Finding Traitors in Secure Networks Using Byzantine Agreements

TL;DR

This paper presents a formal approach based on Byzantine Agreement to identify traitors in secure networks, enhancing fault tolerance and reliability in communication systems with potentially unreliable or malicious agents.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of Byzantine Agreement principles to detect traitors and integrates this method with insecure channels for improved network security.

Findings

Effective traitor detection in secure networks

Enhanced fault tolerance in broadcast systems

Integration with insecure channels demonstrated

Abstract

Secure networks rely upon players to maintain security and reliability. However not every player can be assumed to have total loyalty and one must use methods to uncover traitors in such networks. We use the original concept of the Byzantine Generals Problem by Lamport, and the more formal Byzantine Agreement describe by Linial, to nd traitors in secure networks. By applying general fault-tolerance methods to develop a more formal design of secure networks we are able to uncover traitors amongst a group of players. We also propose methods to integrate this system with insecure channels. This new resiliency can be applied to broadcast and peer-to-peer secure communication systems where agents may be traitors or become unreliable due to faults.