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Brief Announcement

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.61

Brief Announcement: Asynchronous Approximate Agreement with Quadratic Communication

Authors: Mose Mizrahi Erbes and Roger Wattenhofer

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 356, 39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025)

Abstract

We consider an asynchronous network of n message-sending parties, up to t of which are byzantine. We study approximate agreement, where the parties obtain approximately equal outputs in the convex hull of their inputs. In their seminal work, Abraham, Amit and Dolev [OPODIS '04] solve this problem in ℝ with the optimal resilience t < n/3 with a protocol where each party reliably broadcasts a value in every iteration. This takes Θ(n²) messages per reliable broadcast, or Θ(n³) messages per iteration. In this work, we forgo reliable broadcast to achieve asynchronous approximate agreement against t < n/3 faults with quadratic communication. In a tree with the maximum degree Δ and the centroid decomposition height h, we achieve edge agreement in at most 6h + 1 rounds with 𝒪(n²) messages of size 𝒪(log Δ + log h) per round. We do this by designing a 6-round multivalued 2-graded consensus protocol and using it to recursively reduce the task to edge agreement in a subtree with a smaller centroid decomposition height. Then, we achieve edge agreement in the infinite path ℤ, again with the help of 2-graded consensus. Finally, we show that our edge agreement protocol enables ε-agreement in ℝ in 6log₂M/(ε) + 𝒪(log log M/(ε)) rounds with 𝒪(n² log M/(ε)) messages and 𝒪(n²log M/(ε)log log M/(ε)) bits of communication, where M is the maximum non-byzantine input magnitude.

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Mose Mizrahi Erbes and Roger Wattenhofer. Brief Announcement: Asynchronous Approximate Agreement with Quadratic Communication. In 39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 356, pp. 61:1-61:7, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{mizrahierbes_et_al:LIPIcs.DISC.2025.61,
  author =	{Mizrahi Erbes, Mose and Wattenhofer, Roger},
  title =	{{Brief Announcement: Asynchronous Approximate Agreement with Quadratic Communication}},
  booktitle =	{39th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2025)},
  pages =	{61:1--61:7},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-402-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{356},
  editor =	{Kowalski, Dariusz R.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.61},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-248771},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2025.61},
  annote =	{Keywords: Approximate agreement, byzantine fault tolerance, communication complexity}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2024.15

Quit-Resistant Reliable Broadcast and Efficient Terminating Gather

Authors: Mose Mizrahi Erbes and Roger Wattenhofer

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 324, 28th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2024)

Abstract

Termination is a central property in distributed computing. A party terminates a protocol once it stops accepting and sending messages. We discover that byzantine reliable broadcast is sometimes used in a manner which leads to non-terminating protocols. We consider an asynchronous network of n parties up to t of which are byzantine, and show that if each party is to broadcast its value and terminate upon obtaining n - t values, then composing n parallel reliable broadcast instances leads to non-termination. The issue is that a party must quit t broadcast instances early in order to terminate, a behaviour not supported by ordinary reliable broadcast. So, we modify Bracha’s protocol into a quit-resistant reliable broadcast (QBRB) protocol which lets the parties quit early. This protocol retains its termination guarantees as long as no party quits before some party terminates. Then, we turn our attention to Gather, an all-to-all broadcast primitive which guarantees that the parties obtain n - t common values. Existing error-free deterministic Gather protocols either run forever, or fail to terminate since the parties quit reliable broadcast instances. We design an error-free, deterministic, terminating (and binding) Gather protocol for 𝓁-bit inputs with the communication complexity 𝒪(𝓁 n² + n³log n). This matches the state-of-the-art for non-terminating Gather. Finally, inspired by our QBRB protocol, we design a reliable broadcast protocol which retains its termination guarantees no matter when any party quits. To achieve this, we give each party the option to output ⊥ if more than q parties quit before some party terminates. The protocol requires 4t + q < n, which is optimal, and it lets parties quit after they have suffered transient crash failures so that they can help the remaining parties terminate.

Cite as

Mose Mizrahi Erbes and Roger Wattenhofer. Quit-Resistant Reliable Broadcast and Efficient Terminating Gather. In 28th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 324, pp. 15:1-15:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{mizrahierbes_et_al:LIPIcs.OPODIS.2024.15,
  author =	{Mizrahi Erbes, Mose and Wattenhofer, Roger},
  title =	{{Quit-Resistant Reliable Broadcast and Efficient Terminating Gather}},
  booktitle =	{28th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2024)},
  pages =	{15:1--15:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-360-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{324},
  editor =	{Bonomi, Silvia and Galletta, Letterio and Rivi\`{e}re, Etienne and Schiavoni, Valerio},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2024.15},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-225519},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2024.15},
  annote =	{Keywords: Asynchronous networks, byzantine fault tolerance, protocol termination, reliable broadcast, all-to-all broadcast, gather}
}

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Documents authored by Mizrahi Erbes, Mose

Brief Announcement: Asynchronous Approximate Agreement with Quadratic Communication

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Quit-Resistant Reliable Broadcast and Efficient Terminating Gather

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