Review of Understanding Checksums and Cyclic Redundancy Checks—Philip Koopman (Boca Raton, FL, USA: CRC Press, 2024)

Abstract

Checksums play a vital role in detecting data corruption in digital storage and communication systems. The use of some kind of checksum is almost ubiquitous unless more complex error-correcting codes are used. Nevertheless, the details of these checksums—how and why they work, and what is to be gained by choosing one over another—are often overlooked. Philip Koopman’s book, Understanding Checksums and Cyclic Redundancy Checks, provides an approachable, practical, and thorough guide on this topic that should be on the shelf of anyone tasked with selecting or implementing these checksums, especially for high-reliability or safety-critical applications.