WO2005122114A1 - Water marks injector - Google Patents

Water marks injector Download PDF

Info

Publication number
WO2005122114A1
WO2005122114A1 PCT/RU2004/000224 RU2004000224W WO2005122114A1 WO 2005122114 A1 WO2005122114 A1 WO 2005122114A1 RU 2004000224 W RU2004000224 W RU 2004000224W WO 2005122114 A1 WO2005122114 A1 WO 2005122114A1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
software
watermarking
watermarks
information
executable
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/RU2004/000224
Other languages
French (fr)
Inventor
Oleg Raisovich Salyakhov
Original Assignee
Protection Technology Limited
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Protection Technology Limited filed Critical Protection Technology Limited
Priority to PCT/RU2004/000224 priority Critical patent/WO2005122114A1/en
Publication of WO2005122114A1 publication Critical patent/WO2005122114A1/en

Links

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F21/00—Security arrangements for protecting computers, components thereof, programs or data against unauthorised activity
    • G06F21/10—Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material ; Digital rights management [DRM]
    • G06F21/12—Protecting executable software
    • G06F21/121—Restricting unauthorised execution of programs
    • G06F21/125—Restricting unauthorised execution of programs by manipulating the program code, e.g. source code, compiled code, interpreted code, machine code
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F21/00—Security arrangements for protecting computers, components thereof, programs or data against unauthorised activity
    • G06F21/10—Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material ; Digital rights management [DRM]
    • G06F21/16—Program or content traceability, e.g. by watermarking

Definitions

  • This invention is to be used in area of software copyright protection.
  • Patent numbers for examples of this level of technology in International Patent Classification are the following: H04L9/00, G06F12/14, G06F17/60.
  • the main point of active digital watermarks is in the process of watermarking image of an executable stored in RAM during program run-time instead of watermarking the file itself. This is achieved by including additional code which alters the application code stored in RAM during application run-time.
  • the advantage of the active digital watermarks is in the fact that they are created during the run-time of application, not during its creation. Thus watermarks can contain any data relevant at the given moment, and this makes them an invaluable source of information.
  • application is being cracked by saving the RAM image of an executable, watermarks are saved as well.
  • the main difference of active digital watermarks from the passive digital watermarks is that they appear only if the software protection is being hacked (scheme 2).
  • table containing information about them is created (this information includes location of blocks in protected module, their size, type of data etc.).
  • Second phase is filling known blocks with data during program run-time. Any valuable information may be stored. Most valuable information for finding cracker includes: computer IP address, hardware and operation system details and information on current copy of software.
  • the third phase is search for watermarks in cracked program module and further extracting of information contained in these watermarks. Tables saved earlier are used to determine watermarks location in cracked module. If tables were not used, watermarks addresses are to be found manually after cracked module analysis in order to locate addresses of integrated code functions.
  • Active digital watermarks may be used to obtain information about the computer used for cracking software product. This information may include hardware, software and other details and may then be used by law institutes in investigating cases of software copyright violation.
  • activation session data (activation time, IP address, activation details etc.) is stored on activation server. Then this data is compared with data from watermarks in cracked software (IP address, software copy details, hardware details and operation system details) in order to determine personality of cracker.

Landscapes

  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Software Systems (AREA)
  • Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
  • Computer Security & Cryptography (AREA)
  • Multimedia (AREA)
  • Technology Law (AREA)
  • Computer Hardware Design (AREA)
  • Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
  • Storage Device Security (AREA)

Abstract

This invention relates to software copyright protection, more precisely, to software watermarking that helps tracing the source of illegal copy. At the moment, there are methods of encrypting files in order to forbid illegal run of software. The common way of breaking such protection is legally running software with the following saving working image of an executable from random access memory. This saved image contains completely or partially decrypted code and is much easier to crack than the original file. The essence of the present invention is to embed executable code which manages watermarking into the mentioned RAM image instead of watermarking an executable file itself. In this case the cracked (saved from RAM) version will contain watermarks as well, being invaluable source of information about the origin of illegally distributed software, as these watermarks may contain information on the system software was cracked on.

