MarkAny Inc. () is an

information security Information security is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data ...

company headquartered in

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

. MarkAny holds technologies including

DRM DRM may refer to: Government, military and politics * Defense reform movement, U.S. campaign inspired by Col. John Boyd * Democratic Republic of Madagascar, a former socialist state (1975–1992) on Madagascar * Direction du renseignement militair ...

, anti-forgery of

electronic document An electronic document is a document that can be sent in non-physical means, such as telex, email, and the internet. Originally, any computer data were considered as something internal—the final data output was always on paper. However, the ...

, digital signature, and

digital watermarking A digital watermark is a kind of marker covertly embedded in a noise-tolerant signal such as audio, video or image data.H.T. Sencar, M. Ramkumar and A.N. Akansu: ''Data Hiding Fundamentals and Applications: Content Security in Digital Multimedia'' ...

. Based on the technologies, MarkAny offers information security products for data protection, document encryption, electronic certification, and copyright protection.

History

MarkAny has founded in February 1999 by Professor Choi Jong-uk and his graduate students at

Sangmyung University Sangmyung University () is a private university in South Korea with the main campus in Jongno District, Jongno, Seoul, and an auxiliary campus in Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do. It was established in 1937, with the Sangmyung Women's College being fo ...

. In 2002, MarkAny provided anti-forgery and physical copy protection solution for electronic certificate issuing system of

Gangnam-gu Gangnam District (; ) is one of the 25 districts of Seoul, South Korea. The term ''Gangnam'' translates to "South of the Han River". Gangnam District is the third largest district in Seoul, with an area of . As of the 2024 census, Gangna ...

Office, and in 2003, for

National Tax Service of South Korea The National Tax Service () is the tax organization in South Korea and is run under the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The headquarters are in Sejong City Sejong or Sejong City (; ), officially Sejong Special Self-Governing City (), is a ...

and Supreme Court of South Korea. Later MarkAny supplied its anti-forgery solution for more than 200 companies and government agencies worldwide. MarkAny started business on information security of digital

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...

footage data in 2013 by providing video data management system for CCTV control center of

Tongyeong Tongyeong (; ) is a coastal Administrative divisions of South Korea, city in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. It has an area of and in 2010, a population of 139,869 people. It is divided into 1 eup (town), 6 myeon (township) and 11 dong (n ...

City Government. In 2014, MarkAny provided its audio watermarking solution to

Seoul Broadcasting System Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS; ) is one of the leading Television in South Korea, South Korean television and radio broadcasters. The broadcaster legally became known as SBS in March 2000, changing its corporate name from Seoul Broadcasting ...

, a South Korean television station. From 2017, MarkAny has been a member of Ultra HD Forum and enrolled as a supporter of the creation of forensic watermarking guideline with other watermarking vendor companies. In 2017

NAB Show NAB Show is an annual trade show produced by the National Association of Broadcasters. It takes place in April, and has been held since 1991 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The show's tagline is "Where Content Comes to L ...

, MarkAny have practiced real-time embedding of forensic watermark over

UHD UHD may refer to: Technology * Ultra-high-definition television * Ultra HD, any of several high-definition graphics display resolutions * USRP hardware driver, used with Universal Software Radio Peripherals * Ultra HD Blu-ray, an enhanced varian ...

video stream. In late 2017, MarkAny announced its first

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles, suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...

-based DRM solution. Products provided by the company include

for documents and multimedia content,

mobile device management Mobile device management (MDM) is the administration of mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers, and laptops. MDM is usually implemented with the use of a third-party product that has management features for particular vendors of ...

, and

for copyrighted multimedia.

Controversy

MarkAny's digital watermarking technology has been controversial and issues have been raised due to its intrusive ability to monitor and modify media files, unbeknownst to the end user, by enveloping itself as part of a software's bundle. This "watermarking" feature stores a personally identifiable tracking ID, within obscure extension subtags permitted in these formats with features having discovered to "home-call" back to servers in the background. Active attempts to conceal their DRM from normal OS I/O operations, while appearing free of any alteration without the notifying the user or seeking user permission, has led to advisories on its rootkit and malware characteristics.

Affiliations

As of January 2018, MarkAny is a member company of

Digital Watermarking Alliance The Digital Watermarking Alliance is a group of like-minded companies that share a common interest in furthering the adoption of digital watermarking. The mission of the Digital Watermarking Alliance is: * "''to create awareness and promote the v ...

and a contributor member of Ultra HD Forum.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.markany.com/eng/ Information technology companies of South Korea Technology companies established in 1999 South Korean companies established in 1999 Companies based in Seoul Security companies of South Korea South Korean brands