3.3.15

Did my Data Arrive Safely?

Test yourself

Did my Data Arrive Safely?

Interference across a network can cause data to become corrupted (changed) as it is transmitted to the recipient.

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Lost packets

  • Some packets might get lost within the network.
  • Each packet transfer will have a certain timeout, which is the maximum amount of time that the packet transfer is expected to take.
  • If the time taken is more than the timeout, then we send a timeout signal to the sender to ask them to re-send the packet.
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Checksums

  • A checksum is a piece of data which is generated from the payload.
  • When data is assembled into packets, we calculate the checksum and send this along with the packet.
  • When the data is received, the recipient can re-calculate the checksum from the data they receive and compare it to the checksum they received.
    • If the values are different, then some of the data was corrupted.
    • They can then request the data again.
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Confirmation message

  • If all packets have been successfully received, then a confirmation message is sent to the sender.
  • This lets them know that there were no issues in transmission that they might need to fix.

Jump to other topics

1Components of a Computer

2Software & Software Development

3Exchanging Data

4Data Types, Data Structures & Algorithms

5Legal, Moral, Cultural & Ethical Issues

6Elements of Computational Thinking

6.1Thinking Abstractly

6.2Thinking Ahead

6.3Thinking Procedurally

6.4Thinking Logically

6.5Thinking Concurrently

7Problem Solving & Programming

8Algorithms

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