Description

Water Marks Injector
Technology area
This invention is to be used in area of software copyright protection.
Previous level of technology
Previous level of technology in this area is digital watermarks placed in the executable file. They exist in the software before it is run, thus being "passive" (predetermined and unalterable). Watermarking is performed on product files and can contain only information about current copy and/or installation of software (scheme 1).
Patent numbers for examples of this level of technology in International Patent Classification (IPC) are the following: H04L9/00, G06F12/14, G06F17/60.
Description
The main point of active digital watermarks is in the process of watermarking image of an executable stored in RAM during program run-time instead of watermarking the file itself. This is achieved by including additional code which alters the application code stored in RAM during application run-time.
Compared to the previous level of digital watermarking in software, the advantage of the active digital watermarks is in the fact that they are created during the run-time of application, not during its creation. Thus watermarks can contain any data relevant at the given moment, and this makes them an invaluable source of information. When application is being cracked by saving the RAM image of an executable, watermarks are saved as well. Thus the main difference of active digital watermarks from the passive digital watermarks is that they appear only if the software protection is being hacked (scheme 2).
Methods of implementation
Working with active digital watermarks is performed in few steps.
First, it is imperative to mark or find a space for digital watermarks in a module being protected. These blocks of space may be chosen: - in the product development phase: Developer have to use special library, in which predetermined arrays with known order of bytes are defined. Then, during the process of protection implementation, special utilities find these blocks of space and create tables containing information about blocks. These tables will then be used by watermarking software. in the phase of implementing protection for product already developed: The search for free blocks of memory between functions is conducted in program module already developed. If there is not enough space, necessary amount of space is added to ready sections or new sections are created.
After free blocks are found, table containing information about them is created (this information includes location of blocks in protected module, their size, type of data etc.).
Developer should keep this table, or it should be stored on a server providing protection of a module. Second copy of this table should exist in embedded code responsible for watermarking (scheme 3).
It is possible to watermark executables without using tables described above. In this case integrated code stores digital watermarks in its global variables, and addresses of these variables may be found by a specialist after locating functions of integrated code in the cracked program module.
Second phase is filling known blocks with data during program run-time. Any valuable information may be stored. Most valuable information for finding cracker includes: computer IP address, hardware and operation system details and information on current copy of software.
The third phase is search for watermarks in cracked program module and further extracting of information contained in these watermarks. Tables saved earlier are used to determine watermarks location in cracked module. If tables were not used, watermarks addresses are to be found manually after cracked module analysis in order to locate addresses of integrated code functions.
Possible ways of use
Active digital watermarks may be used to obtain information about the computer used for cracking software product. This information may include hardware, software and other details and may then be used by law institutes in investigating cases of software copyright violation.
If software requires activation via Internet, then activation session data (activation time, IP address, activation details etc.) is stored on activation server. Then this data is compared with data from watermarks in cracked software (IP address, software copy details, hardware details and operation system details) in order to determine personality of cracker.

Claims

The Invention Formula
1. Method of software watermarking (embedding external data arrays containing various information into a file) in order to search for the source of distribution of illegal copies of software.
2. Method like 1., but information stored in digital watermarks contains information about computer which was used to crack software, not about the original copy of software only.
3. Method like 1., but instead of digital watermarks, executable code which manages watermarking is embedded into the software being protected.
4. Method like 1., but with watermarking being performed on program image stored in random access memory (RAM) during software run-time.
5. Method like 1., but digital watermarks appear in executable file only if it was created by saving a program image from RAM.
PCT/RU2004/000224 2004-06-10 2004-06-10 Water marks injector WO2005122114A1 (en)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
PCT/RU2004/000224 WO2005122114A1 (en) 2004-06-10 2004-06-10 Water marks injector

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
PCT/RU2004/000224 WO2005122114A1 (en) 2004-06-10 2004-06-10 Water marks injector

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO2005122114A1 true WO2005122114A1 (en) 2005-12-22

Family

ID=35503298

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/RU2004/000224 WO2005122114A1 (en) 2004-06-10 2004-06-10 Water marks injector

Country Status (1)

Country Link
WO (1) WO2005122114A1 (en)

Cited By (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
CN108229114A (en) * 2018-02-11 2018-06-29 陕西中认本信信息科技有限公司 Based on random watermark distributed cryptography file, verification and the method and its application of retrospect
EP1962217B1 (en) * 2007-02-22 2019-12-11 SafeNet Data Security (Israel) Ltd. Self-defensive protected software with suspended latent license enforcement
US11361055B1 (en) 2020-12-04 2022-06-14 International Business Machines Corporation Protection of a content repository using dynamic watermarking

Citations (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2002101519A2 (en) * 2001-06-08 2002-12-19 Cloakware Corporation Method and system for generating sustainable digital watermarks
US20030131237A1 (en) * 2002-01-04 2003-07-10 Ameline Ian R. Method for applying a digital watermark to an output image from a computer program
US20040005078A1 (en) * 2002-06-21 2004-01-08 Spectra Systems Corporation Method and apparatus for digitally watermarking images created with a mobile imaging device
US20040202324A1 (en) * 2003-04-11 2004-10-14 Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd Program electronic watermark processing apparatus

Patent Citations (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO2002101519A2 (en) * 2001-06-08 2002-12-19 Cloakware Corporation Method and system for generating sustainable digital watermarks
US20030131237A1 (en) * 2002-01-04 2003-07-10 Ameline Ian R. Method for applying a digital watermark to an output image from a computer program
US20040005078A1 (en) * 2002-06-21 2004-01-08 Spectra Systems Corporation Method and apparatus for digitally watermarking images created with a mobile imaging device
US20040202324A1 (en) * 2003-04-11 2004-10-14 Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd Program electronic watermark processing apparatus

Cited By (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
EP1962217B1 (en) * 2007-02-22 2019-12-11 SafeNet Data Security (Israel) Ltd. Self-defensive protected software with suspended latent license enforcement
CN108229114A (en) * 2018-02-11 2018-06-29 陕西中认本信信息科技有限公司 Based on random watermark distributed cryptography file, verification and the method and its application of retrospect
US11361055B1 (en) 2020-12-04 2022-06-14 International Business Machines Corporation Protection of a content repository using dynamic watermarking

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