Multipurpose Protection for Numeric Data With Capabilities of Self-Authentication and Ownership Declaration

A new multipurpose protection method for numeric data with double capabilities of self-authentication and ownership declaration is proposed. The proposed method embeds an elaborate right witness, which is derived from (k, n)-threshold method with a specific value of n, into the to-be-protected numeric data to generate the resulting protected numeric data. Once the protected numeric data stored in clouds or private storage space suffer illegitimate modifications by intruders, our method can check the embedded right witness that contains a designed function of self-authentication to alert the data accessor. Moreover, if the protected numeric data are leaked or stealthily copied for illegitimate uses, our method is able to extract the embedded right witness that can be derived from the values of copied numeric data to declare the ownership. Compared with the related state-of-the-art methods, the proposed method possesses the merits of providing multi-protection functions for confidentiality, ownership, and authenticity of numeric data, leaving no permanent distortion to numeric data and having wider applicability for various kinds of numeric data. Experimental results and discussions on several important issues including security consideration are provided to prove the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.