<storage, communications> A computed value which depends on
the contents of a block of data and which is transmitted or
stored along with the data in order to detect corruption of
the data. The receiving system recomputes the checksum based
upon the received data and compares this value with the one
sent with the data. If the two values are the same, the
receiver has some confidence that the data was received
correctly.
The checksum may be 8 bits (modulo 256 sum), 16, 32, or some
other size. It is computed by summing the bytes or words of
the data block ignoring overflow. The checksum may be
negated so that the total of the data words plus the checksum
is zero.
Internet packets use a 32-bit checksum.
See also digital signature, cyclic redundancy check.
(1996-03-01)
Nearby terms:
checkdigit « Checkout Test language « checkpoint « checksum » chemist » Chen » CHEOPS
