CSE 223a Winter 2004
Homework 4
Due March 12, 2004


Please submit your answers by 2:00 PM on March 12 via e-mail to marzullo@cs.ucsd.edu. Use as a subject line your name and that the message is a solution to this homework (e.g., Ivan Ivanov CSE223a Homework 4 solutions).
  1. In the Masking Byzantine Quorum system algorithm of Malkhi and Reiter, the replication requirement is n > 4t. In their algorithm, to write, a client sends an update to all of the servers. The write operation returns when the client gets acknowledgements from some quorum Qw  of servers. To read a value, the client gets a set of values from some quorum Qr of servers. If B is the set of faulty servers, then  Qr - Qw - B are the servers that can have "stale" values. This algorithm implements a multiple writer, multiple reader safe register.

  2. Notice that the write operation will eventually send an update to all of the servers, including the servers in Qr - B. Use this observation to develop another Masking Byzantine Quorum System algorithm that requires less replication than n > 4t. Give the new replication replication requirement and explain what semantics it implements (such as a multiple writer, multiple reader safe register).

  3. In the indistinguishable failstop algorithm, indistinguishability is based on a simple set of events: send, receive, and so on. Suppose that we included events that represented reading and writing to files. Show that the iFS properties iFS1 and iFS2a-d are not sufficient to ensure that an executions is indistinguishable from an execution in FS.