Hide&Seek: Removing image watermarks at near-zero cost via per-pixel reconstruction

The researchers propose an image watermark removal attack named HIDE&SEEK (HS), claiming that it can reliably remove embedded watermarks while maintaining relatively high visual fidelity, at very low cost. This work targets current advanced proactive image watermarking protections, aiming to reveal the robustness limits of such protections. The authors describe HS as a set of general and low-cost attack methods for testing the practical effectiveness boundary of machine-generated image watermarking protections.