A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is a type of function that takes a data stream of any length as input and produces a fixed-size value as output. CRCs are commonly used to detect errors in transmitted or stored data by taking advantage of their efficiency and ability to detect common error types. While useful for error detection, CRCs alone cannot verify integrity against intentional changes, as an adversary can alter the data and compensate by toggling the right CRC bits.
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A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is a type of function that takes a data stream of any length as input and produces a fixed-size value as output. CRCs are commonly used to detect errors in transmitted or stored data by taking advantage of their efficiency and ability to detect common error types. While useful for error detection, CRCs alone cannot verify integrity against intentional changes, as an adversary can alter the data and compensate by toggling the right CRC bits.
A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is a type of function that takes a data stream of any length as input and produces a fixed-size value as output. CRCs are commonly used to detect errors in transmitted or stored data by taking advantage of their efficiency and ability to detect common error types. While useful for error detection, CRCs alone cannot verify integrity against intentional changes, as an adversary can alter the data and compensate by toggling the right CRC bits.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is a type of function that takes a data stream of any length as input and produces a fixed-size value as output. CRCs are commonly used to detect errors in transmitted or stored data by taking advantage of their efficiency and ability to detect common error types. While useful for error detection, CRCs alone cannot verify integrity against intentional changes, as an adversary can alter the data and compensate by toggling the right CRC bits.
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Cyclic redundancy check
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is a type of function that takes as input a data stream of any length and produces as output a value of a certain fixed size. The term CRC is often used to denote either the function or the function's output. A CRC can be used in the same way as a checksum to detect accidental alteration of data during transmission or storage. CRCs are popular because they are simple to implement in binary hardware, are easy to analyze mathematically, and are particularly good at detecting common errors caused by noise in transmission channels.
Contents [hide]
1 Introduction 2 CRCs and data integrity 3 The mathematics of CRCs 4 Specifying a CRC 5 Commonly used and standardized CRCs 6 Designing CRC polynomials 7 See also 8 External links
[edit] Introduction A CRC is an error-detecting code whose computation resembles a long division computation in which the quotient is discarded and the remainder becomes the result, with the important distinction that the arithmetic used is the carry-less arithmetic of a finite field. The length of the remainder is always less than the length of the divisor, which therefore determines how long the result can be. The definition of a particular CRC specifies the divisor to be used, among other things. Although CRCs can be constructed using any finite field, all commonly used CRCs employ the finite field GF(2), the field of two elements, usually called 0 and 1, comfortably matching computer architecture. The rest of this article will discuss only these binary CRCs, but the principles are more general. An important reason for the popularity of CRCs for detecting the accidental alteration of data is their efficiency guarantee. Typically, an n-bit CRC, applied to a data block of
arbitrary length, will detect any single error burst not longer than n bits (in other words, any single alteration that spans no more than n bits of the data), and will detect a fraction 1-2-n of all longer error bursts. Errors in both data transmission channels and magnetic storage media tend to be bursty, making CRCs' burst-detection useful. The simplest error-detection system, the parity bit, is in fact a CRC. It uses the two-bitlong divisor 11. CRCs are not, by themselves, suitable for protecting against intentional alteration of data (for example, in authentication applications for data security), because their convenient mathematical properties make it easy to compute the CRC adjustment required to match any given change to the data.
[edit] CRCs and data integrity
While useful for error detection, CRCs cannot be safely relied upon to fully verify data integrity in the face of intelligent (rather than random) changes. Novices sometimes assume that if a message and its CRC are encrypted, then transmitted over an insecure channel, then decrypted, and the decrypted CRC matches the decrypted message, then the message cannot have been altered in transit. This assumption is false. In fact, if the message is encrypted by exclusive-ORing with a random one-time pad (the gold standard of ciphers, which guarantees secrecy even against an adversary with unlimited computing resources), an adversary who can modify the data in transit is able to toggle any chosen pattern of message bits, and to toggle exactly the right subset of CRC bits to compensate. This is because the CRC is a linear code, with the result that the set of bits that change in the CRC depends only on the set of bits that changed in the message, not on the values of those (or any other) bits. In contrast, an effective way to protect messages against intentional tampering is by the use of a message authentication code such as HMAC.
