Week 3 Reflection: What Did the Hash Actually Prove?

Use your Integrity and Troubleshooting Record.

Weekly summary

In 4–6 sentences, explain how this week's reasoning moved from:

trusted reference → SHA-256 comparison → content difference → hypothesis → controlled correction → retest

Explain why the hash mismatch was useful but insufficient by itself.

Reflection

1. What did the mismatched SHA-256 digest prove directly?
2. What did it fail to prove about cause or intent?
3. Which second evidence source most strengthened the troubleshooting hypothesis?
4. What result would have forced you to reject the configuration-path hypothesis?
5. Why is identifying the trusted-reference source as important as recording the digest?
6. What boundary from Weeks 1 or 2 still mattered during the Week 3 retest?

Final checkpoint

Complete both sentences:

The hash comparison proved __________.

I needed __________ before I could reasonably claim __________.

Unit 1 reflection

Name one habit from each week that you want to carry into the rest of CS1337:

• Week 1 — authorization/evidence:
• Week 2 — system responsibility:
• Week 3 — integrity/hypothesis testing:

The tools will change. These habits should not.