CRC4EVER: Cyclic Redundancy Check for Enhanced Verification and Efficient Routing

This demonstration introduces Cyclic Redundancy Check for Enhanced Verification and Efficient Routing (CRC4EVER). We propose how the Residue Number System (RNS) --- a number system that employs a shared secret scheme distributed across network nodes (nodeIDs)--- can enable lightweight forwarding and proof-of-transit (PoT) in path-aware networks, relying solely on CRC operations. Our approach leverages an RNS-based source routing, where a routeID encodes the entire packet path. At each hop, the routeID is decoded via simple modulo operations, executed at line rate, by repurposing existing CRC hardware in programmable switches. Furthermore, the unique mapping between the routeID and its corresponding set of nodelDs provides intrinsic path verifiability via CRC-based hash operations. A proof-of-concept was implemented on programmable Tofino switches, demonstrating the feasibility of executing both routing and path verification at line rate, through table-free CRC operations.