A method of generating a self-authenticating printed document and authenticating the printed document. The back side of the printed document contains 2d barcode which encode extracted features of the document content. The features are hashed into a hash code, converted to a barcode stamp element, and transformed into a hierarchical barcode stamp by repeating the stamp element. The hierarchical barcode stamp is printed as a gray background pattern on the front side of the same sheet of printed document. To authenticate the printed document, the barcodes on the back side are read to extract the document features. The features are hashed into a hash code and compared to the hash code extracted from the hierarchical barcode stamp on the front side of the document to detect any alterations of the back side barcodes. Further, the document features extracted from the front and back sides of the document are compared.