[munk-a]

When there is a binary on the internets available from various mirrors with the primary authority on it distributing a SHA of it's contents then we can use that SHA to verify the contents of the binary...

The issue here is that there is no trusted authority on the video, the people distributing the video are the content originators so we can use a signature to verify the video wasn't corrupted in transmission but not that it wasn't edited before it was signed.

(this technique would work well if the concern was that videos from some primary source were being edited by a CDN entity helping to stream that video to viewers, which is entirely separate from the article)

[sixothree]

Wouldn't the authority have to be the device manufacturers?

[munk-a]

How would they technically accomplish this? Whenever a camcorder or phone or webcam was used would the hash be transmitted to the manufacturer and registered there? Would the device sign the video signature with some secret key? (similar to that big secret number you're not allowed to show)

Assuming you got it to work sanely, how would you ensure that all manufacturers properly locked down their devices?

Assuming there's a reasonable trust framework and you're able to enforce it... How would you allow legitimate video editing without allowing people to edit video to create misleading images? How would a movie cut between characters and an exploding model in a legitimate and signed manner without allowing someone to splice a politician's speech in with terrorist training videos?

There is a lot wrong with this "Tech can fix it" approach.