Patent ID: 9703869
Date: 2017-07-11
CPC Classifications: G06F,H04L,H04N

Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method, implemented by hardware in combination with software, the method comprising: determining a plurality of synch points in a data stream, the data stream consisting of an arbitrary sequence of bits, and each synch point consisting of a sequence of bits in the data item; for each of the plurality of synch points, determining a corresponding block of bits in the data stream, wherein a plurality of the blocks of bits consists of fewer than all of the bits between two adjacent synch points in the data stream; for each block of bits, determining a corresponding block signature by applying a hash function or message digest function to the block of bits; and forming a data stream signature by associating each of the plurality of synch points with the corresponding block signature of the corresponding block of bits, wherein said associating forms an ordered sequence of corresponding synch point and block signature pairs, wherein said data stream signature is based on fewer than all of the bits in the data stream.