Reliable Communication in Known Networks under the Hybrid Authentication Model
From Theoretical Guarantees to Real-World Deployments
A. Tĩtu (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
Jérémie Decouchant – Mentor (TU Delft - Data-Intensive Systems)
Mitchell Olsthoorn – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Software Engineering)
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Abstract
Reliable communication algorithms have existed for a while that assumed either a global authentication model backed by public key infrastructure or peer-to-peer authentication using shared session keys between pairs of neighboring nodes. Real-life networks, however, do not settle for only one or the other. Instead, they are dynamic, heterogeneous, and often composed of a mix of authentication capabilities across different nodes.
Recent work has introduced hybrid models that combine both authenticated links and authenticated processes to better reflect these real-world conditions. These models aim to preserve the strong correctness guarantees of Byzantine-resilient protocols while reducing their communication overhead and improving practical deployability.
This thesis builds on these ideas by introducing DualRC, a reliable broadcast protocol that explicitly supports hybrid authentication environments. It also presents a novel routed version of the protocol designed to shift complexity away from intermediate nodes and toward the sender and receiver, thereby improving scalability and efficiency. Alongside the theoretical contribution, this work includes the first implementation of both variants of DualRC and evaluates their performance across a range of network conditions, trust assumptions, and deployment scenarios.
The goal of this thesis is to demonstrate that reliable communication in partially trusted networks is not only possible but can be efficient, practical, and scalable—provided that protocol design embraces the diversity and complexity of modern distributed systems.