A hybrid approach for authenticating MPEG-2 streaming data

There are two main approaches for authenticating digital streams, namely the tree chaining [1] and the hash chaining [2,3]. Both approaches have their disadvantages. Hash chaining is superior for low communication overhead, however, it is not resilient to packet loss and it has a longer verification delay. On the other hand, tree chaining is more robust even if packet loss occurs and with shorter verification delay, but the communication overhead is too high to be tolerable, especially in online applications. In this paper, we try to combine the two techniques and propose a hybrid scheme for authenticating MPEG-2 streaming data, which are still used by real application systems, by taking advantage of the characteristics of MPEG frames. The hybrid approach is shown to be more effective as compared to the other two approaches.