Future Internet Journal Article
Journal Future Internet Publication
A scientific article named *A MILP Model for a Byzantine Fault Tolerant Blockchain Consensus has been published on 29th October at Future Internet Journal. This article proposed MILP model to prove otptimal solutions for dBFT liveness and finality.
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Article first page
Nazário Coelho, V.; Pereira Araújo, R.; Gambini Santos, H.; Yong Qiang, W.; Machado Coelho, I. A MILP Model for a Byzantine Fault Tolerant Blockchain Consensus. Future Internet 2020, 12, 185.
Abstract
Mixed-integer mathematical programming has been widely used to model and solve challenging optimization problems. One interesting feature of this technique is the ability to prove the optimality of the achieved solution, for many practical scenarios where a linear programming model can be devised. This paper explores its use to model very strong Byzantine adversaries, in the context of distributed consensus systems. In particular, we apply the proposed technique to find challenging adversarial conditions on a state-of-the-art blockchain consensus: the Neo dBFT. Neo Blockchain has been using the dBFT algorithm since its foundation, but, due to the complexity of the algorithm, it is challenging to devise definitive algebraic proofs that guarantee safety/liveness of the system (and adjust for every change proposed by the community). Core developers have to manually devise and explore possible adversarial attacks scenarios as an exhaustive task. The proposed multi-objective model is intended to assist the search of possible faulty scenario, which includes three objective functions that can be combined as a maximization problem for testing one-block finality or a minimization problem for ensuring liveness. Automated graphics help developers to visually observe attack conditions and to quickly find a solution. This paper proposes an exact adversarial model that explores current limits for practical blockchain consensus applications such as dBFT, with ideas that can also be extended to other decentralized ledger technologies.
Keywords: byzantine fault tolerance; consensus; distributed ledger technology; exact adversarial model; integer programming; Neo Blockchain.
The article is open access and can be DOWNLOAD here.