Content Access Control Applications

(KIT STEGROUP)

The picture below (superman500.emb.png) is a stego image embedded with many folders. Each folder contains one or more "content" files. The contents are categorized folder by folder.

You can extract various combinations of the folders by using "STEG-FDVIEW.exe (Go to the other page to download)" in conjunction with "Access Key Files."  8 different Access Key Files (key-1.axk, key-2.axk, ..., key-8.axk) are included in the downloaded program files.

The novel point here is that you can extract the embedded contents "selectively" according to the Access Key File you use.

This means that the content owner (one who embedded the content data) can make any access key file according to the content viewer's request. Each key file allows the viewer to extract only the designated combination of contents that are all embedded in the stego data in advance. The stego data is posted on the Homepage of  the owner. Consequently,  the content owner can exclusively control the access to his/her content data.

Our experimental Folder Extraction Program STEG-FDVIEW.exe (STEGanography FolDer VIEWer) is included in Qtech-FDV v01 folder which you download and decompressed. You can use it by the steps shown below.

An Access Key File for this program is a small file created by the content owner that determines the extractable folders. The file is encrypted and unreadable. The program will decrypt the key file and start the extracting operation.

(superman500.emb.png)

A stego image embedded with many content folders

Steps to extract content folders

1)  To begin the extraction, it may be convenient to copy 8 following files onto your Desktop first.

2)  Click STEG-FDVIEW.exe to run the program, and you will see "Information Extracting" click-button. Click it to appear the extracting program.

Drag & Drop superman500.emb.png from this page onto the center of the extracting program window. If Drag & Drop does not work directly, try to copy it on Desktop, and then Drag & Drop to the extracting program again.

Folder extracting program window

3)  Click "Access Key File" button to pop-up the key-inputting window.

4)  Drag & Drop one of the Access Key Files from Desktop to the "Input Access Key File Name" slot. Then type in,

activate-it

in the "Input Activation Key" slot. Then click "OK."

The "Activation Key" is a key to activate the inputted Access Key File. In this example it is always (whichever key file you use) "activate-it" is the key.

The reason why we used two keys is that we think  keys should be separately transferred from the content owner to the content viewer to keep security.

5)  Click "Extract" button.

When the extraction has finished, you will find the extracted folder(s) in a temporary folder. Check each content folder to see the content.

･The default extraction option is "As it is". But when you use "key-7.axk", you may try to set  it as "Link to Web".

･Access Key File setting is effective for one extracting operation.

  Every time you extract, you need to re-set an Access Key File.

The reference [8] below describes the more detailed system operations.

References

[8] Eiji Kawaguchi, Michiro Maeta, et al, "A Model of Digital Contents Access Control System Using Steganographic Information Hiding Scheme", INFORMATION MODELLING AND KNOWLEDGE BASES XVIII, pp.50-61, IOS Press, 2007.   (Download: 467KB)

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(Updated: Jan. 19, 2008  by Eiji Kawaguchi)