Securing Data Transfers: An Integrity Algorithm for Error Recovery Triangulation

Transferring data is one of the key operations performed by millions of users every day. Users do this by issuing direct commands, such as file transfer commands, or indirectly as a feature invoked by numerous end-user applications. The most important security characteristic of a successful data exchange is the integrity of that data. The receiver user desires to acquire data that has not been modified through malicious acts, or simple human or machine error. Applications that rely on the Transfer Control Protocol (TCP) as the main mechanism to provide end-to-end reliability, including error and sequence control, do not check the integrity of the file being transmitted prior to the transfer.