xvid autograph protection

[Silv3r]

hello

anyone know how to remove xvid autograph protection id from videos ?

[jagabo]

What's "xvid autograph protection id?" I've never seen a build of the xvid codec that applies a watermark to the encoded video. Though I have to admit, I haven't installed the codec recently.

[Silv3r]

What's "xvid autograph protection id?" I've never seen a build of the xvid codec that applies a watermark to the encoded video. Though I have to admit, I haven't installed the codec recently.

https://autograph.xvid.com

[jagabo]

Thanks, I didn't know about that.

[Silv3r]

any experts here can check if the video is protected/watermarked somehow ?

[pandy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography?useskin=vector - detection can be tricky if you don't know how and where to search...

Your first shot is patents for watermark - at least you will get overall idea...

[sophisticles]

..

[Silv3r]

I guess re-encoding the video will not remove the protection right

[jagabo]

Similar to Cinavia, reencoding probably will not remove the steganograph. At least not unless you do it so badly that the video is no longer watchable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia

[Silv3r]

Similar to Cinavia, reencoding probably will not remove the steganograph. At least not unless you do it so badly that the video is no longer watchable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia

but for Cinavia there are tools to remove the protection correct ?

[jagabo]

but for Cinavia there are tools to remove the protection correct ?

At least one that is pretty transparent (it's mentioned in the link). And it's quite easy to obscure Cinavia by distorting the audio in several ways. For example, lowering the pitch by three semitones. But many of those methods leave the audio obviously damaged.

[sophisticles]

I edited my response because i realized there's something not kosher with this question.

The OP first asked in Sept 2021 and then came back nearly 2 years later to pick up the conversation.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

[mindphasar]

Some adult site portals, have this protection to prevent content sharing on the web. An xvid autograph message appears at the beginning of the hard content video. This protection has been cracked or not ?

[pandy]

Well... rotten or not but perhaps this thread can be interested to someone - IMHO best method to defeat watermarks is to have capability to detect protection if you know how to detect protection then you can find way to defeat it.

I can imagine many ways to do watermark of video that can offer very high level of "survive ability" - for example you can introduce some low level, low frequency spread spectrum coded information that can survive even high compression levels if done at for example block level - let say modulate DC component by pseudorandom coded sequence and on frame basis so it can deliver average DC unaltered - "invented" this ad hoc but seem it is already in research (use?) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9588068 . If you know how video codec works then it is quite obvious approach. And using some statistical analysis or perhaps nowadays machine learning you can probably detect such protection and perhaps also relatively easily defeat it.

[sophisticles]

Some adult site portals, have this protection to prevent content sharing on the web. An xvid autograph message appears at the beginning of the hard content video. This protection has been cracked or not ?

Adult sites are the biggest users of this type of "protection" but you can see how well that works.


On all honesty, this specific "protection: is a good percent psychological, if you read the "warning" it says that "unauthorized uploading can be traced and punishable by law worldwide". What a laughable claim!

Further, this protection is relatively toothless, it embeds the purchasers IP address, user name and some other stuff, but if you used prepaid cards, throw away accounts and a vpn, they have nothing to trace.

And even if they could, do you really think they are going to open up a can of worms by suing anyone for uploading 1 file.

[sophisticles]

Well... rotten or not but perhaps this thread can be interested to someone - IMHO best method to defeat watermarks is to have capability to detect protection if you know how to detect protection then you can find way to defeat it.

I can imagine many ways to do watermark of video that can offer very high level of "survive ability" - for example you can introduce some low level, low frequency spread spectrum coded information that can survive even high compression levels if done at for example block level - let say modulate DC component by pseudorandom coded sequence and on frame basis so it can deliver average DC unaltered - "invented" this ad hoc but seem it is already in research (use?) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9588068 . If you know how video codec works then it is quite obvious approach. And using some statistical analysis or perhaps nowadays machine learning you can probably detect such protection and perhaps also relatively easily defeat it.

This would be a great test of x264's and x265's psy optimizations.

