Bounds and Constructions for $\overline{3}$-Separable Codes with Length $3$

Abstract: Separable codes were introduced to provide protection against illegal redistribution of copyrighted multimedia material. Let $\mathcal{C}$ be a code of length $n$ over an alphabet of $q$ letters. The descendant code ${\sf desc}(\mathcal{C}0)$ of $\mathcal{C}_0 = {{\bf c}_1, {\bf c}_2, \ldots, {\bf c}_t} \subseteq {\mathcal{C}}$ is defined to be the set of words ${\bf x} = (x_1, x_2, \ldots,x_n)^T$ such that $x_i \in {c{1,i}, c_{2,i}, \ldots, c_{t,i}}$ for all $i=1, \ldots, n$, where ${\bf c}j=(c{j,1},c_{j,2},\ldots,c_{j,n})^T$. $\mathcal{C}$ is a $\overline{t}$-separable code if for any two distinct $\mathcal{C}_1, \mathcal{C}_2 \subseteq \mathcal{C}$ with $|\mathcal{C}_1| \le t$, $|\mathcal{C}_2| \le t$, we always have ${\sf desc}(\mathcal{C}_1) \neq {\sf desc}(\mathcal{C}_2)$. Let $M(\overline{t},n,q)$ denote the maximal possible size of such a separable code. In this paper, an upper bound on $M(\overline{3},3,q)$ is derived by considering an optimization problem related to a partial Latin square, and then two constructions for $\overline{3}$-SC$(3,M,q)$s are provided by means of perfect hash families and Steiner triple systems.