Neural Honeytrace: Plug&Play Watermarking Framework against Model Extraction Attacks

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Xu, Yixiao, Fang, Binxing, Wang, Rui, Zhou, Yinghai, Liu, Yuan, Li, Mohan, Tian, Zhihong
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Xu, Yixiao
Fang, Binxing
Wang, Rui
Zhou, Yinghai
Liu, Yuan
Li, Mohan
Tian, Zhihong
author_facet Xu, Yixiao
Fang, Binxing
Wang, Rui
Zhou, Yinghai
Liu, Yuan
Li, Mohan
Tian, Zhihong
contents Triggerable watermarking enables model owners to assert ownership against model extraction attacks. However, most existing approaches require additional training, which limits post-deployment flexibility, and the lack of clear theoretical foundations makes them vulnerable to adaptive attacks. In this paper, we propose Neural Honeytrace, a plug-and-play watermarking framework that operates without retraining. We redefine the watermark transmission mechanism from an information perspective, designing a training-free multi-step transmission strategy that leverages the long-tailed effect of backdoor learning to achieve efficient and robust watermark embedding. Extensive experiments demonstrate that Neural Honeytrace reduces the average number of queries required for a worst-case t-test-based ownership verification to as low as $2\%$ of existing methods, while incurring zero training cost.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_09328
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Neural Honeytrace: Plug&Play Watermarking Framework against Model Extraction Attacks
Xu, Yixiao
Fang, Binxing
Wang, Rui
Zhou, Yinghai
Liu, Yuan
Li, Mohan
Tian, Zhihong
Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
Triggerable watermarking enables model owners to assert ownership against model extraction attacks. However, most existing approaches require additional training, which limits post-deployment flexibility, and the lack of clear theoretical foundations makes them vulnerable to adaptive attacks. In this paper, we propose Neural Honeytrace, a plug-and-play watermarking framework that operates without retraining. We redefine the watermark transmission mechanism from an information perspective, designing a training-free multi-step transmission strategy that leverages the long-tailed effect of backdoor learning to achieve efficient and robust watermark embedding. Extensive experiments demonstrate that Neural Honeytrace reduces the average number of queries required for a worst-case t-test-based ownership verification to as low as $2\%$ of existing methods, while incurring zero training cost.
title Neural Honeytrace: Plug&Play Watermarking Framework against Model Extraction Attacks
topic Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.09328