Patent ID: 8799334

Claim:
A method comprising: providing a file to a file system for encoding by the file system; receiving from the file system a corresponding encoded file; and verifying that the file system stores at least a designated portion of an encapsulation of the encoded file; wherein the verifying step further comprises: generating the encapsulation of the encoded file; generating a plurality of challenges based on respective randomly-selected blocks of the encapsulation; sending the plurality of challenges to the file system; processing responses to the plurality of challenges from the file system to verify that the file system stores at least the designated portion of the encapsulation of the encoded file; and determining that the file system stores at least the designated portion of the encapsulation of the encoded file if and only if valid responses to the plurality of challenges are received from the file system within a designated period of time from the sending of the plurality of challenges; and wherein the providing, receiving and verifying steps are performed by a processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory.