Collusion Detection for Grid Computing

Abstract

A common technique for result verification in grid computing is to delegate a computation redundantly to different workers and apply majority voting to the returned results. However, the technique is sensitive to "collusion" where a majority of malicious workers collectively returns the same incorrect result. In this paper, we propose a mechanism that identifies groups of colluding workers. The mechanism is based on the fact that colluders can succeed in a vote only when they hold the majority. This information allows us to build clusters of workers that voted similarly in the past, and so detect collusion. We find that the more strongly workers collude, the better they can be identified.