I'm sure it's clear to you where I should direct my query. It's not clear to me. I want to verify the authenticity of a shiny new set of three Wheezy installation DVDs that I purchased from an authorized publisher. So far I'm not able to. I expected to be able to upgrade from Squeeze instantaneously. It took a couple of weeks to get the DVDs. The checksums on the media are self consistent with the media, so the media is in good condition, but still I need to confirm the validity of the checksums themselves from an independent source such as debian.org. I have a letter in transit to the publisher addressing the question that I am addressing to you now. ... BUT FIRST: http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/7.1.0/i386/iso-dvd/MD5SUMS is not plain text. Shouldn't it be? Neither are SHA1SUMS and SHA256SUMS, but SHA512SUMS is text. I'm confused. ... FURTHERMORE: Checksums for 7.0.0 (the version of my disks) are no longer available if they ever were. According to posters on http://forums.debian.net, they still appear on perhaps out-of-date mirrors in Russia and Indonesia. It seems a bit dodgy to me to try to verify checksums that are not generally available on most of the authorized mirrors. ... AND FINALLY: The visible labels on my disks are 1, 2, and 3. The machine labels are 1, 2, and 4. The Russian site at ftp.psn.ru/debian-cd/7.0.0/i386/iso-dvd offers checksum files MD5SUMS, SHA1SUMS, SHA256SUMS, and SHA512SUMS for 7.0.0 that are text along with ISO images for disks 1 through 10, which are apparently for CDs, not DVDs. Can you think of any reason why the publisher would ship DVD 4 instead of DVD 3? ... SO THERE! Can you help? Can you direct me to an up-to-date source of authorized checksums for DVD ISO images from 7.0.0? ... OR MAYBE.... I'm going about this wrongly. Evidently no one else in the wide, wide world pays much attention whatever to the checksums. Rhetorically: How, then, do they verify authenticity after spending several hours (and perhaps even several day(s)-long sessions) downloading ISO images from all directions? -- .. Be Seeing You, .. Chuck Rhode, Sheboygan, WI, USA .. Weather: http://LacusVeris.com/WX .. 59° — Wind W 5 mph
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature