Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Li, Jiasen, Liu, Yanwei, Shang, Zhuoyi, Gu, Xiaoyan, Wang, Weiping
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.13569
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866918297952321536
author Li, Jiasen
Liu, Yanwei
Shang, Zhuoyi
Gu, Xiaoyan
Wang, Weiping
author_facet Li, Jiasen
Liu, Yanwei
Shang, Zhuoyi
Gu, Xiaoyan
Wang, Weiping
contents Graph-structured data is foundational to numerous web applications, and watermarking is crucial for protecting their intellectual property and ensuring data provenance. Existing watermarking methods primarily operate on graph structures or entangled graph representations, which compromise the transparency and robustness of watermarks due to the information coupling in representing graphs and uncontrollable discretization in transforming continuous numerical representations into graph structures. This motivates us to propose DRGW, the first graph watermarking framework that addresses these issues through disentangled representation learning. Specifically, we design an adversarially trained encoder that learns an invariant structural representation against diverse perturbations and derives a statistically independent watermark carrier, ensuring both robustness and transparency of watermarks. Meanwhile, we devise a graph-aware invertible neural network to provide a lossless channel for watermark embedding and extraction, guaranteeing high detectability and transparency of watermarks. Additionally, we develop a structure-aware editor that resolves the issue of latent modifications into discrete graph edits, ensuring robustness against structural perturbations. Experiments on diverse benchmark datasets demonstrate the superior effectiveness of DRGW.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_13569
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle DRGW: Learning Disentangled Representations for Robust Graph Watermarking
Li, Jiasen
Liu, Yanwei
Shang, Zhuoyi
Gu, Xiaoyan
Wang, Weiping
Machine Learning
Cryptography and Security
Graph-structured data is foundational to numerous web applications, and watermarking is crucial for protecting their intellectual property and ensuring data provenance. Existing watermarking methods primarily operate on graph structures or entangled graph representations, which compromise the transparency and robustness of watermarks due to the information coupling in representing graphs and uncontrollable discretization in transforming continuous numerical representations into graph structures. This motivates us to propose DRGW, the first graph watermarking framework that addresses these issues through disentangled representation learning. Specifically, we design an adversarially trained encoder that learns an invariant structural representation against diverse perturbations and derives a statistically independent watermark carrier, ensuring both robustness and transparency of watermarks. Meanwhile, we devise a graph-aware invertible neural network to provide a lossless channel for watermark embedding and extraction, guaranteeing high detectability and transparency of watermarks. Additionally, we develop a structure-aware editor that resolves the issue of latent modifications into discrete graph edits, ensuring robustness against structural perturbations. Experiments on diverse benchmark datasets demonstrate the superior effectiveness of DRGW.
title DRGW: Learning Disentangled Representations for Robust Graph Watermarking
topic Machine Learning
Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.13569