[edit] The mathematics of CRCs
The mechanics of computing an n-bit binary CRC are simple. The bits representing the input are lined up in a row, and the (n+1)-bit pattern representing the CRC's divisor (called a "polynomial" because of the tools used in the mathematical analysis of CRCs) is positioned underneath the left-hand end of the row. Here is the first calculation for computing a 3-bit CRC: 11010011101100 <--- input 1011 <--- divisor (4 bits) -------------01100011101100 <--- result
If the input bit above the leftmost divisor bit is 1, the divisor is exclusive-ORed into the input (in other words, the input bit above each 1-bit in the divisor is toggled). The divisor
is then shifted one bit to the right, and the process is repeated until the divisor reaches the right-hand end of the input row. Here is the last calculation: 00000000001110 <--- result of penultimate calculation 1011 <--- divisor -------------00000000000101 <--- remainder (3 bits)
Since the leftmost divisor bit zeroed every input bit it touched, when this process ends the only bits in the input row that can be nonzero are the n bits at the right-hand end of the row. These n bits are the remainder of the division step, and will also be the value of the CRC function (unless the CRC specification calls for some postprocessing). Mathematical analysis of this division-like process reveals how to pick a divisor that guarantees good error-detection properties. In this analysis, the digits of the bit strings are thought of as the coefficients of a polynomial in some variable x -- coefficients that are elements of the finite field GF(2) instead of more familiar numbers. This "polynomial trick" allows bit strings to be viewed as elements of a ring (mathematics). A ring is, loosely speaking, a set of elements somewhat like numbers, that can be operated on by an operation that somewhat resembles addition and another operation that somewhat resembles multiplication, these operations possessing many of the familiar arithmetic properties of commutativity, associativity, and distributivity. Many analytical tools commonly used with numbers also work on rings, and this is why the "polynomial" view helps the analysis. For a deeper look, see the mathematics of CRCs.
[edit] Specifying a CRC
The concept of the CRC as an error-detecting code gets complicated when an implementer or standards committee turns it into a practical system. Here are some of the complications:
Sometimes an implementation prefixes a fixed bit pattern to the bitstream to be checked. This is useful when clocking errors might insert 0-bits in front of a message, an alteration that would otherwise leave the CRC unchanged. Sometimes an implementation appends n 0-bits (n being the size of the CRC) to the bitstream to be checked before the polynomial division occurs. This has the convenience that the CRC of the original bitstream with the CRC appended is exactly zero, so the CRC can be checked simply by performing the polynomial division on the expanded bitstream and comparing the remainder with zero. Sometimes an implementation exclusive-ORs a fixed bit pattern into the remainder of the polynomial division.
Bit order: Some schemes view the low-order bit of each byte as "first", which then during polynomial division means "leftmost", which is contrary to our customary understanding of "low-order". This seemingly silly convention makes sense when serial-port transmissions are CRC-checked in hardware, because some widespread serial-port transmission conventions transmit bytes least-significant bit first. Byte order: With multi-byte CRCs, there can be confusion over whether the byte transmitted first (or stored in the lowest-addressed byte of memory) is the leastsignificant byte or the most-significant byte. For example, some 16-bit CRC schemes swap the bytes of the CRC. Omission of the high-order bit of the divisor polynomial: Some writers assume that, since the high-order bit is always 1, and since an n-bit CRC must be defined by an (n+1)-bit divisor, it is unnecessary to mention the divisor's high-order bit.
[edit] Commonly used and standardized CRCs
CRCs, as used in globally standardized telecommunications systems have not been fully standardized. Most CRCs in current use have some weakness with respect to strength or construction. Standardization of CRCs would allow for better designed CRCs to come into common use.
The definition of CRC-12 is disputed, as there are 3 forms of CRC-12 in common use. Both forms of CRC-8 in use have notable weaknesses mathematically. It is assumed that at least other 10 forms of CRC-16 and CRC-32 exist, but no form of CRC-16 or CRC-32 in use is mathematically optimal. CCITT CRCs differ from ITU CRCs (of the same size), as the same entity has standardized checksums more than once but in different eras. The ITU and IEEE have been historically helpful in standardizing checksums used in telecommunications equipment and protocols -- but have provided little to no support in standardization since the end of the Cold War. These hex values of "Initial value" and "Reflected value" are important for some more complicated checksums (like most forms of CRC-32 and CRC-64). CRCs less than CRC-16 do not tend to use Initial or Reflected values. Very often custom versions of checksums are created by changing these values, as it does not alter the overall mechanics (or math) of the checksum algorithm -- and may provide some nominal security features.
