What solutions exist to store data in text files and future-proof against tampering? A recent question in Information and Security Stack Exchange, 


  How to know whether a textfile has been edited or tampered with


raises a very good point: if one wants to archive experimental data in an open, text-based format, in the long term, it is desirable to have tools to prevent the tampering of the files, or at least detect the tampering if and when it happens.

The answers at infosec are good, but they feel somewhat abstract and hard to implement for a busy PI whose hands are already full trying to run a research lab. It may be, on the other hand, that solutions already exist that fulfil at least some of the requirements, or that they will appear not too long in the future; it's certainly reasonable to suspect that some form of tamper-resistant data or lab-book signature scheme is already in use at least in commercial research organizations.

This question is relatively hard to pose correctly, as there is an inherent vagueness in the requirements, and it is probably better to keep it general. The main problem is, given a set of text-based data files, how to signatures, or similar devices, that can be used in the future to provide guarantees that the data has not been tampered with. Are there any specific solutions that will do this in an accessible way?
In addition to good recommendations on the InfoSec SE site, some of which are not that difficult to implement (for example, digital signing), I would suggest another rather straightforward solution (unless your data is extremely large or extremely sensitive): simply use one of Git repositories, such as GitHub or GitLab, or research data repositories, such as Zenodo or figshare.

Git and Git-based services now support large files, plus you will have an added benefit of versioning for data files that you can match with your research workflows to enable reproducibility.

Check my related answer on some arguments for potential preference for Zenodo vs. figshare.