Notarization enables you to prove that a file is authentic and unchanged since it was backed up. We recommend that you enable notarization when backing up your legal document files or other files that require proved authenticity.
Notarization is available only for backups of Google Drive files and G Suite Shared drive files.
How to use notarization
To enable notarization of all files selected for backup, enable the Notarization switch when creating a protection plan.
When configuring recovery, the notarized files will be marked with a special icon, and you can verify the file authenticity.
How it works
During a backup, the agent calculates the hash codes of the backed-up files, builds a hash tree (based on the folder structure), saves the tree in the backup, and then sends the hash tree root to the notary service. The notary service saves the hash tree root in the Ethereum blockchain database to ensure that this value does not change.
When verifying the file authenticity, the agent calculates the hash of the file, and then compares it with the hash that is stored in the hash tree inside the backup. If these hashes do not match, the file is considered not authentic. Otherwise, the file authenticity is guaranteed by the hash tree.
To verify that the hash tree itself was not compromised, the agent sends the hash tree root to the notary service. The notary service compares it with the one stored in the blockchain database. If the hashes match, the selected file is guaranteed to be authentic. Otherwise, the software displays a message that the file is not authentic.