Search Results

Documents authored by Civit, Pierre


Document
Efficient Signature-Free Validated Agreement

Authors: Pierre Civit, Muhammad Ayaz Dzulfikar, Seth Gilbert, Rachid Guerraoui, Jovan Komatovic, Manuel Vidigueira, and Igor Zablotchi

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 319, 38th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2024)


Abstract
Byzantine agreement enables n processes to agree on a common L-bit value, despite up to t > 0 arbitrary failures. A long line of work has been dedicated to improving the bit complexity of Byzantine agreement in synchrony. This has culminated in COOL, an error-free (deterministically secure against a computationally unbounded adversary) solution that achieves O(nL + n² log n) worst-case bit complexity (which is optimal for L ≥ n log n according to the Dolev-Reischuk lower bound). COOL satisfies strong unanimity: if all correct processes propose the same value, only that value can be decided. Whenever correct processes do not agree a priori (there is no unanimity), they may decide a default value ⊥ from COOL. Strong unanimity is, however, not sufficient for today’s state machine replication (SMR) and blockchain protocols. These systems value progress and require a decided value to always be valid (according to a predetermined predicate), excluding default decisions (such as ⊥) even in cases where there is no unanimity a priori. Validated Byzantine agreement satisfies this property (called external validity). Yet, the best error-free (or even signature-free) validated agreement solutions achieve only O(n²L) bit complexity, a far cry from the Ω(nL+n²) Dolev-Reischuk lower bound. Is it possible to bridge this complexity gap? We answer the question affirmatively. Namely, we present two new synchronous algorithms for validated Byzantine agreement, HashExt and ErrorFreeExt, with different trade-offs. Both algorithms are (1) signature-free, (2) optimally resilient (tolerate up to t < n / 3 failures), and (3) early-stopping (terminate in O(f+1) rounds, where f ≤ t denotes the actual number of failures). On the one hand, HashExt uses only hashes and achieves O(nL + n³κ) bit complexity, which is optimal for L ≥ n²κ (where κ is the size of a hash). On the other hand, ErrorFreeExt is error-free, using no cryptography whatsoever, and achieves O((nL + n²)log n) bit complexity, which is near-optimal for any L.

Cite as

Pierre Civit, Muhammad Ayaz Dzulfikar, Seth Gilbert, Rachid Guerraoui, Jovan Komatovic, Manuel Vidigueira, and Igor Zablotchi. Efficient Signature-Free Validated Agreement. In 38th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 319, pp. 14:1-14:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{civit_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2024.14,
  author =	{Civit, Pierre and Dzulfikar, Muhammad Ayaz and Gilbert, Seth and Guerraoui, Rachid and Komatovic, Jovan and Vidigueira, Manuel and Zablotchi, Igor},
  title =	{{Efficient Signature-Free Validated Agreement}},
  booktitle =	{38th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2024)},
  pages =	{14:1--14:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-352-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{319},
  editor =	{Alistarh, Dan},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2024.14},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-212408},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2024.14},
  annote =	{Keywords: Validated Byzantine agreement, Bit complexity, Round complexity}
}
Document
Every Bit Counts in Consensus

Authors: Pierre Civit, Seth Gilbert, Rachid Guerraoui, Jovan Komatovic, Matteo Monti, and Manuel Vidigueira

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 281, 37th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2023)


Abstract
Consensus enables n processes to agree on a common valid L-bit value, despite t < n/3 processes being faulty and acting arbitrarily. A long line of work has been dedicated to improving the worst-case communication complexity of consensus in partial synchrony. This has recently culminated in the worst-case word complexity of O(n²). However, the worst-case bit complexity of the best solution is still O(n²L + n²κ) (where κ is the security parameter), far from the Ω(nL + n²) lower bound. The gap is significant given the practical use of consensus primitives, where values typically consist of batches of large size (L > n). This paper shows how to narrow the aforementioned gap. Namely, we present a new algorithm, DARE (Disperse, Agree, REtrieve), that improves upon the O(n²L) term via a novel dispersal primitive. DARE achieves O(n^{1.5}L + n^{2.5}κ) bit complexity, an effective √n-factor improvement over the state-of-the-art (when L > nκ). Moreover, we show that employing heavier cryptographic primitives, namely STARK proofs, allows us to devise DARE-Stark, a version of DARE which achieves the near-optimal bit complexity of O(nL + n²poly(κ)). Both DARE and DARE-Stark achieve optimal O(n) worst-case latency.

Cite as

Pierre Civit, Seth Gilbert, Rachid Guerraoui, Jovan Komatovic, Matteo Monti, and Manuel Vidigueira. Every Bit Counts in Consensus. In 37th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 281, pp. 13:1-13:26, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{civit_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2023.13,
  author =	{Civit, Pierre and Gilbert, Seth and Guerraoui, Rachid and Komatovic, Jovan and Monti, Matteo and Vidigueira, Manuel},
  title =	{{Every Bit Counts in Consensus}},
  booktitle =	{37th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2023)},
  pages =	{13:1--13:26},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-301-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{281},
  editor =	{Oshman, Rotem},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2023.13},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-191399},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2023.13},
  annote =	{Keywords: Byzantine consensus, Bit complexity, Latency}
}
Document
Byzantine Consensus Is Θ(n²): The Dolev-Reischuk Bound Is Tight Even in Partial Synchrony!

