A checksum is a small-sized datum derived from a block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. It is usually applied to an installation file after it is received from the download server. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data integrity but are not relied upon to verify data authenticity.
In information theory and coding theory with applications in computer science and telecommunication, error detection and correction or error control are techniques that enable reliable delivery of digital data over unreliable communication channels. Many communication channels are subject to channel noise, and thus errors may be introduced during transmission from the source to a receiver. Error detection techniques allow detecting such errors, while error correction enables reconstruction of the original data in many cases.
In telecommunication, information theory, and coding theory, forward error correction (FEC) or channel coding is a technique used for controlling errors in data transmission over unreliable or noisy communication channels.
The central idea is the sender encodes the message in a redundant way by using an error-correcting code (ECC).
In telecommunications, node-to-node data transfer is the movement of data from one node of a network to the next. In the OSI model it is handled by the lowest two layers, the data link layer and the physical layer.
A parity bit, or check bit, is a bit added to a string of binary code to ensure that the total number of 1-bits in the string is even or odd. Parity bits are used as the simplest form of error detecting code.
In IEEE 802 LAN/MAN standards, the medium access control (MAC) sublayer and the logical link control (LLC) sublayer together make up the data link layer. Within that data link layer, the LLC provides flow control and multiplexing for the logical link, while the MAC provides flow control and multiplexing for the transmission medium.
Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their respective fitness for specific applications. Codes are used for data compression, cryptography, error detection and correction, data transmission and data storage. Codes are studied by various scientific disciplines—such as information theory, electrical engineering, mathematics, linguistics, and computer science—for the purpose of designing efficient and reliable data transmission methods. This typically involves the removal of redundancy and the correction or detection of errors in the transmitted data.
A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for error detection on identification numbers, such as bank account numbers, which are used in an application where they will at least sometimes be input manually. It is analogous to a binary parity bit used to check for errors in computer-generated data. It consists of one or more digits computed by an algorithm from the other digits in the sequence input.
The Fletcher checksum is an algorithm for computing a position-dependent checksum devised by John G. Fletcher (1934–2012) at Lawrence Livermore Labs in the late 1970s. The objective of the Fletcher checksum was to provide error-detection properties approaching those of a cyclic redundancy check but with the lower computational effort associated with summation techniques.
A frame check sequence (FCS) refers to an error-detecting code added to a frame in a communications protocol. Frames are used to send payload data from a source to a destination.
Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the severity of the failure, as compared to a naively designed system in which even a small failure can cause total breakdown. Fault tolerance is particularly sought after in high-availability or life-critical systems. The ability of maintaining functionality when portions of a system break down is referred to as graceful degradation.
Hybrid automatic repeat request is a combination of high-rate forward error-correcting coding and ARQ error-control. In standard ARQ, redundant bits are added to data to be transmitted using an error-detecting (ED) code such as a cyclic redundancy check (CRC). Receivers detecting a corrupted message will request a new message from the sender. In Hybrid ARQ, the original data is encoded with a forward error correction (FEC) code, and the parity bits are either immediately sent along with the message or only transmitted upon request when a receiver detects an erroneous message. The ED code may be omitted when a code is used that can perform both forward error correction (FEC) in addition to error detection, such as a Reed–Solomon code. The FEC code is chosen to correct an expected subset of all errors that may occur, while the ARQ method is used as a fall-back to correct errors that are uncorrectable using only the redundancy sent in the initial transmission. As a result, hybrid ARQ performs better than ordinary ARQ in poor signal conditions, but in its simplest form this comes at the expense of significantly lower throughput in good signal conditions. There is typically a signal quality cross-over point below which simple hybrid ARQ is better, and above which basic ARQ is better.
Binary Synchronous Communication is an IBM character-oriented, half-duplex link protocol, announced in 1967 after the introduction of System/360. It replaced the synchronous transmit-receive (STR) protocol used with second generation computers. The intent was that common link management rules could be used with three different character encodings for messages. Six-bit Transcode looked backwards to older systems; USASCII with 128 characters and EBCDIC with 256 characters looked forward. Transcode disappeared very quickly but the EBCDIC and USASCII dialects of Bisync continued in use.
Link Access Procedure for Modems (LAPM) is part of the V.42 error correction protocol for modems.
In computing, telecommunication, information theory, and coding theory, an error correction code, sometimes error correcting code, (ECC) is used for controlling errors in data over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The central idea is the sender encodes the message with a redundant in the form of an ECC. The American mathematician Richard Hamming pioneered this field in the 1940s and invented the first error-correcting code in 1950: the Hamming (7,4) code.
The redundancy allows the receiver to detect a limited number of errors that may occur anywhere in the message, and often to correct these errors without retransmission. ECC gives the receiver the ability to correct errors without needing a reverse channel to request retransmission of data, but at the cost of a fixed, higher forward channel bandwidth. ECC is therefore applied in situations where retransmissions are costly or impossible, such as one-way communication links and when transmitting to multiple receivers in multicast. For example, in the case of a satellite orbiting around Uranus, a retransmission because of decoding errors can create a delay of 5 hours. ECC information is usually added to mass storage devices to enable recovery of corrupted data, is widely used in modems, and is used on systems where the primary memory is ECC memory.
When writing firmware for an embedded system, immunity-aware programming refers to programming techniques which improve the tolerance of transient errors in the program counter or other modules of a program that would otherwise lead to failure. Transient errors are typically caused by single event upsets, insufficient power, or by strong electromagnetic signals transmitted by some other "source" device.
Fault-tolerant computer systems are systems designed around the concepts of fault tolerance. In essence, they must be able to continue working to a level of satisfaction in the presence of errors or breakdowns.
Synchronous transmit-receive (STR) was an early IBM character-oriented communications protocol which preceded Bisync. STR was point-to-point only, and employed a four-of-eight transmission code, communicating at up to 5100 characters per second over half-duplex or full-duplex communication lines.
