Jason: DRM and Watermarking, 2 2
in this lesson, we are going to talk 3 3
about digital rights management and watermarking 4 4
and why these are important. 5 5
Now, in a lot of things 6 6
we want to be able to protect our data 7 7
and DLP systems are great for that. 8 8
It can help protect things from leaving our network. 9 9
But in some companies, our product has to leave the network 10 10
and our product is digital. 11 11
For instance, right now you're watching this course. 12 12
This product is a digital product 13 13
and it has to use DRM, 14 14
digital rights management to protect our product 15 15
because otherwise the product itself is very easy to copy. 16 16
If you look at any kind of movie or music, 17 17
you can find torrents online 18 18
that illegally allow you to download them; 19 19
that's what people are trying to fight 20 20
when you start talking about DRM and watermarking. 21 21
Now, when we deal with Digital rights management 22 22
or DRM these are copyright protection technologies 23 23
for digital media, which attempts to mitigate the risk 24 24
of unauthorized copies being distributed. 25 25
Essentially, you're a movie studio 26 26
and you don't want the latest copy of Batman 27 27
to be released to everybody in the world. 28 28
You want to sell it in theaters 29 29
so you can make money off of it 30 30
because you invested a lot of money building that thing 31 31
and so that's what DRM is all about. 32 32
Now, DRM can be implemented in two different ways. 33 33
You can use a hardware approach, 34 34
or a software approach. 35 35
If you're using a hardware approach, 36 36
this might require you to have an authorized player. 37 37
For instance, I can't take a PlayStation game 38 38
and play it on something that's not a PlayStation. 39 39
Those are required to be played on that player. 40 40
The same thing happened in the early days of DVDs. 41 41
They were region coded. 42 42
If I bought one for America, I couldn't play it in Asia. 43 43
If I bought one in Asia, I couldn't play it in America. 44 44
Those had to be played on an authorized piece of hardware. 45 45
Now, on the terms of software, 46 46
a lot of times this will be done based on a software viewer. 47 47
If you bought the digital textbook 48 48
for this course from CompTIA. 49 49
You have to look at it through their software viewer 50 50
which happens to be a website. 51 51
This allows them to prevent copying 52 52
and being able to send it across 53 53
to all different devices across the internet 54 54
so they can sell that product and keep making money 55 55
because that's part of their business model 56 56
is making money 57 57
because they invested, you know, tens and thousands 58 58
and hundreds of thousand dollars 59 59
in making this book and making this textbook 60 60
and they don't want to just give it away for free. 61 61
They need to be able to recoup the money they spent 62 62
and be able to pay their authors and things like that. 63 63
So there are different security mechanisms in place, 64 64
whether their hardware or software 65 65
and DRM will use both of those. 66 66
Now, the other way we can protect our content 67 67
is doing watermarking. 68 68
Now, watermarking is a method and technology 69 69
that applies a unique anti-tamper signature 70 70
or message to a copy of a document. 71 71
For instance, when I go and make these courses, 72 72
we go out and try to find images 73 73
that would look good for you to be able 74 74
to see the points we're trying to make. 75 75
So I might get a picture like this. 76 76
Now, notice there's a big watermark 77 77
across the center, Shutterstock, 78 78
that's who we buy it from. 79 79
Now, if you don't buy the image, you have this big watermark 80 80
and it's illegal to use. 81 81
Now, in this case, I've bought this image, 82 82
so I'm allowed to use it. 83 83
Now, when I buy the image, I'm allowed to download it 84 84
without the watermark and it looks like this. 85 85
So it's the exact same image. 86 86
There's just this big word right across the center of it. 87 87
One of the companies I work with, Axelos, 88 88
they do the same thing with their textbooks. 89 89
We as partners who make courses for them 90 90
get advanced copies of the textbook. 91 91
When they send that to us as a PDF, 92 92
there's a big thing across the center that says, 93 93
not for redistribution, for partner use only, 94 94
and it has my name 95 95
on every single page of the 400 pages of the textbook. 96 96
So if that got out online, they can then say, 97 97
ah Jason gave away our textbook for free, 98 98
let's sue Jason. 99 99
That's the idea here 100 100
when you start dealing with watermarking. 101 101
Now, it doesn't have to be in your face like this though. 102 102
It can also be a forensic watermark. 103 103
Now, a forensic watermark is a digital watermark 104 104
that can defeat attempts at removal 105 105
by cropping pages or images in the file. 106 106
Essentially, it's a small hidden thing that you 107 107
can't really see, or it can just be a couple 108 108
of bites of code that are in the file itself. 109 109
So you might have a PDF and you take that PDF 110 110
and you don't see anything that's on a watermark 111 111
and so it looks like a real official copy of a textbook. 112 112
But when you send that out, 113 113
it automatically embeds your IP into it 114 114
or it embeds some kind of signature that identifies you 115 115
or it identifies the person who made it 116 116
and so they can tell who owns that file originally. 117 117
There's lots of different ways that you can do 118 118
this when you're dealing with forensic watermarks, 119 119
but just keep in mind that this is a valid solution 120 120
for some of your corporate documents 121 121
if you're trying to protect them 122 122
and you want to go beyond just using DLP.