Authors: Pierre Civit, Muhammad Ayaz Dzulfikar, Seth Gilbert, Vincent Gramoli, Rachid Guerraoui, Jovan Komatovic, and Manuel Vidigueira

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 246, 36th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2022)


Abstract
The Dolev-Reischuk bound says that any deterministic Byzantine consensus protocol has (at least) quadratic communication complexity in the worst case. While it has been shown that the bound is tight in synchronous environments, it is still unknown whether a consensus protocol with quadratic communication complexity can be obtained in partial synchrony. Until now, the most efficient known solutions for Byzantine consensus in partially synchronous settings had cubic communication complexity (e.g., HotStuff, binary DBFT). This paper closes the existing gap by introducing SQuad, a partially synchronous Byzantine consensus protocol with quadratic worst-case communication complexity. In addition, SQuad is optimally-resilient and achieves linear worst-case latency complexity. The key technical contribution underlying SQuad lies in the way we solve view synchronization, the problem of bringing all correct processes to the same view with a correct leader for sufficiently long. Concretely, we present RareSync, a view synchronization protocol with quadratic communication complexity and linear latency complexity, which we utilize in order to obtain SQuad.

Cite as

Pierre Civit, Muhammad Ayaz Dzulfikar, Seth Gilbert, Vincent Gramoli, Rachid Guerraoui, Jovan Komatovic, and Manuel Vidigueira. Byzantine Consensus Is Θ(n²): The Dolev-Reischuk Bound Is Tight Even in Partial Synchrony!. In 36th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 246, pp. 14:1-14:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{civit_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2022.14,
  author =	{Civit, Pierre and Dzulfikar, Muhammad Ayaz and Gilbert, Seth and Gramoli, Vincent and Guerraoui, Rachid and Komatovic, Jovan and Vidigueira, Manuel},
  title =	{{Byzantine Consensus Is \Theta(n²): The Dolev-Reischuk Bound Is Tight Even in Partial Synchrony!}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2022)},
  pages =	{14:1--14:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-255-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{246},
  editor =	{Scheideler, Christian},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2022.14},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-172059},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2022.14},
  annote =	{Keywords: Optimal Byzantine consensus, Communication complexity, Latency complexity}
}
Document
Dynamic Probabilistic Input Output Automata

Authors: Pierre Civit and Maria Potop-Butucaru

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 246, 36th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2022)


Abstract
We present probabilistic dynamic I/O automata, a framework to model dynamic probabilistic systems. Our work extends dynamic I/O Automata formalism of Attie & Lynch [Paul C. Attie and Nancy A. Lynch, 2016] to the probabilistic setting. The original dynamic I/O Automata formalism included operators for parallel composition, action hiding, action renaming, automaton creation, and behavioral sub-typing by means of trace inclusion. They can model mobility by using signature modification. They are also hierarchical: a dynamically changing system of interacting automata is itself modeled as a single automaton. Our work extends all these features to the probabilistic setting. Furthermore, we prove necessary and sufficient conditions to obtain the monotonicity of automata creation/destruction with implementation preorder. Our construction uses a novel proof technique based on homomorphism that can be of independent interest. Our work lays down the foundations for extending composable secure-emulation of Canetti et al. [Ran Canetti et al., 2007] to dynamic settings, an important tool towards the formal verification of protocols combining probabilistic distributed systems and cryptography in dynamic settings (e.g. blockchains, secure distributed computation, cybersecure distributed protocols, etc).

Cite as

Pierre Civit and Maria Potop-Butucaru. Dynamic Probabilistic Input Output Automata. In 36th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2022). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 246, pp. 15:1-15:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2022)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{civit_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2022.15,
  author =	{Civit, Pierre and Potop-Butucaru, Maria},
  title =	{{Dynamic Probabilistic Input Output Automata}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2022)},
  pages =	{15:1--15:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-255-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{246},
  editor =	{Scheideler, Christian},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2022.15},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-172064},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2022.15},
  annote =	{Keywords: Automata, Distributed Computing, Formal Verification, Dynamic systems}
}
Document
Brief Announcement
Brief Announcement: Polygraph: Accountable Byzantine Agreement

Authors: Pierre Civit, Seth Gilbert, and Vincent Gramoli

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 179, 34th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2020)


Abstract
In this paper, we introduce Polygraph, the first accountable Byzantine consensus algorithm. If among n users f < n/3 are malicious then it ensures consensus, otherwise it eventually detects malicious users that cause disagreement. Polygraph is appealing for blockchains as it allows to totally order blocks in a chain whenever possible, hence avoiding double spending and, otherwise, to punish at least n/3 malicious users when a fork occurs. This problem is more difficult than it first appears. Blockchains typically run in open networks whose delays are hard to predict, hence one cannot build upon synchronous techniques [Andreas Haeberlen et al., 2007; Vitalik Buterin and Virgil Griffith, 2019]. One may exploit cryptographic evidence of PBFT-like consensus [Miguel Castro and Barbara Liskov, 2002], however detecting equivocation would be insufficient. We show that it is impossible without extra logs of at least Ω(n) rounds [Pierre Civit et al., 2019]. Each round of Polygraph exchanges O(n²) messages.

Cite as

Pierre Civit, Seth Gilbert, and Vincent Gramoli. Brief Announcement: Polygraph: Accountable Byzantine Agreement. In 34th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2020). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 179, pp. 45:1-45:3, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)


Copy BibTex To Clipboard

@InProceedings{civit_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2020.45,
  author =	{Civit, Pierre and Gilbert, Seth and Gramoli, Vincent},
  title =	{{Brief Announcement: Polygraph: Accountable Byzantine Agreement}},
  booktitle =	{34th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2020)},
  pages =	{45:1--45:3},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-168-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{179},
  editor =	{Attiya, Hagit},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2020.45},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-131236},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2020.45},
  annote =	{Keywords: Fault detection, cryptography, equivocation, consensus}
}
Questions / Remarks / Feedback
X

Feedback for Dagstuhl Publishing


Thanks for your feedback!

Feedback submitted

Could not send message

Please try again later or send an E-mail