HIERARCHICAL AUTHENTICATION SYSTEM FOR IMAGES AND VIDEO

A method and system for creating authentication signatures for digital images and video frames is provided. The method and system involves partitioning the image into multiple blocks, comparing characteristics from each block and generating data bits based on the comparison. Each block is then broken up into additional blocks and those blocks are compared to create additional signature bits which are combined with the signature sets from the first set of blocks. Each of these new smaller blocks can be further broken up and the procedure can be repeated to provide an authentication signature of desired length.