Digital watermarking systems

• US 20040128512A1
• Filed: 03/04/2003
• Published: 07/01/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Original Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Inventors: Sharma, Ravi K, Miller, Marc D, Levy, Kenneth L
• Granted Patent: US 7,958,359 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/176
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3823 combining multiple encryption tools for a transaction
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3827 Use of message hashing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00204 with a digital computer or a digital computer system, e.g. an internet server programmed control between transmitter and receiver or between image input and image output device H04N1/32561
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3235 Checking or certification of the authentication information, e.g. by comparison with data stored independently
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/327 which are undetectable to the naked eye, e.g. embedded codes

Abstract

A system (40) responsive to watermarked documents for exchanging data. The system (40) contains a user terminal (42) including a watermark reader, and a capture device to capture an image of a watermark document, and a central site (46) including a database of image hashes. The watermark reader reads a watermark and computes a hash of a captured image, and passes to hash to the central site (46) for comparison with the database of image hashes.

Claims

1. A method of commerce over the internet between a user computer and a merchant computer, the user computer reading a document including an embedded watermark, said method comprising the steps of:

at the user computer, extracting identifying data from the watermark, and passing the identifying data to a central computer;

at the central computer, identifying a financial institution identifier associated with the document and passing the identifier and a session ticket to the user computer;

contacting the financial institution via the financial institution identifier and passing to the financial institution the session ticket to obtain an authentication ticket;

passing the authentication ticket from the user to the merchant computer to facilitate a transaction; and

providing the authentication ticket from the merchant computer to the financial institution.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the identifying data comprises a document identifier and a document type identifier.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein said identifying step comprises the step of identifying the financial institution via the document type identifier.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the session ticket comprises a document identifier, a timestamp and an address for the user computer.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of encrypting the session ticket.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of encrypting the authorization ticket.

7. The method according to claim 2, wherein the document identifier is encrypted to allow access to the document identifier only by the financial institution.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the financial institution identifier comprises a URL, and wherein the financial institution comprises a computer.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein said authorization ticket comprises a document identifier, an address of the merchant computer, an address of the user, a timestamp and an amount of the transaction.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein said extracting step is initiated by the step of selecting a secure purchase option from the merchant computer.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein said providing step verifies that the authorization is authentic.

12. A method of verifying data comprising the steps of:

digitally capturing an image;

computing a first hash of the captured image; and

comparing the first hash with a database of hashes, the database of hashes comprising hashes corresponding to previously captured images.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising the step of:

enabling further processing when the first hash fails to match any of the hashes in the database.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising the step of:

identifying an attack when the first hash matches at least one hash in the database.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the image comprises an embedded watermark, said method further comprising the steps of:

extracting data from the watermark;

encrypting a request, the request comprising the extracted data and the first hash; and

sending the encrypted request to an external computer, wherein said comparing step is performed at said external computer.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the image comprises an embedded watermark, said method further comprising the steps of:

extracting data from the watermark;

encrypting a request comprising a block of image data from the image;

sending the encrypted request to an external computer;

wherein said computing step and said comparing step are performed at the external computer.

17. A system for exchanging data comprising:

a user terminal comprising a watermark reader, and a capturing device to capture an image of a watermarked document; and

a central site comprising a database of image hashes, wherein said user terminal communicates with said central site, and wherein said reader reads a watermark and computes a hash of a captured image and passes the hash to said central site for comparison with said database of image hashes.

18. A method of commerce over a communications system between a user and a merchant, the system including a central computer, a user computer, a merchant computer and a financial institution computer, the user computer comprising a reader, the computers communicating via a network, said method comprising the steps of:

accessing the merchant computer from the user computer;

launching on the user computer the reader to read a document comprising embedded data, the reader extracting identifying data from the embedded data;

accessing the central computer from the user computer to obtain a URL for the financial institution computer and a ticket, the URL being identified from the extracted identifying data;

passing the ticket from the user computer to the financial institution computer to obtain an authorization;

after receipt of the authorization, passing the authorization from the user computer to the merchant computer; and

passing the authorization from the merchant computer to the financial institution computer.

19. A method of gaining permissions comprising the steps of:

launching on a first computer a reader to read a document comprising embedded data, the reader extracting identifying data from the embedded data;

accessing the central computer from the first computer to obtain a URL for a permission granting computer and a ticket, the URL identified from the extracted identifying data;

passing the ticket from the first computer to the permission granting computer to obtain a permission; and

upon receipt of the permission, passing the permission from the first computer to a computer requesting the permission.

20. A method of preventing online attacks, comprising the steps of:

capturing an encoded image;

extracting data from the encoded image;

computing a hash of the captured image; and

comparing the hash against previously determined hashes.

