RECOVERABLE DIGITAL CONTENT DEGRADATION: METHOD AND APPARATUS

In many situations, it is desirable to restrict access to digital content. This invention presents an extremely efficient and simple method and apparatus to degrade and recover digital content. The invented process is based upon searching the data for detection criteria and then adjusting neighboring point(s) to degrade the content, or re-adjusting the neighboring point(s) to recover the original content. For example, one could search for threshold crossings, and scale the following point by a number between 0 and 1 for degradation, or re-scale the following point by the inverse scaling value to recover the original data. The apparatus includes a logic processor and storage unit to implement the degradation and recovery process.