Copyright Protection for Online Text Information
Using Watermarking and Cryptography
Nighat Mir
Computer Science Department
College of Engineering, Effat University
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
nmir@effatuniversity.edu.sa
Abstract— Information and security are interdependent
elements. Information security has evolved to be a matter of
global interest and to achieve this; it requires tools, policies and
assurance of technologies against any relevant security risks.
Internet influx while providing a flexible means of sharing the
online information economically has rapidly attracted countless
writers. Text being an important constituent of online
information sharing, creates a huge demand of intellectual
copyright protection of text and web itself. Various visible
watermarking techniques have been studied for text documents
but few for web-based text. In this paper, web page
watermarking and cryptography for online content copyrights
protection is proposed utilizing the semantic and syntactic rules
using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and is tested for
English and Arabic languages.
Keywords- Information security; Digital watermarking; Web
text; Internet technologies; semantic; syntactic; cryptography,
HTML
I. INTRODUCTION
Internet inflex provides a freedom of information sharing
economically strengthening the concept of global community
however, bringing threats to the authenticity and integrity [1].
Information is considered secure when not accessible by
unauthorized entities while distributed and accessible and used
by only authorized people. In today’s world, information
security management is a very crucial issue with the innovation
of new techniques of data destruction, namely attacking
communication networks, stealing confidential and secret
information by malicious users.
Digital watermarking, steganography and cryptography are
common approaches for providing information security with
different applications and scopes. However, they work under
different domains. Digital watermarking and steganography are
acknowledged as imperceptible techniques where cryptography
is perceptible. Information is watermarked or stegoed using an
identification code in digital form that remains present in the
cover file where a simple text is converted into a cipher text.
Watermarking process can be both visible and invisible.
Cryptography stands for hidden or secret writing which is used
to protect information from third parties that can generally be
achieved by using diverse algorithms [2].
978-1-7281-4213-5/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE
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Mohammad A. U. Khan
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
College of Engineering, Effat University
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Mohammad_a_khan@yahoo.com
Text is used as an important medium for the
communication of information online and requires a secure
mechanism against threats like reusing, disrupting,
redistributing, tampering, authenticating, copying, modifying
and forgery of information in an illicit way for dishonest
purposes [4]. Digital watermarking is an efficient way for
copyright protection, authentication, tamper proofing for a text
document [3, 5, 6]. In this research digital watermarking jointly
with cryptography is used to suggest web watermarking
utilizing HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) constituents.
For this, semantic and syntactic approaches of watermarking
have been unified with HTML for web watermarking. For
Semantic approach, English language verbs, articles and
prepositions have been chosen based on their high frequency of
occurrence in the language. Natural watermarks are generated
based on these semantics, added security has been provided
using cryptographic algorithm namely AES (Advanced
Encryption Standard) and hence embedded into the HTML
code for securing copyrights of web content. For Syntactic
approach constructs of Arabic and English languages are used
to offer the copyright protection using the proposed approach.
HTML <meta> tag is exploited to embed the natural
watermarks and is identified as a novel approach.
Digital watermarking is proved to be a mode of
identification for the owner of data [7,8]. It aims to embed the
ownership information inside the data. In case of illegal use,
watermark enables the assert of possession and successful
examination [9] while making the large scale distribution
simple and economical.
Syntactic and semantic approaches based on the language
paradigms have been used for text watermarking [10] and can
be prolonged towards the web content considering text as a
dominant part of a web page. Convenience of bandwidth in
web pages can be employed optimally to hide extra
information for protecting copyrights of a webpage content.
Web browsers to understand, interpret and structure text,
image and other types of data using HTML and all the
browsers have the default characteristics HTML elements. Web
developers can use various tools to produce web pages, but
these are eventually interpreted into HTML by the web
browser itself. Hence, HTML is considered as a basic building
block of a web page. Any data in general and text is open to
many threats and attacks. It is observed that, intentionally or
unintentionally, illegal copying of data from web has become a
universal practice where people think that every available
information is free to use.
II. BACKGROUND
J. Wu and D. R in [11] have proposed (APS) Authorship
Proof Scheme based on natural language watermarks. A
predefined security level has been defined and if it is less than
the probability measure and is considered secure. They have
proposed a solution for catering long text and are robust. They
have used meaning and literal representations to embed
watermarks and have also used edit distance against fault
tolerance.
Tamper proof watermarking by Qijun and Hondtao [12]
have proposed a PCA based (principal component analysis)
using the letter cases (upper and lower) to embed watermarks
in HTML tags. Fei, Wang, Zhand and Li in [13] have presented
a watermarking scheme to embed different fingerprints in
XML data which can be used to trace illegal distribution. Their
scheme attempts to reduce the modification attack and
maintains the robustness level.
Shi, Kim and S. in [14] have studied approaches using zero
watermarking for an un-trusted environment like internet by
offering protocols with stream ciphering to combine with
watermarking for encryption and decryption. Camenish [15]
provided some important moves towards appropriate formal
definitions for robustness of watermarks and the core security
feature of watermark security. Given solutions are compatible
with the cryptographic definitions and security schemas.
Stanislav [16] have proposed two algorithms for hiding
information into HTML file by analysing and using the usage
of HTML characteristics. First method is to exploit the gap and
the horizontal tabulation towards the end of each line and the
second methos is to hide the whole line/lines of the HTML file,
these lines are saved in a separate file to protect the copyright
information of author or information.
Gutub and Fattan in [17] have presented a text
steganographic approach for Arabic language. Subsistence of
points in Arabic letters along with repeated extension in
characters has been exploited to hold the secret information at
bit level. Pointed characters hold a one-bit data where un-
pointed characters hold a zero-bit data for Arabic content. They
have also proposed another approach by using the extension
character "-" known as Kashida for Arabic content in [18].
Memon, Khowaja, Kaz in [19] have proposed some feature
coding techniques for Arabic/Urdu content and have
considered harakaat/Araabs i.e. Fatha, Kasra, Damma and
Reverse Fatha to hide secret information for protecting
intellectual copyrights. Due to popular use of graphs in
different sectors like education, business, finance, news,
analysis etc., there is huge potential of hiding secret data in it
[20]. Hidden information in graphs is not embedded as a noise;
instead secret message is masked in plotted area of graphs.
Shirali’s [21] have used Unicode for Persian and Arabic
language using joining letters. Two special characters, “Fatha”
to hide “1 bit” and “non-Fatha” to hide “0 bit” data producing a
high capacity. These two characters which are used as cover
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files are 0(zero) width non joiners (ZWNJ) and "zero width
joiner" (ZWJ) letters. They have also used the Unicode
standards of two characters “Ya” and “Kaf” for hiding
information as a cover medium in [73]. The two characters are
similar in shape but have different codes depending on their
occurrence as initials or in the middle of a sentence.
III. METHODOLOGY
In this research semantic and syntactic approaches of
watermarking have been incorporated with HTML to offer web
watermarking. English language verbs, articles and
prepositions have been selected based on their high frequency
use. Natural watermark is generated based on these semantics,
added security has been provided using cryptography and
further embedded into HTML code for securing copyrights of
web content.
For Syntactic use approach has been extended further to the
Arabic language where, two common initials of English
language and one from Arabic language and an important
connecting letter. Location of embedding watermarks has also
been identified as a novel approach <meta> tag of HTML has
been utilized to embed the natural watermarks. On this basis,
web watermarking algorithm is designed and implemented.
And it is also tested with different web sites to see its
functionality, robustness and the capacity.
Fig. 1 Watermarking Rules
Semantic copyright conventions to be integrated are studied
for English grammatical rules (Verbs, Articles and
Prepositions) which are the structural part of any text. The
articles, verbs and prepositions (natural language watermarks)
used in this research come under most common and in the list
of first 100 words in English frequency order which make up
about half of all the written material [22]. Rules classification
has been presented in Fig. 1.
Where syntactic conventions are also selected based on the
high frequency of English and Arabic text. Specific rules have
been used to create watermarks which relies on the frequency
and structural aspect of a language. Two highly occurring
initials in English language frequently occurring initial letters
"Th", "Wh" make up many words in the context and are used to
generate watermarks. Arabic initial word "Al-‫ " الـ‬and a
connecting letter "wow-‫ " و‬are noted as high frequency
symbols in the literature. Initial "‫ " الـ‬occurs mostly with verbs
and nouns and "‫ "و‬provides a readability of structure by
connecting words and highly used in the context.
Protected Extract encrypted
Discussed idea has been described below and shown by Watermarked watermarks and
Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. Fig. 2 shows the steps to parse the text, web content decrypt (Reverse)
generate watermarks, encrypt and embed into a webpage. Text
is parsed and extracted based on the given rules of each
language to generate the natural watermarks and
encrypted/decrypted using the AES (Advanced Encryption Comparison check
Standard) cryptographic algorithm. Encrypted natural verify for between original and
watermark is embedded into a webpage utilizing one of the authenticity generated watermarks
tags of markup language named <meta> to secure copyrights of
an online author.

