A Verifiable and Traceable Secondhand Digital Media Market Protocol

Abstract

As used product transactions are currently on the rise, the demand for transactions of secondhand digital content will grow in the future; thus, learning to make secure transactions while avoiding cyber attacks becomes an important issue. In this paper, we combine the new buyer’s secret key, the new buyer’s watermark to embed in resold digital content, and the reseller’s encrypted watermark, which can prove legal ownership of the reseller. Using the privacy homomorphism property of RSA and exponential calculus, the original seller of digital content can verify the legality of the reseller and the new buyer. We also reduced the load of encryption/decryption digital content using a partial encryption/decryption algorithm to make our protocol more efficient and practical. In the proposed protocol, the seller is not able to conduct piracy and easily frame any other innocent secondhand buyer when a case of piracy is found. In fact, piracy can be clearly traced using the privacy homomorphism property of RSA and the embedded watermark mechanism. Further, in the proposed protocol, the seller himself can trace the piracy using exponential calculus. Since it is unnecessary to trust third party participation, the conspiracy problem is resolved and the new buyer is not required to participate in the dispute. Moreover, the seller, reseller and new buyer can simultaneously benefit from the secondhand transaction.