This paper considers the basic $\mathcal{PULL}$ model of communication, in which in each round, each agent extracts information from few randomly chosen agents. We seek to identify the smallest amount of information revealed in each interaction (message size) that nevertheless allows for efficient and robust computations of fundamental information dissemination tasks. We focus on the Majority Bit Dissemination problem that considers a population of $n$ agents, with a designated subset of source agents. Each source agent holds an input bit and each agent holds an output bit. The goal is to let all agents converge their output bits on the most frequent input bit of the sources (the majority bit). Note that the particular case of a single source agent corresponds to the classical problem of Broadcast. We concentrate on the severe fault-tolerant context of self-stabilization, in which a correct configuration must be reached eventually, despite all agents starting the execution with arbitrary initial states.
We first design a general compiler which can essentially transform any self-stabilizing algorithm with a certain property that uses $\ell$-bits messages to one that uses only $\log \ell$-bits messages, while paying only a small penalty in the running time. By applying this compiler recursively we then obtain a self-stabilizing Clock Synchronization protocol, in which agents synchronize their clocks modulo some given integer $T$, within $\tilde O(\log n\log T)$ rounds w.h.p., and using messages that contain $3$ bits only.
We then employ the new Clock Synchronization tool to obtain a self-stabilizing Majority Bit Dissemination protocol which converges in $\tilde O(\log n)$ time, w.h.p., on every initial configuration, provided that the ratio of sources supporting the minority opinion is bounded away from half. Moreover, this protocol also uses only 3 bits per interaction.
We present a self-stabilizing leader election algorithm for arbitrary networks, with space-complexity $O(\max\{\log Δ, \log \log n\})$ bits per node in $n$-node networks with maximum degree~$Δ$. This space complexity is sub-logarithmic in $n$ as long as $Δ= n^{o(1)}$. The best space-complexity known so far for arbitrary networks was $O(\log n)$ bits per node, and algorithms with sub-logarithmic space-complexities were known for the ring only. To our knowledge, our algorithm is the first algorithm for self-stabilizing leader election to break the $Ω(\log n)$ bound for silent algorithms in arbit…
We present a scheme to convert self-stabilizing algorithms that use randomization during and following convergence to self-stabilizing algorithms that use randomization only during convergence. We thus reduce the number of random bits from an infinite number to a bounded number. The scheme is applicable to the cases in which there exits a local predicate for each node, such that global consistency is implied by the union of the local predicates. We demonstrate our scheme over the token circulation algorithm of Herman and the recent constant time Byzantine self-stabilizing clock synchronization…
While a lot of research in distributed computing has covered solutions for self-stabilizing computing and topologies, there is far less work on self-stabilization for distributed data structures. Considering crashing peers in peer-to-peer networks, it should not be taken for granted that a distributed data structure remains intact. In this work, we present a self-stabilizing protocol for a distributed data structure called the hashed Patricia Trie (Kniesburges and Scheideler WALCOM'11) that enables efficient prefix search on a set of keys. The data structure has a wide area of applications inc…
We study a well-known communication abstraction called Uniform Reliable Broadcast (URB). URB is central in the design and implementation of fault-tolerant distributed systems, as many non-trivial fault-tolerant distributed applications require communication with provable guarantees on message deliveries. Our study focuses on fault-tolerant implementations for time-free message-passing systems that are prone to node-failures. Moreover, we aim at the design of an even more robust communication abstraction. We do so through the lenses of self-stabilization---a very strong notion of fault-toleranc…
We present a novel self-stabilizing algorithm for minimum spanning tree (MST) construction. The space complexity of our solution is $O(\log^2n)$ bits and it converges in $O(n^2)$ rounds. Thus, this algorithm improves the convergence time of all previously known self-stabilizing asynchronous MST algorithms by a multiplicative factor $Θ(n)$, to the price of increasing the best known space complexity by a factor $O(\log n)$. The main ingredient used in our algorithm is the design, for the first time in self-stabilizing settings, of a labeling scheme for computing the nearest common ancestor with …
This paper focuses on compact deterministic self-stabilizing solutions for the leader election problem. When the protocol is required to be \emph{silent} (i.e., when communication content remains fixed from some point in time during any execution), there exists a lower bound of Omega(\log n) bits of memory per node participating to the leader election (where n denotes the number of nodes in the system). This lower bound holds even in rings. We present a new deterministic (non-silent) self-stabilizing protocol for n-node rings that uses only O(\log\log n) memory bits per node, and stabilizes in…
