A cyclic reundancy check (CRC) is a type of function that takes an input of 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 as a checksum to detect 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. The CRC was invented by W. Wesley Peterson, and published in his 1961 paper.