Name
Polynomial
Representations: Normal or Reverse (Normal of Reciprocal)
CRC-1
x + 1 (use: hardware; also known as parity bit) x4 + x + 1 (ITU G.704, p. 12) x5 + x4 + x2 + 1 (ITU G.704, p. 9) x5 + x2 + 1 (use: USB token packets) x6 + x + 1 (ITU G.704, p. 3) x7 + x3 + 1 (use: telecom systems, MMC)
0x1 or 0x1 (0x1)
CRC-4-ITU CRC-5-ITU CRC-5-USB CRC-6-ITU
0x3 or 0xC (0x9) 0x15 or 0x15 (0x0B) 0x05 or 0x14 (0x9) 0x03 or 0x30 (0x21)
x16 + x12 + x5 + 1 (XMODEM,X.25, V.41, Bluetooth, PPP, IrDA; known as 0x1021 or 0x8408 (0x0811) "CRC-CCITT") x16 + x15 + x2 + 1 (USB, many others; also known as "CRC-16")
Known to exist, but technologically defunct -- mainly replaced by cryptographic hash functions
CRC-128 (IEEE) CRC-256 (IEEE)
[edit] Designing CRC polynomials
The selection of generator polynomial is the most important part of implementing the CRC algorithm. The polynomial must be chosen to maximize the error detecting capabilities while minimizing overall collision probabilities. The most important attribute of the polynomial is its length (the number of the highest nonzero coefficient), because of its direct influence of the length of the computed checksum. The most commonly used polynomial lengths are
When creating a new CRC polynomial or improving an existing CRC the general mathematical advice is to use an irreducible polynomial that satisfies all polynomical irreducibility constraints from modular arithmetics.
Irreducibility in this case means that the polynomial cannot be divided by any polynomial except itself and 1 with zero remainder. Reducible polynomials can still be used, but their error correcting and detecting capabilities will be less effective. Some applications may choose to use reducible polynomials under certain conditions.
The properties of the generator polynomial can be derived from the algorithm definition
CRCs with more than one nonzero coefficients are able to detect all single bit errors in the input message. CRCs can be used to detect all double bit errors in the input message shorter than 2k, where k is the length of the longest irreducible part of the polynomial. If the CRC polynomial is divided by x + 1 then no polynomial with odd number of nonzero coefficients can be divided by it. Hence, it can be used to detect odd number of errors in the input message (like single bit parity function). CRC polynomials detect (single) burst errors shorter than the number of the position of the highest polynomial coefficient.
[edit] See also
SFV
General category
Error correcting code List of checksum algorithms Parity
Specific Technological References
Adler-32 Fletcher's checksum
[edit] External links
A simple explanation of CRC and its meaning for home users CRC Theory in Brief CRC Implementation in Brief Free CRC Source Code in C Free CRC Source Code in C++ Tutorial and C++ implementation of CRC Cyclic redundancy check - a simple guide to what it means for your data, CD and DVD discs. http://www.softwarepatch.com/tips/cyclic-redundancy.html The CRC Pitstop Williams, R. (1993-09) A Painless Guide to CRC Error Detection Algorithms Understanding Cyclic Redundancy Check Black, R. (1994-02) Fast CRC32 in Software Algorithm 4 is used in Linux and info-zip's zip and unzip. Kounavis, M. and Berry, F. (2005). A Systematic Approach to Building High Performance, Software-based, CRC generators Slicing-by-4 and slicing-by-8 algorithms CRC32: Generating a checksum for a file, C++ implementation by Brian Friesen Online Tool to compute common CRCs (8/16/32/64) from strings
Online CRC calculator Another online CRC calculator Online CRC Tool: Generator of synthesizable CRC functions Online Char (ASCII), HEX, Binary, Base64, etc... Encoder/Decoder with MD2, MD4, MD5, SHA1+2, CRC, etc. hashing algorithms CRC16 to CRC64 collision research Reversing CRC Theory and Practice. 'CRC-Analysis with Bitfilters'. Bad CRC Reading Tool Another Bad CRC Reading Tool, but free Javascript CRC32 implementation A CRC calculation utility and C source code generator written in Python. (MIT licence) CRC Encoding - C# Implementation by Marcel de Wijs
e Error correction
Decade of method introduction 1850s-1900s: check digit 1940s-1960s: checksum 1960s: Reed-Solomon 1970s: LDPC codes 1980s: Turbo codes 1990s: Space-time code Related topics Information theory Shannon limit
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_redundancy_check" : Checksum algorithms | Finite fields