The idea is that the algorithms are "smart" enough to prioritize areas of the frame that they eye is most likely to notice and prioritizes, so it would be interesting to see if it survives reencode.

[mindphasar]

Some adult site portals, have this protection to prevent content sharing on the web. An xvid autograph message appears at the beginning of the hard content video. This protection has been cracked or not ?

Adult sites are the biggest users of this type of "protection" but you can see how well that works.


On all honesty, this specific "protection: is a good percent psychological, if you read the "warning" it says that "unauthorized uploading can be traced and punishable by law worldwide". What a laughable claim!

Further, this protection is relatively toothless, it embeds the purchasers IP address, user name and some other stuff, but if you used prepaid cards, throw away accounts and a vpn, they have nothing to trace.

And even if they could, do you really think they are going to open up a can of worms by suing anyone for uploading 1 file.

I thought it was some kind of DRM or something to prevent piracy on porn sites. In this case it's dumb. You would just take the purchased movie and then remove the warning and then and rencode the porn movie. it is very reminiscent of the protection the CD ( Safedisc). At that time, many 90's and 2000's video games used safedisc protection to prevent CD copies but with Clone CD or Alcohol 120% everything passed. Those who were lazier could copy the files from the CD to their hard drive and then boot the game without any problems from the hard drive

[sophisticles]

The more I think about it the more I think this technology is a scam.

There are two basic ways to watermark a video, one is to open it up in a video editor and choose a section to add some identifying content to a section of the video or the entire length and the second is to create a second timeline and add a opaque image on top of the main video.

The first is easy to mask and the second does not survive reencoding, I just tried it and could not find the image I had overlay.

[pandy]

The more I think about it the more I think this technology is a scam.

There are two basic ways to watermark a video, one is to open it up in a video editor and choose a section to add some identifying content to a section of the video or the entire length and the second is to create a second timeline and add a opaque image on top of the main video.

The first is easy to mask and the second does not survive reencoding, I just tried it and could not find the image I had overlay.

Imagine - if DRM is coded as average block level and changing multiple times just a little and it is properly spread over spatial and temporal axis why any sane encoding should alter this if sane encoding goal is to encode video with decent quality...
This is problem of scale and perception sensitivity - with well balanced sequence you can store probably few bits in each frame in a very robust manner - for 1 minute of video there probably hundreds useful bits - this is exactly same idea as spread spectrum modulations where useful signal may be buried 10..100 times under noise level and still be decoded.

[4kblurayguru]

hello

anyone know how to remove xvid autograph protection id from videos ?

only reason to ask is if you plan to pirate since it doesn't interfere with play ability and doesn't require any special software.

This protection has been cracked or not ?

there's nothing to crack, it's not DRM

Further, this protection is relatively toothless, it embeds the purchasers IP address, user name and some other stuff, but if you used prepaid cards, throw away accounts and a vpn, they have nothing to trace.
.

What if they block prepaid cards and VPN?

do you really think they are going to open up a can of worms by suing anyone for uploading 1 file.

yes, what if it was a small studio affected by piracy and decide to make you the example?

I thought it was some kind of DRM or something to prevent piracy on porn sites. In this case it's dumb.

it's not DRM, it's forensic watermarking.

You would just take the purchased movie and then remove the warning and then and rencode the porn movie.

why would you go through all that trouble? the watermark doesn't affect viewing the video.

I just tried it and could not find the image I had overlay.

they don't embed images, i believe the video would require an extraction tool to bring up the embedded data.

forensic watermarking is fascinating because you can't see it therefore it's hard to remove. Those sites that use it giveaway their secret weapon by having that disclaimer.

[sophisticles]

Here's the thing, from a practical standpoint it is impossible to implement as described.

They claim that each file has a unique, unviewable, watermark that can identify the uploader, but that is not possible,

Say I am a potential client, I open an account with a throw away email address, purchase either a single movie or a membership with a pre-paid card, bitcoin or gift card, there is nothing linking me to the video, other than the IP address I use to connect.

