Jakarta, INTI - The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) is developing innovative digital watermarking technology as a key component in developing data security research.
Didi Rosiyadi, a researcher at BRIN's Research Center of Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity, emphasized the importance of watermarking in maintaining information security amid the increasing threats of data leaks and manipulation.
Digital watermarking is a technique for embedding hidden information into digital data without altering its original appearance. This technology allows data, whether text, images, or other digital media, to have a unique identity that can be used to prove authenticity and ownership.
Watermarking Appearance of Text and Image
One method used in the research is zero-width unicode watermarking, a technique for inserting invisible characters that does not affect the structure or appearance of the text.
According to Didi, digital watermarking allows for the embedding of identities into data without damaging its original structure. Thus, authenticity and ownership can still be proven.
"This technology becomes very relevant as digital data becomes increasingly easy to copy and disseminate without adequate controls," he said.
Watermarking technology is not only applied to text data, but also developed for digital images using the discrete cosine transform (DCT) method. This method allows watermarks to be inserted into images without significantly reducing visual quality.
With this approach, the watermark remains hidden but can be detected when needed, for example, during data authenticity verification or source tracing for a leak. This technology opens up opportunities for integration with other security systems, such as encryption and blockchain.
"The combination of these various technologies is expected to create a more comprehensive data protection system, from the storage and distribution to verification of digital information," said Didi.
Data Security is Important in the Digital Ecosystem
Furthermore, this research is part of BRIN's efforts to raise awareness of the importance of data security among academics and the general public. With the growing digital ecosystem, the need for technology capable of protecting data is becoming increasingly crucial and cannot be ignored.
Didi hopes that the results of the digital watermarking research can be utilized in various sectors, from education and the creative industry to digital public services.
"This technology is expected to become a cybersecurity solution that is not only developed at the research level, but also implemented in practice to protect data and digital works from various threats," he concluded.
Conclusion
BRIN is developing digital watermarking technology as a solution to improve data security and integrity amid the increasing risk of digital information leaks and manipulation. This technology allows the insertion of hidden identities into text, image, and digital media data without changing its original appearance, so that the authenticity and ownership of the data can still be verified. One of the methods developed is zero-width unicode watermarking for text and discrete cosine transform (DCT) for digital images.
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