Eli5 how does a file get corrupted? What is it that happens?
In: Technology
Any file is long sequence of spot on the your hard drive that are magnetized (to represent one) or not magnetized (represents zero)
Sometimes magnetizing process goes wrong, or there is magnetic field from outside that puts the wrong number in there.
if the file was a text, it will create a typo-like mistake, or a weird character. A human who knows how to read can work around the typo, figuring out the meaning from the context. A computer cannot do that (computers work very differently from human brains).
In addition, many files contain “checksums”, i.e. way to verify if the file was corrupted or changed by a hacker. If this check fails, file is declared corrupted.
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