Where e-Dex (formerly Hash Calculator) Fits in the Forensic Tool Landscape
A specialised digital evidence management tool — not a full forensic suite, and far more than an open-source hash utility.
e-Dex is not a full forensic suite. It is a specialised
digital evidence management tool — file integrity, tamper-evident
chain of custody, self-verifying evidence packs, and a digitally-signed
Section 63 BSA 2023 / 65B IEA electronic-evidence certificate
— built to make evidence reproducible, verifiable and court-defensible, at a fraction
of the per-seat cost of a heavyweight forensic investigator suite.
| Capability | e-Dex | Full forensic investigator suites | Open-source hash utilities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Specialised integrity, CoC & reporting tool | Full forensic investigator platform | Single-purpose hash utilities |
| Hash 19 algorithms in one streaming read | ✔ Single pass | Yes (varies) | One algorithm per run |
| Tamper-evident SHA-256 chained audit log | ✔ | ✔ | ✖ |
| Chain-of-custody tracking | ✔ Per-action | ✔ | ✖ |
| Defendability Score (court-readiness) | ✔ Flagship feature | ✖ | ✖ |
| Snapshot & verify drift | ✔ | Varies | ✖ |
| Self-verifying HTML / PDF report (own SHA-256) | ✔ | ✔ | ✖ |
| Court-defensible evidence reporting | ✔ Built-in templates & self-verifying reports | Generic | ✖ |
| Signed Section 63 BSA / 65B IEA evidence certificate | ✔ Literal Part A / Part B Schedule form | Generic / none | ✖ |
| PAdES digital signature (DSC) + RFC-3161 trusted timestamp | ✔ USB token or keystore | Varies | ✖ |
| Self-verifying evidence pack (BagIt + CASE-UCO / DFXML) | ✔ Verify with no install | Proprietary formats | ✖ |
| Disk imaging, carving, mobile, cloud, registry analysis | Not a forensic suite | ✔ Their core strength | ✖ |
| 100% offline / air-gap compatible | ✔ | Mostly (typically dongle or licence server) | ✔ |
| Footprint | ~63 MB single EXE | Multi-GB suite | < 5 MB |
| Cost per user / seat | Contact us one-time, perpetual + optional AMC — typically a fraction of suite per-seat pricing |
$5,000+ per seat / year typical enterprise pricing |
Free |
| Vendor support, warranty, updates | ✔ Direct vendor channel | ✔ | ✖ |
When to choose what
✅ e-Dex
When the question is "is this file unchanged?" or "is this evidence defensible in court?" — and when you need a signed Section 63 / 65B certificate, chain of custody, and a self-verifying evidence pack to go with it. Right fit for government and public-sector teams, law-enforcement, legal and audit firms, IT auditors, SOC and incident-response teams, internal investigators. Cheap enough to deploy to every team member, not just one workstation.🛠 Full forensic investigator suites
When you are a national forensic lab, police, or commercial DFIR firm doing full forensic acquisition — disk imaging, deleted-file recovery, registry/browser/mobile artefact carving, malware reverse-engineering.📝 Open-source hash utilities
Fine for casual integrity checks. Not fit for legal evidence: no audit trail, no chain of custody, no defensible report, no vendor accountability.
One-line elevator pitch:
"Heavyweight forensic suites are forensic acquisition platforms.
e-Dex is the forensic integrity and reporting tool —
built for court-defensible evidence, at a fraction of the cost,
deployable to every team member."