Construction of auditory media signal processing infrastructure to prevent media clone attacks

Abstract

Understanding how auditory information is processed by the ear and the brain is no easy feat. The mechanics of basic sound signal transduction in the ear are fairly well characterised, however there is much that is still not well-known concerning aspects of the ear and the psychology of the process. Consequently, the way digital sound is stored, processed and delivered fails to take advantage of aspects of human hearing. Of particular concern is the ease with which digital sound can be virtually copied and distributed without the permission of the creator. Professor Masashi Unoki is an expert in auditory processing, his team is examining aspects of human auditory perception such as masking, cochlear delay and phase perception in order to explore the possibility of auditory information hiding and fingerprinting techniques.