21. The method according to claim 20, further comprising the step of:

linking the extracted data to other data when the hash does not match any of the previously determined hashes.

22. The method according to claim 20, further comprising the step of:

disregarding the extracted data when the hash matches at least one of the previously determined hashes.

23. A computer readable medium having a data structure stored thereon, said data structure comprising:

a document identifier;

a document type identifier; and

a hash of an image from which the document identifier and document type identifier were extracted from.

24. The computer readable medium according to claim 23, wherein said data structure is encrypted.

25. The computer readable medium according to claim 23, wherein said document identifier is encrypted.

26. A method of gaining permissions comprising the steps of:

launching on a first computer a reader to read a document comprising identifying data;

accessing a central computer to obtain a location of a permission computer and a ticket, the location identified from the identifying data;

passing the ticket to the permission computer to obtain a permission; and

upon receipt of the permission, passing the permission to a computer requesting the permission.

27. A method of verifying data comprising the steps of:

verifying physical possession of an identifying document; and

comparing provided verification data with predetermined verification data.

28. A method of conducting commerce over the internet between a user and a vendor, the user having a credit card with a credit card number, the method comprising:

providing the credit card number from the vendor to a credit card approval authority; and

authorizing a charge to said credit card number only after demonstrating to said approval authority that the user has physical custody of the credit card.

29. The method of claim 28 in which said demonstrating includes sensing image data corresponding to a face of said credit card.

30. The method of claim 29 that further includes steganographically decoding a plural-bit payload from said image data.

31. The method of claim 30 that further includes confirming a predetermined relationship between said payload and said credit card number.

32. A method to facilitate voting comprising the steps of:

receiving an identifier, the identifier being extracted from a digitally watermarked document; and

verifying an ability to vote based at least in part on the received identifier.

33. A method of voting over the internet comprising the steps of:

accessing an online voting website; and

demonstrating an ability to vote via a digitally watermarked voting document.

34. The method according to claim 33, wherein the digitally watermarked voting document comprises one of a driver'"'"'s license, an identification card, a passport, a ballot, and a voter registration card.

35. A method of verifying information comprising the steps of:

extracting an embedded message from an identification document; and

using the message to determine information about the document holder.

36. The method according to claim 35, wherein the message includes an identifier, and the method further comprises the steps of:

providing the identifier to a database to obtain the document holder information; and

receiving from the database the document holder information.

37. The method according to claim 36, wherein the document holder information includes at least one of age information, address information, citizenship information, physical characteristics, and picture identification.

38. The method according to claim 35, wherein the message includes a plurality of bits conveying at least one of age information, address information, citizenship information, physical characteristics, and picture identification.

38-1. A method of providing trial access for an online website comprising the steps of:

digitally watermarking a document to include an embedded identifier;

linking the identifier to an account, the account having a limited lifespan; and

permitting access to the account based on the identifier.

39. A method to access a secure location comprising the steps of:

presenting a digitally watermarked document to a digital watermark reader, the digitally watermarked document including an identifier; and

positioning the digitally watermarked document in a plurality of orientations with respect to the digital watermark reader.

40. The method according to claim 39, wherein the each of the plurality of orientations are presented in combination.

41. A method comprising the steps of:

in a database, linking an identifier and a combination;

receiving the identifier, the identifier extracted from a digitally watermarked document;

indexing the database to find the combination; and

determining whether an entered combination matches the database combination.

42. The method according to claim 41, wherein the entered combination corresponds to a plurality of orientations of the digitally watermarked document.

43. The method according to claim 41, wherein the identifier comprises an account number.

44. A watermark-based combination lock comprising:

a database including at least one identifier linked to a combination;

a combination card including embedded information in the form of a digital watermark, the information comprising at least the identifier, wherein the combination comprises data corresponding to a plurality of combination card orientations.

45. A method of securely transferring data comprising the steps of:

in a watermark reader;

receiving image data;

determining whether the image data comprises a digital watermark, the digital watermark comprising an identifier;

encrypting the image data; and

communicating the image data to a receiving server; and

in the receiving server;

reading the image data to extract the identifier from the digital watermark; and

identifying information related to the identifier.

46. The method according to claim 45, further comprising the step of time stamping the image data.

47. The method according to claim 45, further comprising the step of compressing the image data.

48. The method according to claim 45, wherein the image data comprises luminance values.

49. A method of securely transmitting image data over the internet, the image data comprising a digital watermark, the method comprising the steps of:

capturing a block of the image data;

determining whether the captured block comprises the digital watermark;

encrypting the block of image data; and

transmitting the encrypted block via the internet.

50. The method according to claim 49, wherein the block of image data comprising luminance values.