Efficient low-contention asynchronous consensus with the value-oblivious adversary scheduler

We consider asynchronous consensus in the shared-memory setting. We present the first efficient low-contention consensus algorithm for the weak-adversary-scheduler model. The algorithm achieves consensus in total work and (hot-spot) contention, both expected and with high probability. The algorithm assumes the value-oblivious scheduler, which is defined in the paper. Previous efficient consensus algorithms for weak adversaries suffer from memory contention.Yonatan Aumann: This work was partially completed while theauthor was at Harvard University, supported in part by ONRcontract ONR-N00014-91-J-1981.Michael A. Bender: This work was supported inpart by HRL Laboratories, Sandia National Laboratories, and NSF GrantsACI-032497, CCR-0208670, and EIA-0112849. This work was partiallycompleted while the author was at Harvard University, supported inpart by NSF grants CCR-9700365, CCR-9504436, and CCR-9313775.An early version of this paper was presented in the 23rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 96) [8].     

Lower bound for scalable Byzantine Agreement

We consider the problem of computing Byzantine Agreement in a synchronous network with n processors, each with a private random string, where each pair of processors is connected by a private communication line. The adversary is malicious and non-adaptive, i.e., it must choose the processors to corrupt at the start of the algorithm. Byzantine Agreement is known to be computable in this model in an expected constant number of rounds. We consider a scalable model where in each round each uncorrupt processor can send to any set of log n other processors and listen to any set of log n processors. We define the loss of an execution to be the number of uncorrupt processors whose output does not agree with the output of the majority of uncorrupt processors. We show that if there are t corrupt processors, then any randomised protocol which has probability at least 1/2 + 1/ logn of loss less than requires at least f rounds. This also shows that lossless protocols require both rounds, and for at least one uncorrupt processor to send messages during the protocol.     

Element distinctness on one-tape Turing machines: a complete solution

We give a complete characterization of the complexity of the element distinctness problem for n elements of bits each on deterministic and nondeterministic one-tape Turing machines. We present an algorithm running in time for deterministic machines and nondeterministic solutions that are of time complexity . For elements of logarithmic size , on nondeterministic machines, these results close the gap between the known lower bound and the previous upper bound . Additional lower bounds are given to show that the upper bounds are optimal for all other possible relations between m and n. The upper bounds employ hashing techniques, while the lower bounds make use of the communication complexity of set disjointness.Received: 23 April 2001, Published online: 2 September 2003Holger Petersen: Supported by Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, grant number BMBF-LPD 9901/8-1 of Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung.     

Lower bounds for sense of direction in regular graphs

A graph G with n vertices and maximum degree cannot be given weak sense of direction using less than colours. It is known that n colours are always sufficient, and it was conjectured that just are really needed, that is, one more colour is sufficient. Nonetheless, it has been shown [3] that for sufficiently large n there are graphs requiring more colours than . In this paper, using recent results in asymptotic graph enumeration, we show that (surprisingly) the same bound holds for regular graphs. We also show that colours are necessary, where d _G is the degree of G.Received: April 2002, Accepted: April 2003, Sebastiano Vigna: Partially supported by the Italian MURST (Finanziamento di iniziative di ricerca diffusa condotte da parte di giovani ricercatori).The results of this paper appeared in a preliminary form in Distributed Computing. 14th International Conference, DISC 2000, Springer-Verlag, 2000.     

Condition-based consensus solvability: a hierarchy of conditions and efficient protocols

The condition-based approach for consensus solvability consists of identifying sets of input vectors, called conditions, for which there exists an asynchronous protocol solving consensus despite the occurrence of up to f process crashes. This paper investigates , the largest set of conditions which allow us to solve the consensus problem in an asynchronous shared memory system.The first part of the paper shows that is made up of a hierarchy of classes of conditions, where d is a parameter (called degree of the condition), starting with and ending with d = 0, where . We prove that each one is strictly contained in the previous one: . Various properties of the hierarchy are also derived. It is shown that a class can be characterized in two equivalent but complementary ways: one is convenient for designing protocols while the other is for analyzing the class properties. The paper also defines a linear family of conditions that can be used to derive many specific conditions. In particular, for each d, two natural conditions are presented.The second part of the paper is devoted to the design of efficient condition-based protocols. A generic condition-based protocol is presented. This protocol can be instantiated with any condition C, , and requires at most shared memory read/write operations per process in the synchronization part of the protocol. Thus, the value (f-d) represents the difficulty of the class . An improvement of the protocol for the conditions in is also presented.Received: 15 November 2001, Accepted: 15 April 2003, Published online: 6 February 2004Parts of it have previously appeared in [23] and [25].     