If I use the Tor network, proxy server or VPN, then they do not have my actual IP address.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that I am stupid enough to use my real name, real credit card number and actual IP address.

It's impossible to embed that information into every file I download, because they would need to be able to embed the info nearly instantaneously before I started downloading and they would need to be able to do so for each client that logs in and downloads the same file. For a busy site, that could be thousands of clients.

As for suing, they would not do that, as I have pointed out before, in the U.S. prostitution is illegal in every state and on the federal level, there is no exception for the presence of a camera. People have been prosecuted and jailed for producing and appearing in these types of movies.

This tactic has been used successfully to defeat copyright infringement lawsuits.

I don't even think they can use the file's hash, because they would need multiple copies that they only use once, which means that ever single copy of a file has to be unique.

I think these guys are selling a bill of goods.

[Silv3r]

Some adult site portals, have this protection to prevent content sharing on the web. An xvid autograph message appears at the beginning of the hard content video. This protection has been cracked or not ?

Adult sites are the biggest users of this type of "protection" but you can see how well that works.


On all honesty, this specific "protection: is a good percent psychological, if you read the "warning" it says that "unauthorized uploading can be traced and punishable by law worldwide". What a laughable claim!

Further, this protection is relatively toothless, it embeds the purchasers IP address, user name and some other stuff, but if you used prepaid cards, throw away accounts and a vpn, they have nothing to trace.

And even if they could, do you really think they are going to open up a can of worms by suing anyone for uploading 1 file.

...

[pandy]

Here's the thing, from a practical standpoint it is impossible to implement as described.

They claim that each file has a unique, unviewable, watermark that can identify the uploader, but that is not possible,

Say I am a potential client, I open an account with a throw away email address, purchase either a single movie or a membership with a pre-paid card, bitcoin or gift card, there is nothing linking me to the video, other than the IP address I use to connect.

If I use the Tor network, proxy server or VPN, then they do not have my actual IP address.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that I am stupid enough to use my real name, real credit card number and actual IP address.

It's impossible to embed that information into every file I download, because they would need to be able to embed the info nearly instantaneously before I started downloading and they would need to be able to do so for each client that logs in and downloads the same file. For a busy site, that could be thousands of clients.

As for suing, they would not do that, as I have pointed out before, in the U.S. prostitution is illegal in every state and on the federal level, there is no exception for the presence of a camera. People have been prosecuted and jailed for producing and appearing in these types of movies.

This tactic has been used successfully to defeat copyright infringement lawsuits.

I don't even think they can use the file's hash, because they would need multiple copies that they only use once, which means that ever single copy of a file has to be unique.

I think these guys are selling a bill of goods.

I think you are confusing few things - first they can provide technology to sign with robust watermark every video from your library using unique identifier - this can be relatively straightforward if they operating at compressed level (let say directly on DCT coefficients) - how sensitive is your eye if watermark modulate DC coefficient in pre-coded, spread way and every frame change has opposite sign so average value remains unaltered...

Of course IP number give comparable amount of information as postcode - it may narrow search to particular area but can't point person and for law there must be no doubt - particular person must responsible for law violation but unique identifier may have coded information about for example your payment method and at some point this method may lead to person... In UK you are going to jail if you not release password to your computer (this is human rights violation but nobody care).

IMHO it is perfectly possible to mark in unique way every copy and link this identifier with particular transaction but still this is not enough to prove you are guilty (unless you confirm your guilt). But this is up to you and your attorney.

[sophisticles]

I think you are confusing few things - first they can provide technology to sign with robust watermark every video from your library using unique identifier - this can be relatively straightforward if they operating at compressed level (let say directly on DCT coefficients) - how sensitive is your eye if watermark modulate DC coefficient in pre-coded, spread way and every frame change has opposite sign so average value remains unaltered...

Of course IP number give comparable amount of information as postcode - it may narrow search to particular area but can't point person and for law there must be no doubt - particular person must responsible for law violation but unique identifier may have coded information about for example your payment method and at some point this method may lead to person... In UK you are going to jail if you not release password to your computer (this is human rights violation but nobody care).

