Glossary
This glossary includes terms that are often used when using ScalarDL.
Security terms​
The following are security terms.
administrative domain​
An administrative domain is a boundary within which entities or systems are governed by the same administrative authorities, allowing for controlled data and resource management.
authenticity​
Authenticity is the assurance that data, messages, or transactions originate from verified sources, preventing impersonation or forgery.
blockchain​
A blockchain is a distributed-ledger technology where data is recorded in blocks and linked together in a chain, ensuring transparency, immutability, and security.
Byzantine fault​
A Byzantine fault refers to an arbitrary fault regardless of maliciousness, such as software bugs and data tampering, posing a challenge to maintaining consistency in distributed systems.
Byzantine-fault detection​
Byzantine-fault detection is the process of identifying nodes that exhibit Byzantine faults in a distributed system, supporting system reliability by flagging potential threats.
Byzantine-fault tolerance​
Byzantine-fault tolerance is a system's ability to continue functioning correctly even when some nodes act maliciously or inconsistently, often through consensus mechanisms.
CA​
A certificate authority (CA) is a trusted entity that issues digital certificates to verify the identity of organizations and individuals, ensuring secure communication through public key infrastructure (PKI).
certificate​
A certificate is a digital document that verifies the identity of an entity by using cryptographic signatures, ensuring secure communication and trust.
digital signature​
A digital signature is a cryptographic technique that verifies the authenticity and integrity of a message or document, confirming it was created by a known sender and having the non-repudiation property.
ECDSA​
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) is a cryptographic algorithm that uses elliptic curve mathematics to create digital signatures, providing strong security with shorter key lengths compared to RSA.
HMAC​
HMAC (hash-based message authentication code) is a cryptographic function that ensures data integrity and authenticity by hashing the data along with a secret key. Unlike a digital signature, HMAC does not have the non-repudiation property.
ledger database​
A ledger database is a tamper-evident, verifiable database that records data in a sequential manner, supporting traceability and verification, often with cryptographic proof for integrity.
private key​
A private key is a secret cryptographic key used to sign or decrypt data, ensuring secure and authorized access.
public key​
A public key is a cryptographic key shared publicly that enables users to encrypt messages or verify digital signatures, often paired with a private key for secure communication.
RSA​
RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) is an asymmetric cryptographic algorithm that uses the difficulty of factoring large prime numbers to enable secure data transmission, digital signatures, and key exchange.
smart contract​
A smart contract is a computer program that automatically enforces and verifies rules, terms, or conditions, typically used in ledger and blockchain systems.
tamper evidence​
Tamper evidence ensures the detection of unauthorized modifications of digital data, typically through secure data management systems like ledger databases and blockchains.
TLS​
Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol that ensures privacy and data integrity between client-server applications over the internet, replacing its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
Database and distributed-system terms​
The following are database and distributed-system terms.
ACID​
Atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID) is a set of properties that ensure database transactions are processed reliably, maintaining integrity even in cases of errors or system failures.
concurrency control​
Concurrency control in databases ensures that multiple transactions can occur simultaneously without causing data inconsistency, usually through mechanisms like locking or timestamp ordering.
consensus​
Consensus in distributed systems refers to the process of achieving agreement among multiple computers or nodes on a single data value or system state.
linearizability​
Linearizability is a strong consistency model in distributed systems where operations appear to occur atomically in some order consistent with real-time ordering, and each operation takes effect between its start and end.
Paxos​
Paxos is a family of protocols used in distributed systems to achieve consensus, even in the presence of node failures.
PITR​
Point-in-time recovery (PITR) allows a database to be restored to a previous state at any specific time, usually after an unintended event like data corruption.
read-committed isolation​
Read-committed isolation is an isolation level where each transaction sees only committed data, preventing dirty reads but allowing non-repeatable reads.
serializable isolation​
Serializable isolation (serializability) is the highest isolation level in transactional systems, ensuring that the outcome of concurrently executed transactions is the same as if they were executed sequentially.
snapshot isolation​
Snapshot isolation is an isolation level that allows transactions to read a consistent snapshot of the database, protecting them from seeing changes made by other transactions until they complete.
transaction​
A transaction in databases is a sequence of operations treated as a single logical unit of work, ensuring consistency and integrity, typically conforming to ACID properties.
two-phase locking​
Two-phase locking is a concurrency control protocol that enforces serializability by acquiring all required locks before releasing any, in two distinct phases.