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How does the Tangle preserve data integrity when some data packets do not confirm? I.e. if the data stream is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, but we only get 1,2,5,6,7,8,9 or perhaps 1,2,5,6,7,8,9,3,4 if they are reattached, how does the Tangle reassemble/make sense of the data or what is the mechanism to prevent this happening?

For some reason StackExchange wants me to write another paragraph of text so all I can really say is that this is my only doubt about IOTA, everything else in terms of decentralisation, R&D, the balance between collaboration and decentralisation, etc. is amazing.

Jack
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A datastream in secured by Masked Authenticated Messaging technology (aka MAM). It means that every message is encrypted and signed by the owner of the channel. The signature guarantee the data integrity (i.e. it guarantee that the content of the message is exactly what the owner of the channel put in the message).

Transaction confirmation is only relevant for value transactions and don't confirm anything regarding message transactions. i.e. by confirming a transaction, a participant only confirms that the address spending iotas owns enough iotas to do the transaction (i.e. the resulting balance won't be negative).

Regarding ordering of the messages : every message contains the address of the next message. The tangle by itself don't care of the order, but the client, by design, needs to know message n-1 to discover the address of message n. Therefore, from a client perspective the messages will be in the correct order.

ben75
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