Securing images online: a protection mechanism that does not involve watermarking

The paper covers a method of allowing a client to browse an image to examine it in detail, while making it difficult to steal. It differs from invisible watermarking methods in that it attempts to prevent theft, rather than detect or verify theft after it has happened. The image is served to the client in parts. The parts are imperceptibly altered. No effort is made to protect individual parts; however, the alterations ensure that putting the parts together is extremely difficult without clearly visible distortion. Thus, the client can view any part of the image in detail, but is unable to obtain a usable copy of the whole