<![CDATA[The increasing dependence on web-centric digital document management for archiving contracts, academic credentials, and administrative records has intensified anxieties regarding data manipulation and unauthorized alterations. Traditional cryptographic verification methods, including MD5 and SHA-1, are no longer viable due to demonstrated collision vulnerabilities. Meanwhile, more robust alternatives like SHA-256 and SHA-3 frequently encounter performance bottlenecks when processing large volumes of data in real-time web architectures. To address these limitations, this research integrates BLAKE3 a cutting-edge cryptographic hash function that pairs SHA-256-level security with superior throughput via a parallelized Merkle-tree design into a web-based platform dedicated to document integrity verification. Adopting a Research and Development (R&D) methodology framework alongside the Waterfall System Development Life Cycle (SDLC), the project progressed through requirements analysis, system architecture design, deployment, and evaluation phases. The prototype was built using a PHP/Node.js web stack backed by a relational database that logs the BLAKE3 hash of each uploaded asset, recalculating and cross-checking the signatures upon every retrieval query. System performance was assessed via black-box functionality assessments, avalanche effect trials, and hash execution time benchmarks contrasting BLAKE3 against MD5, SHA-256, and SHA-3. The empirical data demonstrates that the platform achieved a 100% success rate in identifying simulated file tampering. Furthermore, BLAKE3 outpaced SHA-256 by a factor of 3.7 to 8.1 depending on file dimensions, while yielding an optimal avalanche effect of 49.9%. These outcomes suggest that BLAKE3 serves as a highly scalable and dependable substitute for safeguarding digital assets within web information systems, particularly for platforms handling high-throughput document verification.]]>
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