We present a novel self-stabilizing algorithm for minimum spanning tree (MST) construction. The space complexity of our solution is $O(\log^2n)$ bits and it converges in $O(n^2)$ rounds. Thus, this algorithm improves the convergence time of previously known self-stabilizing asynchronous MST algorithms by a multiplicative factor $Θ(n)$, to the price of increasing the best known space complexity by a factor $O(\log n)$. The main ingredient used in our algorithm is the design, for the first time in self-stabilizing settings, of a labeling scheme for computing the nearest common ancestor with only…
We present results on the last topic we collaborate with our late friend, Professor Ajoy Kumar Datta (1958-2019). In this work, we shed new light on a self-stabilizing wave algorithm proposed by Colette Johnen in 1997. This algorithm constructs a BFS spanning tree in any connected rooted network. Nowadays, it is still the best existing self-stabilizing BFS spanning tree construction in terms of memory requirement, {\em i.e.}, it only requires $Θ(1)$ bits per edge. However, it has been proven assuming a weakly fair daemon. Moreover, its stabilization time was unknown. Here, we study the slightl…
The majority of the literature on consensus assumes that protocols are jointly started at all nodes of the distributed system. We show how to remove this problematic assumption in semi-synchronous systems, where messages delays and relative drifts of local clocks may vary arbitrarily within known bounds. Our framework is self-stabilizing and efficient both in terms of communication and time; more concretely, compared to a synchronous start in a synchronous model of a non-self-stabilizing protocol, we achieve a constant-factor increase in the time and communicated bits to complete an instance, …
A snapshot object simulates the behavior of an array of single-writer/multi-reader shared registers that can be read atomically. Delporte-Gallet et al. proposed two fault-tolerant algorithms for snapshot objects in asynchronous crash-prone message-passing systems. Their first algorithm is \emph{non-blocking}; it allows snapshot operations to terminate once all write operations have ceased. It uses $O(n)$ messages of $O(n ν)$ bits, where $n$ is the number of nodes and $ν$ is the number of bits it takes to represent the object. Their second algorithm allows snapshot operations to always terminat…
We present algorithms for distributed verification and silent-stabilization of a DFS(Depth First Search) spanning tree of a connected network. Computing and maintaining such a DFS tree is an important task, e.g., for constructing efficient routing schemes. Our algorithm improves upon previous work in various ways. Comparable previous work has space and time complexities of $O(n\log Δ)$ bits per node and $O(nD)$ respectively, where $Δ$ is the highest degree of a node, $n$ is the number of nodes and $D$ is the diameter of the network. In contrast, our algorithm has a space complexity of $O(\log …
This paper demonstrates the usefulness of distributed local verification of proofs, as a tool for the design of self-stabilizing algorithms.In particular, it introduces a somewhat generalized notion of distributed local proofs, and utilizes it for improving the time complexity significantly, while maintaining space optimality. As a result, we show that optimizing the memory size carries at most a small cost in terms of time, in the context of Minimum Spanning Tree (MST). That is, we present algorithms that are both time and space efficient for both constructing an MST and for verifying it.This…
Self-stabilizing protocols enable distributed systems to recover correct behavior starting from any arbitrary configuration. In particular, when processors communicate by message passing, fake messages may be placed in communication links by an adversary. When the number of such fake messages is unknown, self-stabilization may require huge resources: (a) generic solutions (a.k.a. data link protocols) require unbounded resources, which makes them unrealistic to deploy and (b) specific solutions (e.g., census or tree construction) require $O(n\log n)$ or $O(Δ\log n)$ bits of memory per node, whe…
We consider the standard population protocol model, where (a priori) indistinguishable and anonymous agents interact in pairs according to uniformly random scheduling. The self-stabilizing leader election problem requires the protocol to converge on a single leader agent from any possible initial configuration. We initiate the study of time complexity of population protocols solving this problem in its original setting: with probability 1, in a complete communication graph. The only previously known protocol by Cai, Izumi, and Wada [Theor. Comput. Syst. 50] runs in expected parallel time $Θ(n^…
At PODC 2014, A. Mostéfaoui, H. Moumen, and M. Raynal presented a new and simple randomized signature-free binary consensus algorithm (denoted here MMR) that copes with the net effect of asynchrony Byzantine behaviors. Assuming message scheduling is fair and independent from random numbers MMR is optimal in several respects: it deals with up to t Byzantine processes where t < n/3 and n is the number of processes, O(n\^2) messages and O(1) expected time. The present article presents a non-trivial extension of MMR to an even more fault-prone context, namely, in addition to Byzantine processes, i…
We present a uniform self-stabilizing algorithm, which solves the problem of distributively finding a minimum diameter spanning tree of an arbitrary positively real-weighted graph. Our algorithm consists in two stages of stabilizing protocols. The first stage is a uniform randomized stabilizing {\em unique naming} protocol, and the second stage is a stabilizing {\em MDST} protocol, designed as a {\em fair composition} of Merlin--Segall's stabilizing protocol and a distributed deterministic stabilizing protocol solving the (MDST) problem. The resulting randomized distributed algorithm presented…
