Specification Faithfulness in Networks with Rational Nodes

• Main Authors: Jeffrey Shneidman, David C. Parkes
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2004
• Subjects: Algorithms; Design; Economics. Keywords Distributed Algorithmic Mechanism Design; Computational Mechanism Design; Rational Manipulation; Algorithm Compatibility; Communication Compatibility; Incentive Compatibility; Failure Models; Rational Failure; sami
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.2.3968; http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/econcs/bib/./cache/shneidman04.pdf

It is useful to prove that an implementation correctly follows a specification. But even with a provably correct implementation, given a choice, would a node choose to follow it? This paper explores how to create distributed system specifications that will be faithfully implemented in networks with rational nodes, so that no node will choose to deviate. Given a strategyproof centralized mechanism, and given a network of nodes modeled as having rational-manipulation faults, we provide a proof technique to establish the incentive-, communication-, and algorithm-compatibility properties that guarantee that participating nodes are faithful to a suggested specification. As a case study, we apply our methods to extend the strategyproof interdomain routing mechanism proposed by Feigenbaum, Papadimitriou, Sami, and Shenker (FPSS) [7], defining a faithful implementation.