Framework for media data and owner authentication based on cryptography, watermarking and biometric authentication

Protecting the media of the future - securing the future of the media is an essential task for our new century. Security is defined by security measures, e.g. confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, and non-repudiation. Most of these measures are using watermarking techniques and cryptographic mechanisms like cipher systems, digital signature schemes, and authentication protocols. The security of these mechanisms is mainly based on the authenticity of specific data like keys and attributes - both data must be dedicated to its owner in an authentic manner. Otherwise, the authenticity of data and of owners can not be guaranteed and subsequently, the security can not be assured. Therefore in our paper we want to focus on data and entity (owner) authentication. We introduce a general framework to protect media data by combining different existing techniques: cryptographic, watermarking and biometric approaches. As an example we describe general concepts for a content-fragile watermarking approach for digital images and a generic approach for biometric authentication.