IMHO it is perfectly possible to mark in unique way every copy and link this identifier with particular transaction but still this is not enough to prove you are guilty (unless you confirm your guilt). But this is up to you and your attorney.

I'm not confusing anything, I am thinking about things from a practical standpoint.

If i have 100 videos on my hard driver and decide to share them with you, I can definitely watermark them with a unique identifier that says i shared them with you so that if you share them with someone else I can catch you.

But if I have 100 videos on my hard drive and wish to share a copy with each member of this forum, and each copy shared must include a unique watermark identifier so that i can catch anyone sharing the copy i gave them without my permission, then that became a whole lot more difficult.

The reason is because now, instead of only needing 1 copy of 100 different videos, I need 100 copies for each member, so if there are 100 members that means I need 100x100 or 10000 videos that can only be shared once.

Alternatively, I need a way to store one local copy per file that i am able to uniquely watermark on the fly as it's being downloaded and i need to be able to store the info in a database that so that I can go back and compare the watermarks.

Regarding releasing passwords, in the U.S. courts have ruled that passwords are protected by the First Amendment and thus generally one can not be forced to divulge them, though there have been some cases where judges issued orders compelling release anyway and when the person refused they were locked up for contempt, only to be released later.

The reality is that you should never count on a password protected computer to protect any sensitive material.

What you want to do is use a laptop with a built in SD card reader and get a good 1tb SDXC; take a USB thumb drive and choose a good :Linux distro and create a live USB.

Use the live USB to create a LUKS encrypted partition and within that partition use gocryptfs to create an encrypted folder.

Save whatever it is you desire to protect on that SDXC, tax papers, medical records, bank info, whatever, and hide it in a place that most would never think of looking, the spine of a book, any place you want.

Because you used a live USB that is not persistent there is no record to prove you ever created the partition, there is nothing to show that the SDXC exists and thus if anyone forces you to share passwords, there is nothing to find.

[sophisticles]

Someone shared a file supposedly protected by "xvid autograph protection" with me and at first I loaded it into a few video editing apps to see if I could locate the supposed watermark, but i must admit i could not.

Then i decided to do a hex dump, to see what info i could glean and I have to say it was interesting.

The name of this protection had me believing that it was developed by the xvid people, but the hex dump has references to Main Concept, Adobe Premiere, it shows the folder name of where the original footage and target folder and it shows that the scene was filmed using a GoPro4.

It also has a bunch of other info, which leads to conclude that this "protection" is not a watermark per se, rather it is identifiers embedded in the file stream, which makes sense from a practical standpoint.

As soon as this hex dump finishes loading up, I will strip the data, rebuild the file and the so-called protection should be gone.

[pandy]

I'm not confusing anything, I am thinking about things from a practical standpoint.

If i have 100 videos on my hard driver and decide to share them with you, I can definitely watermark them with a unique identifier that says i shared them with you so that if you share them with someone else I can catch you.

But if I have 100 videos on my hard drive and wish to share a copy with each member of this forum, and each copy shared must include a unique watermark identifier so that i can catch anyone sharing the copy i gave them without my permission, then that became a whole lot more difficult.

The reason is because now, instead of only needing 1 copy of 100 different videos, I need 100 copies for each member, so if there are 100 members that means I need 100x100 or 10000 videos that can only be shared once.

Alternatively, I need a way to store one local copy per file that i am able to uniquely watermark on the fly as it's being downloaded and i need to be able to store the info in a database that so that I can go back and compare the watermarks.

Imagine unique 1024..4096 bit identifier added to each video on the fly where all important data are stored... and all this without re-encoding video - just operating at lowest video level, directly on coefficients... This don't require highly powerful HW - modern server with proper software probably can do like many video streams in parallel - perhaps there is dedicated HW based on some FPGA? This is not so expensive for serious company trying to protect illegal copies in internet...