It makes sense to add the watermark as a low-hanging-fruit tracking system so the leaker simply stops at blurring it and doesn't look further.
Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system
151–160 of 286 posts
Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system
#152...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…
This might be a very naive suggestion (I know nothing about the subject) but couldn't you just take two copies, XOR them and blank out the difference to defeat such signatures?
Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system
#153...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…
I will say that steganography is definitely in use already, at least on feature films. (It's particularly easy in animation, where literally anything can be changed seamlessly). A film pirated from a theater (even by a camera pointing at a screen) can easily be traced to the exact theater and showing of the movie, and IR cameras in the theater permit authorities to identify the exact individual with the camera.
In short, don't try to film a movie in a theater; they will find you.
Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I honestly think that there needs to be a compromise between the weekly releases common in TV and the season dumps common by streaming services like Netflix. Dumping the whole season at once doesn't allow any communal discussion or suspense, dragging it out over 2 months is meant more to drive revenue for the distributors than the enjoyment of the viewing public. I think releasing 3 episodes a week is probably the op…
A compromise already exists. It's really very simple - you and friends agree on a pace to watch a show at. This is flexible, and can fit any schedule! You and friends can watch in whatever pattern you want, and it requires exactly nothing of Netflix! You can deploy this method today ! This would unquestionably satisfy your needs. Why would you need anything other than a dump from Netflix?
It doesn't satisfy the needs of the larger community. Yes, if you watch in person with a group of a few friends and that's all you care about, this works fine. It can't realistically be implemented on the scale of something like a subreddit or a whole office.
There is a massive difference in both quality and activity between /r/HouseOfCards and /r/GameOfThrones. The "season dump" just doesn't work on a scale that exceeds one living room.
Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unsure how the credits work for Game of Thrones, but if it's like most shows where it's just the rolling black screen at the end of the show then most torrents cut that part off entirely by default.
Still waiting for some clever chap to cut the opening out as well. The dream would be to have one version of the opening and a mencoder script to put the pieces back together. It would shave a few dozens megabytes on each file off.
People won't do this for GoT in particular as the opening changes episode to episode and gives you a preview into the locations that that episode will deal with. A lot of people enjoy the openings and pay attention to them.
I liken it to the Simpsons or Futurama in the sense that things subtly change (e.g. locations which are destroyed in the show, are destroyed in the opening, and such).
Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still waiting for some clever chap to cut the opening out as well. The dream would be to have one version of the opening and a mencoder script to put the pieces back together. It would shave a few dozens megabytes on each file off.
This is quite widely done for anime. The opening credits are actually different episode to episode for Game of Thrones both in people and the animation.
You're right, they're not just different but relevant to the episode, they can foreshadow or highlight the importance of a particular region to the current episode, remind viewers of the geography, emphasise the different factions. Much more than a static credit - the music is also a fantastic mood setter in this case. The different places are shown with slightly different flourishes too, unless I'm mistaken, the style of the credits is really good.
I think you can tell I'm a fan!
Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course we have no idea if they used steganography or not, right? He bases the article on the idea that they have no tracking info except the watermark, but I don't see any evidence that they don't know more.
no arrests, i am certain that if one of these early release approved people was caught they would make a huge song and dance about it to deter others. at oscar time the screeners make it onto torrent sites with ease. if they were able to find the leakers using current methods we would know about it.
They have tracked down leakers before. The issue is that even if you get a clear cut high profile case (like howard stern[1]) then what? It is pretty hard to prove intentionality or where exactly in the chain the data went astray. These things just get left around. If a screener disappears during a party, who even knows who took it (A guest, a caterer, or did it just end up under a couch)?
I've heard of minor reviewers and third party firms getting cut off after a leak is traced to them, but for the most part the back office people simply don't have the power to enforce against anyone of note. Also the evidence just isn't enough for an actual law suit against someone who can hire a lawyer.
1: http://torrentfreak.com/super-8-screener-leaks-with-howard-s...
Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system
#158Anyone else here think HBO's missing out on a business opportunity? I wonder why they don't charge rabid fans (a _lot_) extra for early access to episodes. There appears to be a lot of demand for this.
Those episodes would immediately be leaked to everyone after becoming available and HBO would lose a ton of viewership on its own platform.
I don't mean they should charge $10 or $20 for early access. I think they should be charging a couple hundred dollars - think VIP bottle service prices. Human nature being what it is, I suspect that people who are willing to pay for that level of access won't want to share it with the rest of us proles.
Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system
#159Anyone else here think HBO's missing out on a business opportunity? I wonder why they don't charge rabid fans (a _lot_) extra for early access to episodes. There appears to be a lot of demand for this.
If there was an option to just pay HBO per episode and then legally torrent the episode, I'd gladly do it in a heartbeat. Heck, it could be as simple as an HBO web page where I can donate an appropriate amount, and that would in turn legalize the download. I wouldn't even want them to digitize or host the content (they'd screw it up anyway). Sadly, that's not going to happen. I think illegal filesharing threatens the…
> I think illegal filesharing threatens the industry primarily not because it's free, but because it offers a lot of features and convenience which the content providers refuse to grant their customers willingly.
It's a bit of a cycle isn't it? The reason they refuse to grant the convenience is because it enables illegal filesharing. Works the other way too.
Re: Game of Thrones leak and watermark: a stupid tracking system
#160For at least the last 20 years, there are steganographic watermark systems in which inocuous parts of the images are used to hide coded data that stands up to even most lossy recompression. Either HBO is using these and nobody knows yet; or they had an internal leak prior to their application; or they leaked it themselves. Under no plausible circumstances did they visibly watermark a corner and hope for the best.
> Either HBO is using these and nobody knows yet
I suspect this is the case. It seems like people are assuming HBO's silence means they didn't use a steganographic watermark. I disagree; I don't see any reason why they would feel the need to tell the world - especially if they plan on pursuing this legally.