Blocking and breaking through

IP blocking prevents the connection between a computer or network and certain IP addresses or ranges of addresses. IP blocking effectively bans undesired connections from those computers to a website, mail server, or other Internet servers.

IP banning is commonly used to protect against hacking or to block viewers from accessing material deemed to be illegal, troublesome or offensive. Both companies and schools offer remote user access, and people wanting to access their home computers from remote locations, use Linux programs such as BlockHosts, DenyHosts or Fail2ban for protection from unauthorized access while allowing permitted remote access.

IP blocking is also used to limit the syndicated content to a specific region. To achieve this IP-addresses are mapped to the countries to which they have been assigned.

Proxy servers can be used to bypass an IP ban unless the site being accessed has an effective anti-proxy script.

DRM

Digital rights management (DRM) is a generic term that refers to access control technologies used by publishers and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. It may also refer to restrictions associated with specific instances of digital works or devices. DRM overlaps with software copy protection to some extent, however the term "DRM" is usually applied to creative media such as music, films whereas the term "copy protection" tends to refer to copy protection mechanisms in computer software.

Digital rights management has and is being used by content provider companies such as Sony, Apple Inc, Microsoft and the BBC.

Video fingerprinting

Video fingerprinting is a technique in which sophisticated software identifies, extracts and then compresses characteristic components of a video, enabling that video to be immediately and uniquely identified by its resultant "fingerprint". Video fingerprinting is a new and emerging technology that has proven itself to be significantly more effective at identifying and comparing digital video data than either of its predecessors, hash value comparisons and digital watermarking.

Video Fingerprinting analysis may be based on any number of visual video features including, but not limited to, color and motion changes during a video sequence.

(China Daily 07/07/2008 page9)