On Codes with the Identifiable Parent Property

Abstract

IfCis aq-ary code of lengthnandaandbare two codewords, thencis called a descendant ofaandbifc_i∈{a_i, b_i} fori=1, …, n. We are interested in codesCwith the property that, given any descendantc, one can always identify at least one of the “parent” codewords inC. We study bounds onF(n, q), the maximal cardinality of a codeCwith this property, which we call theidentifiable parent property. Such codes play a role in schemes that protect against piracy of software.