State of research in the field of associative data protection

With no established analogues in the current or past global practice, associative data protection remains cautiously perceived by specialists. The time has come to provide an integrated perspective of this method and summarize its numerous and undoubted benefits over competing approaches. In order to demonstrate such benefits, this article overviews the main results of published original research on various aspects of associative data protection. Avoiding exhaustive detail, it focuses, with appropriate references to existing literature, on the principal features of associative data protection: morphology, steganographic strength, cryptographic strength, noise immunity, and volumes of transmitted and stored information. Our central finding is a promising symbiosis of steganography and cryptography. The most notable specific results include the development of a masking algorithm and strategies for associative protection of cartographic scenes and texts, the achievement of a so-called coverage completeness, the discovery of the basic theorem of unambiguous recognition, as well as the estimation of the number of keys, steganographic strength, cryptographic strength, and noise immunity of associative data protection. References are given to the database management systems (DBMSs) already employing associative data protection. The review highlights considerable opportunities for further elaboration of the theory and practice of associative data protection.