Rabin fingerprint

Imagine you have a bunch of colorful blocks, and your friend has the exact same bunch of blocks. You both want to make sure that your sets are exactly the same without actually counting all of the blocks.

So you both decide to choose a special way of putting the blocks in order. First, you pick a certain number - let's say 5. Then, you take the first five blocks and put them in a line. You repeat this process with each set of 5 blocks until all the blocks are used up.

Now you each have a long line made up of smaller groups of exactly 5 blocks. The next step is to do something special called "fingerprinting" each group. You take those five blocks, and you squish them together however you want to make one new special block. You did it! You made a fingerprint for each group of 5 blocks.

Now, you and your friend compare your fingerprints for each group. If they match, then you know that your sets of blocks are exactly the same! This special squishing and fingerprinting process for each group of blocks is called Rabin fingerprinting.