Resource-competitive analysis
Seth Lewis Gilbert, Jared Saia, Valerie Jean King, Maxwell Young · 2012
In the spirit of competitive analysis, approximation guarantees, and game-theoretic treatments, we introduce an approach to evaluating the performance of attack-resistant algorithms in distributed systems. This new approach, which we call resource-competitive analysis, is concerned with the worst-case ratio of the cost incurred by an algorithm to the cost incurred by any adversarial strategy. Here, the notion of cost corresponds to any network resource such as band-width, computational power, or an onboard energy supply. An adversary who attacks the system is assumed to control and coordinate a large number of Byzantine users that can exhibit arbitrary deviation from any prescribed protocol; in other words, the adversary may select any strategy, whether it be rational or not.