Document Fixity Verification via Segmented Sampling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Proving the fixity of a large catalog of confidential documents is costly, time-consuming, and poses security risks due to the need for auditors to access sensitive information.
Innovation Solution
The method involves splitting documents into segments, calculating fixity using cryptographic hash functions, and allowing auditors to randomly select and verify a small subset of segments to ensure document integrity and accessibility without full access to sensitive information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If auditors are granted full access to the catalog of confidential documents for inspection, then the integrity and accessibility of documents can be verified, but security risks and costs increase due to exposure of sensitive information
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides each document into multiple segments and computes fixity values for individual segments rather than requiring access to complete documents. This segmentation allows auditors to verify document integrity through cryptographic hash functions applied to segments, reducing the amount of confidential information exposed while maintaining verification reliability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces fixity values (cryptographic hash values) as an intermediary that represents document content without revealing the actual content. Auditors verify integrity by comparing fixity values of segments rather than examining the confidential document content directly, thus maintaining security while ensuring reliability
2Reliability
If auditors inspect a large number of documents to prove fixity, then comprehensive verification is achieved, but the process becomes costly and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies sampling methodology where auditors inspect a representative subset of document segments rather than examining every document in the catalog. By selecting random segments and verifying their fixity values, the system achieves sufficient verification confidence with significantly reduced time and cost compared to comprehensive inspection
Solution Approach 2:
By dividing documents into segments and computing fixity values for segments rather than complete documents, the patent enables efficient sampling. Auditors can verify a manageable number of segments to gain confidence in the overall catalog integrity, reducing the computational and temporal resources required for verification
Data Source
AI summary
Proving a fixity of a catalog of documents to an auditor, including: splitting each document of the catalog of documents into a plurality of segments; calculating a fixity of each document by calculating a fixity of each segment and combining fixities of all segments, wherein the fixity of each segment is calculated by applying a fixity function on each segment; building and sending a manifest of fixities of the catalog of documents and the fixity function; randomly selecting a sample segment for each document; generating a challenge including sample fixities for a sample number of documents selected from the catalog of documents and sending the challenge to the prover; generating a response including sample segments retrieved from the sample number of documents; and verifying, for each sample segment in the response, that the fixity of each sample segment corresponds to the fixity in the manifest.