[kazinator]

Right, merkle tree! OK, so the embedding site only stores a single hash: the root one. This hashes the the remaining hashes. The first thing we fetch from the video is those hashes and if their hash doesn't match, we flag/ignore the video and refuse to play.

Multiple levels of the tree can be stored throughout the video file. The first level after the root can be for major sections, like 5 minute segments. The next levels are then at the start of each 5 minute segment, giving hashes for one second chunks.

If the root hash checks out, we get the 5-min hashes. If they check out, we get the hashes for the first 5-min block, and if those hashes check out, we start to play the video, validating every second of it against a one second hash from the 5 min block. Then we get the next 5-min hash block and so on.

Kind of thing.

[lelandbatey]

In actual HLS streaming videos are served in 2-10 second segments, a size small enough that you realistically can hash each segment and verify each segment. Youd have to implement it as an extension of the HLS protocol, so probably as m3u8 with additional fields, maybe as comments.