A Survey of Watermarking Techniques for Non-Media Digital Objects (Invited Talk)

The vast majority of the literature on watermarking has dealt with media such as images, video, and audio - all of which are ultimately destined for consumption by the human perceptual system. There has recently been growing interest in watermarking non-media such as relational data, software, natural language text, sensor streams, etc. The challenges posed by these new domains are quite different from the traditional ones. For example, some (like relational data and software) are destined for automated processing rather than for perception by a human. Others (like natural language text) are destined for human consumption, but by the cognitive rather than the perceptual system. Streaming data poses its own set of challenges. The talk will survey these areas, their problematics, the progress made, and the remaining challenges.