Patent ID: 7793107

Claim:
An information processing apparatus for verifying whether alteration or editing of a digital document is conducted, where the digital document has a plurality of importance levels and where verification signature is added to the digital document for verifying the digital document, such that, the present digital document contains original content of the document, data regarding each of the previously conducted editing and all the verification signatures corresponding to previous editing, comprising: an alteration determining unit configured to, using a public key of a certificate included in a verification signature, decode the hash value included in the verification signature to compare the decoded hash value with a hash value calculated from a digital document before adding the verification signature, and to determine that alteration is conducted when the decoded and calculated hash values are different, and that alteration is not conducted when the decoded and calculated hash values are identical; an editing determining unit configured to determine whether updated contents are saved after the verification signature or not; a validity determination unit configured to determine whether the verification signature is valid or not, wherein in a case that the verification signature is an electronic signature, if a certificate contained in the electronic signature is not expired, or a time stamp signature is conducted before expiration the certificate, which is determined that the electronic signature is valid, and in a case that the verification signature is a time stamp signature, if the expiration time of the time stamp signature is not passed, which is determined that the time stamp signature is valid; and a displaying unit configured to display verification results of digital documents in response to a user instruction, wherein a verification result of a previous verification of the digital document is displayed when the digital document has a low importance level, a verification result of a latest verification that verifies a newest verification signature contained in the digital document is displayed when the digital document has a middle importance level, and a combined verification result that verifies all verification signatures contained in the digital document when the digital document has a high importance level, wherein the combined verification result indicating the alteration is generated if at least one of results of the verification indicates an alteration, and wherein the combined verification result indicating a condition except for the alteration if all results of the verifications do not indicate the alteration, and at least one of the results indicates the editing or invalidation of the certificate.