A Hiberden verification report answers copy by copy: what was read back, off which medium, on what date, and whether the SHA-256 fingerprint matched.
It is a self-contained, printable HTML file covering one archive. You can hand it to a client, a producer, an insurer, or an auditor without giving anyone access to your catalog.
What is in the report?
One row per copy, each carrying the destination it lives on, the kind of medium, the date of the check, and the outcome word: Matched, Failed, Missing, Unreachable, or Skipped. Alongside the rows sit the archive's identity, its whole-archive hash, and a certification block with a signature line. The honesty boundaries are printed on the page itself, so the reader is not relying on you to explain them.
What are the two ways to run it?
Re-verify then report reads every stored copy back in full, through the same choreography as a verify you click yourself, and prints the computed hash against the recorded one for the passes you just ran. Records review is instant: it transcribes the hashes and stamps already in the catalog, and both the banner and the certification text state plainly that nothing was re-verified at report time. Use the first when someone is going to rely on the answer.
What does the signature cover?
The archive's hash, not the report. Each archive's whole-archive hash is signed by an Ed25519 key generated on first use and held in your OS keyring. Changing the bytes fails the integrity check on its own, and changing the bytes and the recorded hash together would take that install's private key. The public key travels inside the signature, so anyone can check it offline with no key server and no network call.
Who signs the report itself?
You do, or whoever ran the checks. The report is not cryptographically signed, and that is deliberate. The evidentiary standard it is built for runs on a qualified person certifying that an item was authenticated by a process of digital identification. The person certifies the comparison. The hash does not certify itself. So the report carries a certification block and a blank signature line, and a human is the one who signs it.
What does it not prove?
It is not third-party attestation, not notarization, and not a trusted timestamp. Timestamps come from the local clock. The signature proves tamper-evidence and that this install signed the archive, and nothing beyond that. Meeting a valid signature from a different install is an ordinary thing rather than a failure. If you need an outside party vouching for the record, this artifact is not that, and it does not pretend to be.
How do you export one?
Open the archive and choose to export a verification report. Leave the re-verify checkbox on unless you specifically want the instant records review. A full re-verify reads every copy back, so give it the time a full verify would take.
Where to go next
- How Hiberden Verifies Every Copy covers what happens on every write.
- Running a Verification covers re-checking a copy on demand.
- Verification Failures covers what a Failed or Missing row means.
- Does Hiberden Write WORM Tape or Object Lock? covers why an unaltered copy and a readable copy are different claims.