Self-stabilization for non-masking fault-tolerant distributed system has received considerable research interest over the last decade. In this paper, we propose a self-stabilizing algorithm for 2-edge-connectivity and 2-vertex-connectivity of an asynchronous distributed computer network. It is based on a self-stabilizing depth-first search, and is not a composite algorithm in the sense that it is not composed of a number of self-stabilizing algorithms that run concurrently. The time and space complexities of the algorithm are the same as those of the underlying self-stabilizing depth-first sea…
We consider congestion control in peer-to-peer distributed systems. The problem can be reduced to the following scenario: Consider a set $V$ of $n$ peers (called clients in this paper) that want to send messages to a fixed common peer (called server in this paper). We assume that each client $v \in V$ sends a message with probability $p(v) \in [0,1)$ and the server has a capacity of $σ\in \mathbb{N}$, i.e., it can recieve at most $σ$ messages per round and excess messages are dropped. The server can modify these probabilities when clients send messages. Ideally, we wish to converge to a state …
We study a simple random process that computes a maximal independent set (MIS) on a general $n$-vertex graph. Each vertex has a binary state, black or white, where black indicates inclusion into the MIS. The vertex states are arbitrary initially, and are updated in parallel: In each round, every vertex whose state is ``inconsistent'' with its neighbors', i.e., it is black and has a black neighbor, or it is white and all neighbors are white, changes its state with probability $1/2$. The process stabilizes with probability 1 on any graph, and the resulting set of black vertices is an MIS. It is …
Motivated by applications to sensor networks, as well as to many other areas, this paper studies the construction of minimum-degree spanning trees. We consider the classical node-register state model, with a weakly fair scheduler, and we present a space-optimal \emph{silent} self-stabilizing construction of minimum-degree spanning trees in this model. Computing a spanning tree with minimum degree is NP-hard. Therefore, we actually focus on constructing a spanning tree whose degree is within one from the optimal. Our algorithm uses registers on $O(\log n)$ bits, converges in a polynomial number…
We consider the clock synchronization problem in the (discrete) beeping model: Given a network of $n$ nodes with each node having a clock value $δ(v) \in \{0,\ldots T-1\}$, the goal is to synchronize the clock values of all nodes such that they have the same value in any round. As is standard in clock synchronization, we assume \emph{arbitrary activations} for all nodes, i.e., the nodes start their protocol at an arbitrary round (not limited to $\{0,\ldots,T-1\}$). We give an asymptotically optimal algorithm that runs in $4D + \Bigl\lfloor \frac{D}{\lfloor T/4 \rfloor} \Bigr \rfloor \cdot (T \…
The growing demands of the worldwide IT infrastructure stress the need for reduced power consumption, which is addressed in so-called transprecision computing by improving energy efficiency at the expense of precision. For example, reducing the number of bits for some floating-point operations leads to higher efficiency, but also to a non-linear decrease of the computation accuracy. Depending on the application, small errors can be tolerated, thus allowing to fine-tune the precision of the computation. Finding the optimal precision for all variables in respect of an error bound is a complex ta…
The population protocol model describes a network of anonymous agents that interact asynchronously in pairs chosen at random. Each agent starts in the same initial state $s$. We introduce the *dynamic size counting* problem: approximately counting the number of agents in the presence of an adversary who at any time can remove any number of agents or add any number of new agents in state $s$. A valid solution requires that after each addition/removal event, resulting in population size $n$, with high probability each agent "quickly" computes the same constant-factor estimate of the value $\log_…
We investigate fast and communication-efficient algorithms for the classic problem of minimizing a sum of strongly convex and smooth functions that are distributed among $n$ different nodes, which can communicate using a limited number of bits. Most previous communication-efficient approaches for this problem are limited to first-order optimization, and therefore have \emph{linear} dependence on the condition number in their communication complexity. We show that this dependence is not inherent: communication-efficient methods can in fact have sublinear dependence on the condition number. For …
Motivated by applications in blockchains and sensor networks, we consider a model of $n$ nodes trying to reach consensus on their majority bit. Each node $i$ is assigned a bit at time zero, and is a finite automaton with $m$ bits of memory (i.e., $2^m$ states) and a Poisson clock. When the clock of $i$ rings, $i$ can choose to communicate, and is then matched to a uniformly chosen node $j$. The nodes $j$ and $i$ may update their states based on the state of the other node. Previous work has focused on minimizing the time to consensus and the probability of error, while our goal is minimizing t…
