Judiciary-friendly software piracy forensics with POSAR Thesis submitted to the Bharathiar University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science Submitted by P. Vinod Bhattathiripad Under the guidance of Lt. Dr. S. SANTHOSH BABOO Department of Computer Science BHARATHIAR UNIVERSITY COIMBATORE 641 046 Tamilnadu, India January, 2012
Declaration I, P. Vinod Bhattathiripad, Reg. No. R-Ph D-E-2008-0599, hereby declare that the thesis, entitled POSAR: A Judiciaryfriendly cyber forensic tool for investigating Software Piracy and Copyright Infringement, submitted to the Bharathiar University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science is a record of original and independent research work done by me during 2009-2012 under the supervision and guidance of Lt. Dr S. Santhosh Baboo, Assistant Professor, Post Graduate and Research Department of Computer Science, D. G. Vaishnav College, Chennai -600 105, India, and this thesis has not formed the basis for the award of any Degree / Diploma / Associateship / Fellowship or other similar title to any candidate in any University. Signature of the Candidate
Certificate This is to certify that the thesis entitled POSAR: A Judiciaryfriendly cyber forensic tool for investigating Software Piracy and Copyright Infringement, submitted to the Bharathiar University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science is a record of original research work done by P. Vinod Bhattathiripad, Reg. No. R-Ph D-E-2008-0599, during the period 2009 2012 of his study in the Department of Computer Science at Bharathiar University, under my supervision and guidance and this thesis has not formed the basis for the award of any Degree / Diploma / Associate ship / Fellowship or other similar title to any candidate of any University. Signature of the Guide Countersigned (Director, Research and Development Centre)
Dedication This thesis is dedicated to Dr. Pichirikkat Bhaskaran Nayar Former Professor (Linguistics) University of Lincoln UK
Acknowledgement I would like to express my special gratitude to my supervisor Lt. Dr. S. Santhosh Baboo, Assistant Professor, Post Graduate and Research Department of Computer Science, D. G. Vaishnav College, Chennai, for his systematic guidance throughout the research work. Without his constant support and encouragement, this work would neither have been possible nor completed. I also wish to thank Dr. P. K. Manoharan, Director-in-charge, Research and Development Centre, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, for the sustained support during the course of study. My heart-felt thanks to the Doctoral Committee members, Dr. T. Devi, Reader and Head-in-charge and Dr. R. Rajesh, Assistant Professor, both of Department of Computer Applications, School of Computer Science and Engineering, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, for their intelligent comments, wise suggestions and fruitful guidelines. However self-motivated the researcher be, any research undoubtedly benefits from any small encouragement from teachers and well wishers. I hereby sincerely acknowledge my gratitude to Dr. A. Krishnamoorthy, Former Professor (Mathematics), Cochin University of Science and Technology, Dr. Babu Sunder, Professor (Computer Science), King Khalid University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Dr. N. Raju, Professor (Statistics), University of Calicut, Dr. Hareesh Ramanadhan, Cochin, Kerala, and Prof. M. Sudalai Muthu, Former Professor (Mathematics), Malabar Christian College, Calicut. It was their caring encouragement that moved towards this Ph D.
I am highly indebted to Honourable Justice R. Basanth, Kerala High Court, India, Mr. George Chandy, Former intelligence officer, Houston, USA, Mr. D. K. M. Kartha, Library Science Expert, USA, Dr. P. N. Sindhuja, IBS, Hyderabad, India, Prof. T. P. Mahadevan, Department of English, Howard University, USA, Mr. M. K. B. Namboothiripad, Former District Judge, Kerala, India, and Dr. T. P. Sasikumar, Former Deputy Director, Directorate General of Security, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, New Delhi, India for all their assistance, particularly in connection with my data collection as part of this research. I have absolutely no words to express my gratitude to my wife, P. M. Sudha (Senior Sub Divisional Engineer, BSNL) and daughter, Indu Chanchal Polpaya (a chemical engineering student) for being accommodative, obliging, supportive and patient and thus helping me to successfully complete this research.