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CRC-32-POSIX

CRC-32/POSIX (also known as CKSUM) - base algorithm without length appending Uses 32-bit polynomial with normal input processing.

Properties

Property	Value
Category	Checksums
Sub-category	Cyclic Redundancy Check
Security status	🎓 Educational Only
Complexity	Intermediate
Inventor	W. Wesley Peterson
Year	1961
Origin	🇺🇸 United States
Source	algorithms/checksum/crc.js

Security

Status: 🎓 Educational Only

Known vulnerabilities

Issue	Description	Mitigation
Not Cryptographically Secure	CRC is designed for error detection, not security. It can be easily manipulated by attackers who know the algorithm.	Use cryptographic hash functions (SHA-256, SHA-3) for security purposes. Use CRC only for error detection.
Hash Collisions	CRC-32 has limited output space, making collisions relatively easy to find intentionally.	For security applications, use cryptographic hash functions with larger output sizes.

Documentation

• CRC Theory
• CRC Catalogue
• CRC Applications

References

• Peterson and Brown Paper
• CRC Parameter Database

Test vectors

2 vectors ship with this algorithm and run in the test suite. Byte values are hexadecimal.

Vector 1 — Empty string

Field	Value
input	(empty)
expected	ffffffff

Vector 2 — Check value ‘123456789’

Field	Value
input	313233343536373839
expected	765e7680

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