Fig. 3 Extraction and Verification Process

Generate
natural A. Semantic Watermarks
watermark Frequency of occurrence for verbs, articles and prepositions
has been shown in the tables below. Each table show the sets of
natural watermarks used in the research.
<meta> Embed
encrypted Letter/s and values
Encrypt watermarks List of Letter/s Frequency
natural </meta> Verbs Is 15%
watermarks
Are 34%

Table 1:List of verbs with frequencies

Create natural Register with

watermarks Certifying Letter/s and values
Authority List of Letter/s Frequency
Articles A 15%
An 23%

Extract Protected HTML

Table 2: List of articles and frequencies
defined page to be
features Communicated Letter/s and values
List of Letter/s Frequency
Prepositions Of 9%
To 23%
Screen and In 15%
parse web For 16%
text
Table 3: List of prepositions and frequencies

B. Syntactic Watermarks

Fig. 2 Parsing and Embedding Process Frequency of eminence of syntactic watermarks as shown
below in Table 4 for both Arabic and English.
Fig. 3 shows how to compare the original and later extorted Letter/s and values
watermarks as of the text itself. First the repeal procedure of
decryption is applied to convert watermarks into List of Letter/s Frequency
words Th English
understandable constituents and compared with the actual Wh English
watermark. Upon verification of matching originality is ‫الـ‬ Arabic
confirmed or else a breech to the copyrights is noted. ‫و‬ Arabic

Table 4: Syntactic rules

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C. Algorithm
Constituents of watermarks are described below in
equations of algorithm for English and Arabic text, process is
followed in implementing the algorithm steps in C# using
visual studio framework.
IV. CONCLUSION
Visible watermarking has been discussed for text of Arabic
and English based on the semantics and syntactic of certain
rules. Different natural language watermarks have been used
in this research. Semantic and syntactic based watermarks
have been proposed and implemented using C# language
Natural watermarks are combined with an author id to
generate a watermark, which is further encrypted using a
public key based cryptography algorithm named Advanced
Encryption Standard to protect copyrights for a web page.
Encrypted natural watermarks are rooted in the cover web
page for the protection of authorship rights.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research is supported by Deanship of Research and
Graduate Studies (DGSR), Effat University, Jeddah Saudi
Arabia.
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