221 research outputs found
Quorum Systems in Permissionless Networks
Fail-prone systems, and their quorum systems, are useful tools for the design of distributed algorithms. However, fail-prone systems as studied so far require every process to know the full system membership in order to guarantee safety through globally intersecting quorums. Thus, they are of little help in an open, permissionless setting, where such knowledge may not be available. We propose to generalize the theory of fail-prone systems to make it applicable to permissionless systems. We do so by enabling processes not only to make assumptions about failures, but also to make assumptions about the assumptions of other processes. Thus, by transitivity, processes that do not even know of any common process may nevertheless have intersecting quorums and solve, for example, reliable broadcast. Our model generalizes existing models such as the classic fail-prone system model [Malkhi and Reiter, 1998] and the asymmetric fail-prone system model [Cachin and Tackmann, OPODIS 2019]. Moreover, it gives a characterization with standard formalism of the model used by the Stellar blockchain
An Algebraic Model For Quorum Systems
Quorum systems are a key mathematical abstraction in distributed
fault-tolerant computing for capturing trust assumptions. A quorum system is a
collection of subsets of all processes, called quorums, with the property that
each pair of quorums have a non-empty intersection. They can be found at the
core of many reliable distributed systems, such as cloud computing platforms,
distributed storage systems and blockchains. In this paper we give a new
interpretation of quorum systems, starting with classical majority-based quorum
systems and extending this to Byzantine quorum systems. We propose an algebraic
representation of the theory underlying quorum systems making use of
multivariate polynomial ideals, incorporating properties of these systems, and
studying their algebraic varieties. To achieve this goal we will exploit
properties of Boolean Groebner bases. The nice nature of Boolean Groebner bases
allows us to avoid part of the combinatorial computations required to check
consistency and availability of quorum systems. Our results provide a novel
approach to test quorum systems properties from both algebraic and algorithmic
perspectives.Comment: 15 pages, 3 algorithm
A Survey on Consortium Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms
Blockchain is a distributed ledger that is decentralized, immutable, and
transparent, which maintains a continuously growing list of transaction records
ordered into blocks. As the core of blockchain, the consensus algorithm is an
agreement to validate the correctness of blockchain transactions. For example,
Bitcoin is a public blockchain where each node in Bitcoin uses the Proof of
Work (PoW) algorithm to reach a consensus by competing to solve a puzzle.
Unlike a public blockchain, a consortium blockchain is an enterprise-level
blockchain that does not contend with the issues of creating a resource-saving
global consensus protocol. This paper highilights several state-of-the art
solutions in consensus algorithms for enterprise blockchain. For example, the
HyperLedger by Linux Foundation includes implementing Practical Byzantine Fault
Tolerance (PBFT) as the consensus algorithm. PBFT can tolerate a range of
malicious nodes and reach consensus with quadratic complexity. Another
consensus algorithm, HotStuff, implemented by Facebook Libra project, has
achieved linear complexity of the authenticator. This paper presents the
operational mechanisms of these and other consensus protocols, and analyzes and
compares their advantages and drawbacks.Comment: under submissio
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