Patent ID: 7877607

Claim:
A data tampering detection system that detects alteration of data resident on a computer, the system implemented on a suitable processing platform, comprising: a data collecting application that collects the data for storage in a digitally signed data log entry; a digital signing application, comprising: a mechanism for assigning to the data for the log entry, a sequence number and an identification number of the computer, a link to a hash mechanism that generates a digest of at least the sequence number and identification number, and a digital signature mechanism that creates a digital signature and digitally signs the digest, wherein the digital signing application and the data collecting application are located on a smart card, and wherein removal or disabling of the smart card disables the data collecting application and the digital signing application; a data writing application that writes the digitally signed digest and the data to a data log as the digitally signed data log entry, wherein the digitally signed data and digest are stored on a physical media, and wherein the digitally signed data and digest are transmitted to a vendor by removal of the physical media; an encryption mechanism to encrypt the digitally signed digest and the data; and a decryption mechanism to decrypt the digitally signed digest and the data.