collision
- With non-deterministic access methods such as the CSMA/ CD access method, all stations connected to the network have equal rights. They can claim the transmission medium for signal transmissionat any time. This results in several stations accessing the transmission medium simultaneously and feeding in their signals. This leads to collisions and mutual interference of the signals. Collisions always occur when the signals of two or more stations meet. The collisions render the transmitted data unusable. When the two signals overlap, the signal level rises to the collision level and thus above a threshold value that triggers the transmission to be aborted. There are procedures for collision detection, as well as for collision avoidance.
- In radio networks, collisions occur when two or more WLAN stations transmit simultaneously on the same radio channel. The collisions are caused by interference.
- In encryption, the term collision occurs in connection with the generation of a hash function. One speaks of collision when two different messages have the same hash value.