Method and system for providing a way to verify the integrity of a document

• US 10,146,825 B2
• Filed: 08/07/2014
• Issued: 12/04/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/08/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Enigio AB (Stockhorn Capital AB)
• Original Assignee: Enigio Time AB
• Inventors: Almgren, Hans
• Primary Examiner(s): Zand, Kambiz
• Assistant Examiner(s): LE, THANH H
• Application Number:
  US14/909,934
• Publication Number:
  US 20160182237A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,580 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2365 Ensuring data consistency and integrity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2379 Updates performed during online database operations; commit processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/64 Protecting data integrity, e.g. using checksums, certificates or signatures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/321 involving a third party or a trusted authority
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 involving digital signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3297 involving time stamps, e.g. generation of time stamps

Abstract

Method for providing a way to verify the integrity of a document. The invention is characterized in that the method comprises the following steps: a) publishing the document with a visibly embedded piece of information; b) providing a communication channel over which a third party can send a depiction of the published document to the central server; c) accepting said depiction of the published document in the central server, and finding, in the central server and based upon the piece of information, the document; and d) if the document was found in the central server, communicating to the third party that document itself and/or information pertinent to that document. The invention further relate to a system for performing such a method.

Claims

1. Method for providing a way for a user to verify integrity of a document, wherein the method comprises the following steps, in order:

a) creating a digital signature of the document, associating the digital signature with the document and storing both the document and the digital signature in a central server;

b) publishing the document with a visibly embedded piece of information, the visibly embedded piece of information configured so that the digital signature is deducible from the visibly embedded piece of information;

c) receiving, from a device of the user, a visual depiction of the published document at the central server;

d) deducing, in the central server, a value from the visibly embedded piece of information visible in the received visual depiction, and finding the corresponding document stored in the central server based upon the visibly embedded piece of information; and

e) upon finding the document in the central server, communicating to the device of the user information configured for the user to verify the integrity of the document, the communicated information being the found document itself and/or information pertinent to the found document.

2. Method according to claim 1, wherein the digital signature is created so that it is constituted by, comprises or is calculated based upon an output value of a predetermined one-way signature function, and wherein input values to the one-way signature function are at least a part of a digitally stored version of the document and a current value of a created time-stamping signal.

3. Method according to claim 1, wherein a current value of a created time-stamping signal is embedded into the document.

4. Method according to claim 3, wherein the time-stamping signal is created by the following steps:

4a) selecting a digitally stored reference document, which reference document is a digital description or sample of a current state of a certain physical reference source and/or information reference source at a certain first point in time, where a truthfulness of each reference document is verifiable verified by consulting one or several publically available information sources concerning a historic state of said reference source;

4b) using the reference document as one of at least one input value to a signal one-way function, and calculating a corresponding output value of the signal one-way function;

4c) updating the time-stamping signal based upon the output value, so that the output value is constituted by or is determined based upon the value of the signal; and

4d) repeating from 4a) using another digitally stored reference document which is a digital description or sample of a current physical state and/or information state of the same or another reference source at a subsequent point in time.

5. Method according to claim 1, wherein the digital signature, or a value which has been calculated based upon the digital signature, is publically published over at least one publication channel, which channel provides the possibility for third parties to, at a later point in time, verify a publication time of the signature.

6. Method according to claim 5, wherein the graphical element is a string of alphanumeric characters or a QR code or a barcode.

7. Method according to claim 1, wherein the visibly embedded piece of information is embedded into the document by introducing a graphical element into a visual representation of the document, which graphical element carries said piece of information.

8. Method according to claim 1, wherein the document is a frame in a video footage, and the piece of information is embedded into the video footage by individual frames of the video being caused to contain a respective piece of information.

9. Method according to claim 8, wherein the video footage is captured by a video conference system or a video surveillance system.

10. Method according to claim 1, wherein the document is a web page.

11. Method according to claim 10, wherein the visibly embedded piece of information is constituted by a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), IP (Internet Protocol) address, in the form of a string of alphanumerical characters representing an address of the web page displayed, and wherein the visibly embedded piece of information constitutes or is associated with the digital signature.

12. Method according to claim 1, wherein a statistical comparison is made between the document and the visual depiction, and wherein the information pertinent to the found document depends on a degree of conformance between the document and the visual depiction.

13. Method according to claim 12, wherein the statistical comparison comprises converting the document to an image, if the document is not already an image, and converting the visual depiction to an image, if the visual depiction is not already an image, and an image comparison step between the resulting images.

14. Method according to claim 12, wherein the comparison step comprises analyzing textual information in the document, either by the document being stored in a format comprising textual information or by performing OCR (Optical Character Recognition) of the document contents, and analyzing textual information in the visual depiction, either by the visual depiction being stored in a format comprising textual information or by performing OCR of the visual depiction contents, and a comparison between the resulting textual contents.

15. Method according to claim 12, wherein both the document and the visual depiction are stored in a format comprising digitally defined subparts, and wherein the comparison step comprises comparing the contents of corresponding subparts of the document and the visual depiction, respectively.

16. A system arranged to provide data to a user for the user to verify integrity of a document, the system comprising a computing device configured to:

a) create a digital signature of the document, associate the digital signature with the document and store both the document and the digital signature in the computing device;

b) publish the document with a visibly embedded piece of information, the visibly embedded piece of information configured so that the digital signature is deducible from the visibly embedded piece of information;

c) receive, from a device of the user, a visual depiction of the published document at the computing device;

d) deduce, in the computing device, a value from the visibly embedded piece of information visible in the received visual depiction, and finding the corresponding document stored in the computing device based upon the visibly embedded piece of information; and

e) upon finding the document in the computing device, communicate to the device of the user information configured for the user to verify the integrity of the document, the communicated information being the found document itself and/or information pertinent to the found document.