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Abstract:
We describe PeerReview, a system that provides accountability in distributed
systems. PeerReview ensures that Byzantine faults whose effects are observed by
a correct node are eventually detected and irrefutably linked to a faulty
node. At the same time, PeerReview ensures that a correct node can always
defend itself against false accusations. These guarantees are particularly
important for systems that span multiple administrative domains, which may not
trust each other.
PeerReview works by maintaining a secure record of the messages sent and
received by each node. The record is used to automatically detect when a
node's behavior deviates from that of a given reference implementation, thus
exposing faulty nodes. PeerReview is widely applicable: it only requires that a
correct node's actions are deterministic, that nodes can sign messages, and
that each node is periodically checked by a correct node. We demonstrate that
PeerReview is practical by applying it to three different types of distributed
systems: a network filesystem, a peer-to-peer system, and an overlay multicast
system.
