Exploring QIM-based anti-collusion fingerprinting for multimedia

Digital fingerprinting is an emerging technology to protect multimedia from unauthorized use by embedding a unique fingerprint signal into each user’s copy. A robust embedding algorithm is an important building block in order to make the fingerprint resilient to various distortions and collusion attacks. Spread spectrum embedding has been widely used for multimedia fingerprinting. In this paper, we explore another class of embedding methods – Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) for fingerprinting applications. We first employ Dither Modulation (DM) technique and extend it for embedding multiple symbols through a basic dither sequence design. We then develop a theoretical model and propose a new algorithm to improve the collusion resistance of the basic scheme. Simulation results show that the improvement algorithm enhances the collusion resistance, while there is still a performance gap with the existing spread spectrum based fingerprinting. We then explore coded fingerprinting based on spread transform dither modulation (STDM) embedding. Simulation results show that this coded STDM based fingerprinting has significant advantages over spread spectrum based fingerprinting under blind detection.