Patent ID: 7724782

Claim:
A computer-readable storage media tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by a computer to perform a method for applying an interval centroid based watermark to a packet flow intended to travel through a physical network, the packet flow containing a temporally separated sequence of packets, the packet flow having a duration T f and a starting point, the watermark having length l bits and a redundancy value r, each of the l bits representative of a value, the method comprising: A) defining a quantity of 2n intervals, n being the product of length l and redundancy value r, the intervals dividing a duration T d , duration T d being less than or equal to duration T f , the 2n intervals beginning after an offset from the starting point; B) selecting n intervals as group A intervals; C) selecting n intervals as group B intervals, each of the group B intervals distinct from the group A intervals; D) generating n interval pairs by grouping n unique group A intervals with n unique group B intervals; E) assigning r quantity of the n interval pairs to each of the l bits; F) increasing the relative packet time between each of the temporally separated sequence of packets in the group A intervals of the n interval pairs assigned to each of the l bits that are to represent a first bit value and the beginning of the same group A intervals; and G) increasing the relative packet time between each of the temporally separated sequence of packets in the group B intervals of the n interval pairs assigned to each of the l bits that are to represent a second bit value and the beginning of the same group B intervals.