Secure video delivery

1. A method comprising:

in a network comprising at least a server and a manifest format player, providing a cryptographically signed manifest Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) manifest format player to play, the signed URL including at least a validity time span and an identification of a video;

in the manifest format player, loading the manifest URL, the manifest URL pointing to an instantiation of a proxy;

in the proxy, receiving the manifest URL and verifying the validity of the signed URL;

in the proxy, retrieving the manifest indicated by the manifest URL, the manifest comprising entries;

in the proxy, substituting each relevant entry in the manifest URL contents with signed URLs either to an underlying video segment or back to an instantiation of the proxy if the entry were another manifest;

in the HTTP manifest player, processing the manifest altered with signed URLs as a standard manifest, playing the content.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the signed URL uses a Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA).

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the signed URL uses a Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) algorithm.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the signed URL uses a hash message authentication code (HMAC).

5. The method of claim 1 wherein a manifest format is HTTP Live Streaming (HLS).

6. The method of claim 1 wherein manifest altered with signed URLs comprises different time validities from the URL used to access the manifest from the proxy.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the HTTP manifest format player is instructed to switch to a new signed URL at certain times.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the initial cryptographically signed URL is securely tied to a secret cookie.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the initially cryptographically signed URL includes a unique identifier and the proxy uses the unique identifier to implant a cryptographically derived cookie once.