By Dr. Richard Newman
Abstract: Nearly 30 years ago, Michael Rabin published his Information Dispersal Algorithm, with applications in redundant storage and networking. Another way of formulating his invention is as a very short erasure correcting code with very large symbols. Remarkably, the IDA is very efficient, allowing recovery of loss of any r parts of a file where there are r redundant parts. The IDA is based on principles of linear algebra and Galois Fields, and is easily understood when presented with the right symbols and language.