Scalable and Secure Polling in Dynamic Distributed Networks

We consider the problem of securely conducting a poll in synchronous dynamic networks equipped with a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Whereas previous distributed solutions had a communication cost of O(n(2)) in an n nodes system, we present SPP (Secure and Private Polling), the first distributed polling protocol requiring only a communication complexity of O(n log(3) n), which we prove is near-optimal. Our protocol ensures perfect security against a computationally-bounded adversary, tolerates (1/2 - epsilon)n Byzantine nodes for any constant 1/2 > epsilon > 0 (not depending on n), and outputs the exact value of the poll with high probability. SPP is composed of two sub-protocols, which we believe to be interesting on their own: SPP-Overlay maintains a structured overlay when nodes leave or join the network, and SPP-Computation conducts the actual poll. We validate the practicality of our approach through experimental evaluations and describe briefly two possible applications of SPP: (1) an optimal Byzantine Agreement protocol whose communication complexity is Theta(n log n) and (2) a protocol solving an open question of King and Saia in the context of aggregation functions, namely on the feasibility of performing multiparty secure aggregations with a communication complexity of o(n(2)).