If you’re a blogger, freelancer or a channel owner then you’re probably at a point of warying as your copyrights is at stake. Researchers have developed an Algorithm which has the ability to remove the watermarks by itself. They warn that the pictures are still vulnerable and are prone to piracy even after getting inked.
Watermarks are probably the easiest and suitable method to protect your exclusivity over your images. They can easily be superimposed on any digital image by just few clicks. So far, it has been considered that watermarks are almost immortal and it takes a lot to remove the watermark from an image. Even for a professional Photoshop expert, it takes a minutes of patience and to remove the mark.
However, Researchers developed a computer algorithm that can get past this protection and remove watermarks automatically, giving users unobstructed access to the clean images the watermarks are intended to protect.
“As often done with vulnerabilities discovered in operating systems, applications or protocols, we want to disclose this vulnerability and propose solutions in order to help the photography and stock image communities adapt and better protect its copyrighted content and creations,” Google stated in a blog post.
“The process of erasing the mark can be done automatically, without any user intervention or prior information about the watermark and by only observing watermarked image collections publicly available online. The algorithm produces very accurate estimations of the watermark components already from hundreds of images, and can deal with most watermarks used in practice, including ones containing thin structures, shadows or colour gradients”, experts said.
“The vulnerability of current watermarking techniques lies in the consistency in watermarks across image collections,” they added.
Introducing random geometric perturbations to the watermark – warping it when embedding it in each image – can counter this vulnerability, researchers said. This technique creates a watermarked image that is very similar to the original photo and will leave very visible traces if removed.
Stay updated with latest happenings of tech world on the go with Technobugg App on Android and Windows.
Via: ET Telecom
