaining to the particular area of the frame buffer, wherein the pixel values are modified in accordance with a watermark; and

outputting the remote display protocol output with the modified pixel values for display.

13. The computer storage media of claim 12, wherein the data structures comprise tile data structures of an H.264 codec.

14. The computer storage media of claim 12, further comprising:

identifying the watermark to be used in modifying the pixel values.

15. The computer storage media of claim 14, wherein identifying the watermark comprises determining an identifier of an end user of the remote display protocol client.

16. The computer storage media of claim 14, wherein identifying the watermark comprises determining an identifier of a computing device on which the remote display protocol client is executed.

17. The computer storage media of claim 12, wherein the watermark is one of a visible watermark or an invisible watermark.

18. A computing device comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more computer storage media storing a remote display protocol client, wherein the remote display protocol client, when executed by the one or more processors, implements a method for embedding a watermark in remote display protocol output, the method comprising;

establishing a remote display protocol connection with a server;

receiving encoded remote display protocol output over the remote display protocol connection;

while decoding the remote display protocol output, modifying one or more pixel values of the remote display protocol output so that a watermark appears in the remote display protocol output; and

displaying the remote display protocol output with the watermark.

19. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the remote display protocol output is encoded as a number of tile data structures in accordance with an H.264 codec, each tile data structure containing pixel values for a corresponding area of a frame buffer, and wherein modifying one or more pixel values of the remote display protocol output comprises identifying tile data structures encompassing a particular area of the frame buffer and modifying one or more pixel values within the tile data structures encompassing the particular area of the frame buffer.

20. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the watermark comprises:

an identifier of an end user of the remote display protocol client;

an identifier of the computing device;

or

an identifier of an entity that provides the remote display protocol output.