Off Topic Now But Could Become On Topic: Fingerprinting The Web with Advestisearch {Fragrance News}
Because the web 2.0 is a little too much like the wild, wild west at times, we were thinking some folks should really think about creating a web police corps. That might help hold in check some of the verbal garbage, oops, abuse, oops, excesses seen on unmoderated boards and things like gratuitous death threats that you could call the police for in real life or sue people's arses for, plus content stealing......
Well we are not quite there yet, but we read an interesting article in Le Monde which mentions the utilization of a very efficient fingerprinting detective system called Advertisearch created by a French company called Advestigo which can potentially be applied to intellectual property issues. In fact, they might already be doing that, but the article focuses on criminal issues. The Advestigo website offers more details in English. The system can track down images even when they have been compressed and texts even when they have been modified. For now the web-gendarmes use it for locating threat letters, recipes for making a bomb, call to arms, weapon sales, and soon, pedophilia etc....
Read more....Les gendarmes du web se dotent de nouveaux radars
Here are the main characteristics of Advertisearch according to the brand:
An innovative technology:
- No "Watermarking"
- Can be applied immediately to existing content
- Does not alter or "pollute" existing data in any way
- Cannot be masked or removed
- Can recognise re-created content - retyping, loop recording, camcorder capture...
- No Encapsulation
- No need for specific applications or infrastructure, on server or client
- Tracks content dissemination, whether legitimate or unintended, by authorised users
- No impact on standard document life cycle
- No Electronic Signature
- Based on content, not on file
