Buyer-Seller Watermarking Protocol for an Anonymous Network Transaction

Digital watermarks are used for protecting the digital contents from unauthorized duplication and distribution over internet. This can be achieved by inserting a unique digital watermark into each copy of the content before it is sold by the content owner (seller) to a buyer. If an illegal replica of digital content is found in the market, the watermark detection and extraction algorithm will both identify exactly who has the legal ownership of that copy and who is the illegal reseller. Number of buyer-seller watermarking protocols have been proposed to address different issues related to digital transaction over internet. The previously published protocols have found one or more of the following major common problems which are customerpsilas right, copy deterrence, unbinding conspiracy, buyerpsilas participation in the dispute resolution, middle man attack problems. This paper proposes on new anonymous buyer-seller watermarking protocol, for any digital transaction. The proposed protocol is anonymous as the generated watermark is independent of buyerpsilas information. It also efficient, secure and fixes all of the previously mentioned problems; and moreover buyer can check the authenticity of the digital copy purchased.