Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2000/004

Combinatorial Properties of Frameproof and Traceability Codes

J.N. Staddon and D.R. Stinson and R. Wei

Abstract: In order to protect copyrighted material, codes may be embedded in the content or codes may be associated with the keys used to recover the content. Codes can offer protection by providing some form of traceability for pirated data. Several researchers have studied different notions of traceability and related concepts in recent years. "Strong" versions of traceability allow at least one member of a coalition that constructs a "pirate decoder" to be traced. Weaker versions of this concept ensure that no coalition can "frame" a disjoint user or group of users. All these concepts can be formulated as codes having certain combinatorial properties.

In this paper, we study the relationships between the various notions, and we discuss equivalent formulations using structures such as perfect hash families. We use methods from combinatorics and coding theory to provide bounds (necessary conditions) and constructions (sufficient conditions) for the objects of interest.

Category / Keywords: foundations / frameproof codes, traceability, traitor tracing, combinatorics

Date: received 6 Mar 2000

Contact author: dstinson at uwaterloo ca

Available format(s): Postscript (PS) | Compressed Postscript (PS.GZ) | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20000307:201738 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2000/004

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