OPTIMIZED INTEGRITY VERIFICATION PROCEDURES

Some embodiments of the invention provide a method of verifying the integrity of digital content. At a source of the digital content, the method generates a signature for the digital content by applying a hashing function to a particular portion of the digital content, where the particular portion is less than the entire digital content. The method supplies the signature and the digital content to a device. At the device, the method applies the hashing function to the particular portion of the digital content in order to verify the supplied signature, and thereby verifies the integrity of the supplied digital content.