When a noncompressed evidence file is reacquired with compression, will the acquisition and verification hash values remain the same?

When an evidence file is reacquired with compression applied, the acquisition and verification hash values will not remain the same. This is because the hashing process generates a unique hash value from the specific data that is input into it. When a file is compressed, the data is altered in a way that changes its binary representation, even if the original data can be restored from the compressed form. Consequently, a new hash is computed for the compressed version, leading to a different hash value compared to the noncompressed original.

The key point here is that hashing algorithms compute a fixed-size output (the hash) based on the input data, and any change in the input data—such as applying compression—will result in a different output hash value. Therefore, the assertion that the hash values will remain the same when changing the file format to include compression does not hold true.