A Leader-Free Byzantine Consensus Algorithm

The paper considers the consensus problem in a partially synchronous system with Byzantine faults. It turns out that, in the partially synchronous system, all deterministic algorithms that solve consensus with Byzantine faults are leader-based. This is not the case of benign faults, which raises the following fundamental question: is it possible to design a deterministic Byzantine consensus algorithm for a partially synchronous system that is not leader-based? The paper gives a positive answer to this question, and presents a leader-free algorithm that is resilient-optimal and signature-free.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: ICDCN
• Authors: Fatemeh Borran, André Schiper
• Keywords: Byzantine Faults, Deterministic Byzantine Consensus, Distributed Computing, ICDCN 2010, Synchronous System