Renaming in synchronous message passing systems with Byzantine failures

We study the renaming problem in a fully connected synchronous network with Byzantine failures. We show that when the original namespace of the processors is unbounded, this problem cannot be solved in an a priori bounded number of rounds for , where n is the size of the network and t is the number of failures. On the other hand, for n > 3t, we present a Byzantine renaming algorithm that runs in O(lg n) rounds. In addition, we present a fast, efficient strong renaming algorithm for n > t, which runs in rounds, where N ₀ is the value of the highest identifier among all the correct processors.     

Constant-time distributed dominating set approximation

Finding a small dominating set is one of the most fundamental problems of classical graph theory. In this paper, we present a new fully distributed approximation algorithm based on LP relaxation techniques. For an arbitrary, possibly constant parameter k and maximum node degree , our algorithm computes a dominating set of expected size in rounds. Each node has to send messages of size . This is the first algorithm which achieves a non-trivial approximation ratio in a constant number of rounds.Received: 9 September 2003, Accepted: 2 September 2004, Published online: 13 January 2005The work presented in this paper was supported (in part) by the National Competence Center in Research on Mobile Information and Communication Systems (NCCR-MICS), a center supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant number 5005-67322.     

Broadcasting in undirected ad hoc radio networks

We consider distributed broadcasting in radio networks, modeled as undirected graphs, whose nodes have no information on the topology of the network, nor even on their immediate neighborhood. For randomized broadcasting, we give an algorithm working in expected time in n-node radio networks of diameter D, which is optimal, as it matches the lower bounds of Alon et al. [1] and Kushilevitz and Mansour [16]. Our algorithm improves the best previously known randomized broadcasting algorithm of Bar-Yehuda, Goldreich and Itai [3], running in expected time . (In fact, our result holds also in the setting of n-node directed radio networks of radius D.) For deterministic broadcasting, we show the lower bound on broadcasting time in n-node radio networks of diameter D. This implies previously known lower bounds of Bar-Yehuda, Goldreich and Itai [3] and Bruschi and Del Pinto [5], and is sharper than any of them in many cases. We also give an algorithm working in time , thus shrinking - for the first time - the gap between the upper and the lower bound on deterministic broadcasting time to a logarithmic factor. Received: 1 August 2003, Accepted: 18 March 2005, Published online: 15 June 2005 Dariusz R. Kowalski: This work was done during the stay of Dariusz Kowalski at the Research Chair in Distributed Computing of the Université du Québec en Outaouais, as a postdoctoral fellow. Research supported in part by KBN grant 4T11C04425. Andrzej Pelc: Research of Andrzej Pelc was supported in part by NSERC discovery grant and by the Research Chair in Distributed Computing of the Université du Québec en Outaouais.     

Distributed MST for constant diameter graphs

This paper considers the problem of distributively constructing a minimum-weight spanning tree (MST) for graphs of constant diameter in the bounded-messages model, where each message can contain at most B bits for some parameter B. It is shown that the number of communication rounds necessary to compute an MST for graphs of diameter 4 or 3 can be as high as and , respectively. The asymptotic lower bounds hold for randomized algorithms as well. On the other hand, we observe that O(log n) communication rounds always suffice to compute an MST deterministically for graphs with diameter 2, when B = O(log n). These results complement a previously known lower bound of for graphs of diameter Ω(log n). An extended abstract of this work appears in Proceedings of 20th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, August 2001.     

A simple population protocol for fast robust approximate majority

We describe and analyze a 3-state one-way population protocol to compute approximate majority in the model in which pairs of agents are drawn uniformly at random to interact. Given an initial configuration of x’s, y’s and blanks that contains at least one non-blank, the goal is for the agents to reach consensus on one of the values x or y. Additionally, the value chosen should be the majority non-blank initial value, provided it exceeds the minority by a sufficient margin. We prove that with high probability n agents reach consensus in O(n log n) interactions and the value chosen is the majority provided that its initial margin is at least . This protocol has the additional property of tolerating Byzantine behavior in of the agents, making it the first known population protocol that tolerates Byzantine agents.