Dfinity Stiftung

Timo Hanke

Dominic Williams

Mahnush Movahedi

Manu Drijvers

Robert Lauko

An aspect of the invention relates to a distributed network comprising a plurality of network nodes. The distributed network is configured to perform a method for reaching a consensus on a sequence of values in an advantageous manner. The method performs consecutive notarization rounds. The notarization rounds comprise steps of creating value proposals to be added to the sequence, communicating the value proposals to a notarization subset of the plurality of nodes and performing a validity check of received value proposals. The notarization rounds may comprise further steps of executing individual notarization signatures on a subset of the value proposals that are valid. The notarization rounds may further comprise performing a consistency check of the value proposals and executing consistency signatures on a subset of the value proposals. The method may further comprise a finality procedure to finalize a value proposal once a predefined finality rule set has been fulfilled.

Distributed network with consensus mechanism

According to an embodiment of a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a computer-implemented method for operating a distributed network. The distributed network comprises a plurality of nodes. The network comprises one or more subnets. The method comprises steps of running a set of computational units and assigning each of the computational units to one of the plurality of subnets according to a subnet-assignment, thereby creating an assigned subset of the set of computational units for each of the subnets. The method further comprises running on each node of the plurality of subnets the assigned subset of the computational units, wherein the computational units are configured to execute computations in a deterministic manner, thereby replicating the assigned subsets of the computational units on replicas across the respective subnet. The method further comprises running a consensus component, the consensus component being configured to reach a consensus on input blocks to be processed by the replicas of a respective subnet. The method further comprises measuring, by each of the replicas of a subnet, replica-local data, reporting, by each of the replicas of a subnet, the replica-local data to the consensus component and utilizing the replica-local data for an analysis, in particular a statistical analysis, of the computations executed across the respective subnet. Further aspects of the invention relate to a corresponding distributed network, a node, a computer program product and a software architecture.

Operation of a distributed deterministic network

A software architecture encoded on a non-transitory computer readable medium, where the software architecture includes a creation protocol, wherein the creation protocol is configured to create a plurality of dealing messages. The software architecture additionally includes a reading protocol, wherein the reading protocol is configured to read the dealing message to a receiver node of the selected group, wherein the receiver node is different from a dealer node whose information is contained in the corresponding dealing message. Moreover, the software architecture includes a verification protocol, wherein the verification protocol is configured to verify veracity of the corresponding dealing message, wherein the verification protocol is configured to be run by the receiver node. Further, the software architecture includes a complaint protocol, wherein the complaint protocol is configured to generate a complaint message, wherein the complaint message is signed by the receiver node.

System architecture for executing a distributed key generation protocol

A software architecture encoded on a non-transitory computer readable medium, where the software architecture includes a first protocol, wherein the first protocol is configured to form a plurality of groups, wherein each group of the plurality of groups comprises a set of randomly selected nodes from a network. The software architecture further includes a second protocol, wherein the second protocol is configured to randomly select a first group from the plurality of groups formed by the first protocol. Additionally, the software architecture includes a third protocol, wherein the third protocol is configured to designate the first group to sign a first message by generating a first group signature. Furthermore, the software architecture includes a hash function, wherein the hash function is configured to generate a hash value from the first group signature.

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Timo Hanke