A method comprising receiving a plurality of signatures representing one or more proprietary files from a vendor generated without disclosure of the proprietary files, each signature corresponding to a segment of a proprietary file. The method further comprising and validating each of the plurality of the signatures, to ensure that the signatures are the proprietary code of the vendor. The method further comprises adding the plurality of the signatures to a global database, the global database used to compare the proprietary data of the vendor to other technology data and taking various action based on the results of the comparison.