A method and apparatus for certification and safe storage of electronic documents

摘要

An electronic document provided by a user is certified using cryptographic functions to create a document fingerprint which is then cryptographically signed together with a time stamp. The document which was certified is archived for safe deposit and later retrieval. The document fingerprint and time stamp are returned to the user as part of a document certificate. The document certificate can be used to verify the authenticity of copies of the original document and to establish the prior existence of the document. The filename of each document certificate can include a portion of the document fingerprint associated with an electronic document to enable a very efficient search of a set of document certificates to identify possible matches between document certificates and the electronic document being verified.