Topic 57

Data redundancy and data integrity by Chaan

In this modern world that we live in, data and or information have quickly become the most important things in shaping and directing the world. Problems such as Data Redundancy and Integrity are putting that very important process of storing data and information in danger.
Data Redundancy refers to the unnecessary duplication of data, which means data is in one place but is at the same time located in another place.

This duplication of data wastes space, and provides people and databases with organization problems. Another negative to data redundancy is that if one wishes to make changes to the redundant data, he or she must make changes to multiple fields, in other words, all of the duplicated data. Can you imagine how much time would be taken away by this process if data redundancy was to occur to businesses such as banks, airports, etc?

If data redundancy was to go unchecked in the data storage of say a bank, it would completely slow down the transaction of data to that bank. It would unnecessarily cost the bank extra money to manage its data bases because of the duplication that has occurred! If that data redundancy went on unchecked, it would eventually cause an over flood of the banks data base, and maybe even cause it to crash. The problem of data redundancy affects every part of society, from businesses to home management of data. The only effective solution to this problem would have to be taken on a personal level, where businesses and or individuals would take extra precautions such as regular check of their data and elimination of inconsistent data dependencies.

Data Integrity in itself, means preserving the authenticity of data. In this paper however, data integrity will be referred to as the illegal manipulation and alteration of data. Most this problem occurs and affects businesses the most; such banks and other large co-operations that frequently use ID to conduct business. In banks, where most of the violation of Data Integrity occurs, attackers will either manipulate numbers on transactions or assume the identity of somebody else. Even if security is tightened, in order to minimize the possibilities of data integrity, it will always occur.

Another solution that might help would be to stiffen the punishment given to persons found of data integrity! A fear of harsher punishments might deter potential attackers from attempting data integrity.