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Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

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Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#21

Not very clever. Get two leaked copies, and mix them up. Use the credits from copy A, or hell, even chop off 11 milliseconds from them. Then mix and match scenes... even chop off a few ms from some randomly selected scenes. I bet you wouldn't even need the two copies.

That's just a suggestion.

They could change the opening credits by 2ms. Or a specific scene.

They could even add a single extra sword 'clang' noise in part of the audio track on one single scene.

There are so many options.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#22
post #13

Not very clever. Get two leaked copies, and mix them up. Use the credits from copy A, or hell, even chop off 11 milliseconds from them. Then mix and match scenes... even chop off a few ms from some randomly selected scenes. I bet you wouldn't even need the two copies.

This assumes you know the method they are using. As the post mentioned, a few milliseconds + or - at the end of a scene would not be noticeable and the overall timestamp would still be constant if "self-compensating offsets" were used.

So how many video frames do I lop off a scene to subtract "a few milliseconds" from it?

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#23

Not very clever. Get two leaked copies, and mix them up. Use the credits from copy A, or hell, even chop off 11 milliseconds from them. Then mix and match scenes... even chop off a few ms from some randomly selected scenes. I bet you wouldn't even need the two copies.

"Get two leaked copies" Not sure I understand this.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#24

    > Apart from that I think that binge-watching the first
    > 4 episodes is a stupid idea that will make you ache
    > for a month waiting for the 5th episode ☺.
For me, I find more enjoyment in binging shows than being drip-fed, I watched all 4 in a row and don't regret not waiting (besides I've waited 12 months I can wait a few more weeks for more.)

But more importantly, my online activity means I'll probably be spoiled before the 4th episode airs, not to mention people "predicting" events (read: passing off spoilers as theory) throughout the coming weeks. I'd rather not take that risk, personally, the cost of spoilers far outweighs the costs of waiting for me.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#25
While everyone is thinking how awful this is for HBO, I wonder how much it will boost the future viewership not just of the reason but for the whole game of thrones show.

I imagine those who watched it early told all of their friends about the show, making them watch it too when it came out on TV.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#26
post #2

...or just use steganography. Steganography in videos can be made to be invisible to the naked eye, and extremely robust - even to video compression. It's also difficult to detect, and even more difficult to remove/tamper with. What the author of the article is proposing is actually a kind of steganography, albeit a rather crude one, and probably rather difficult to implement (since scene timings will be different fo…

Wouldn't a simple re-encode break any sort of stenography?

No. There are algorithms out there that can survive compression[1] by encoding statistically over an image instead of just bit manipulation.

You can also embed data in the audio channel by alternating between two imperceptible echo kernels for 1/0[2]. This is extremely compression resistant.

1: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=&arnumb...

2: http://www.slidefinder.net/a/audio_steganography_echo_data_h...

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#28
post #2

...or just use steganography. Steganography in videos can be made to be invisible to the naked eye, and extremely robust - even to video compression. It's also difficult to detect, and even more difficult to remove/tamper with. What the author of the article is proposing is actually a kind of steganography, albeit a rather crude one, and probably rather difficult to implement (since scene timings will be different fo…

Wouldn't a simple re-encode break any sort of stenography?

Surely it would be possible to create encoding resistant stenography. Will the stenography be affected, sure, but it should be possible to create error-resistant stenography up to a certain point.

Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system

#30
All these methods meddle with films editor's jobs. And, the be frank, their job is much more important than considerations for piracy: they make the movie (or tv series) actually interesting. Making them do that (or changing their tools to support meta-data to do that) would be equal to bothering creative professionals who are essential to your product's success with mere details.

And, if I remember correctly, GoT producers already said in some interview that they're not that concerned with piracy anyway.

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