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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2025.30

Byzantine-Tolerant Phase Clock

Authors: Costas Busch, Paweł Garncarek, and Dariusz R. Kowalski

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 361, 29th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2025)

Abstract

A phase clock is a basic synchronization mechanism that keeps distributed nodes closely synchronized to execute the same phase of a distributed algorithm. A phase clock is typically implemented with a local logical counter that keeps track of the current phase count. Phase clocks are particularly useful in population protocols for implementing leader election and majority selection. We study phase clocks that tolerate Byzantine faults. We show that there is a phase clock that tolerates up to f < n/3 faulty nodes, where n is the number of nodes, such that the gap of the local counter values is O(n²log n). The gap can be further lowered to O(log n) when f ≤ n/8. We also show that if f > n/3, then the gap grows to infinity as time increases. While analyzing phase clock we introduce novel techniques and bounds for balls into bins processes, which might be of independent interest. Using the phase clock, we obtain a majority selection population protocol that tolerates up to f faults and decides on the majority value in O(log² n) parallel time using poly-log states per node.

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Costas Busch, Paweł Garncarek, and Dariusz R. Kowalski. Byzantine-Tolerant Phase Clock. In 29th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 361, pp. 30:1-30:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{busch_et_al:LIPIcs.OPODIS.2025.30,
  author =	{Busch, Costas and Garncarek, Pawe{\l} and Kowalski, Dariusz R.},
  title =	{{Byzantine-Tolerant Phase Clock}},
  booktitle =	{29th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2025)},
  pages =	{30:1--30:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-409-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{361},
  editor =	{Arusoaie, Andrei and Onica, Emanuel and Spear, Michael and Tucci-Piergiovanni, Sara},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2025.30},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252036},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2025.30},
  annote =	{Keywords: phase clock, Byzantine nodes, population protocols, balls into bins}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2019.17

Stable Memoryless Queuing under Contention

Authors: Paweł Garncarek, Tomasz Jurdziński, and Dariusz R. Kowalski

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 146, 33rd International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2019)

Abstract

In this work we study stability of local memoryless packet scheduling policies in a distributed system of n nodes/queues under contention. The local policies at nodes may only access their current local queues, and have no other feedback from the underlying distributed system. Moreover, their memory is limited to some basic parameters. The packets arrive at queues according to arrival patterns controlled by an adversary restricted only by injection rate rho and burstiness b, or driven by a stochastic process; the former model analyzes worst-case stability while the latter - average case. We assume that the underlying distributed system is a classic shared channel, in which no two packets could be successfully scheduled (and removed from queues) at the same time. We show that there is a local memoryless scheduling policy which is both adversarially and stochastically stable for injection rates Omega(1/log n). Another algorithm achieves even higher - constant - stable injection rate, but only for a bounded range of burstiness. The first algorithm is utilizing properties of interleaved ultra-selectors, for which we prove stronger properties than known so far, while the second one is based on entirely new concept of selector with thresholds, unlike previously considered binary selectors/codes in the literature. Note that popular Backoff algorithms, some of which achieve stability for constant (stochastic) injection rates [Johan Håstad et al., 1996], use memory to record current state (e.g., the number of unsuccessful transmissions or the result of random sampling in each window) as well as randomization and feedback from the channel; unlike solutions in this work, which are memoryless and do not rely on randomization or channel feedback (thus, could be used independently from the link layer protocols). {}

Cite as

Paweł Garncarek, Tomasz Jurdziński, and Dariusz R. Kowalski. Stable Memoryless Queuing under Contention. In 33rd International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 146, pp. 17:1-17:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)

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@InProceedings{garncarek_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2019.17,
  author =	{Garncarek, Pawe{\l} and Jurdzi\'{n}ski, Tomasz and Kowalski, Dariusz R.},
  title =	{{Stable Memoryless Queuing under Contention}},
  booktitle =	{33rd International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2019)},
  pages =	{17:1--17:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-126-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{146},
  editor =	{Suomela, Jukka},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2019.17},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-113244},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2019.17},
  annote =	{Keywords: packet scheduling, online algorithms, adversarial injections, stochastic injections, stability, memoryless algorithms}
}

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Documents authored by Garncarek, Paweł

Byzantine-Tolerant Phase Clock

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Stable Memoryless Queuing under Contention

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