Assignment of roles in communication when sides could try to cheat

Posted by 9000 on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by 9000
Published on 2012-11-13T02:55:11Z Indexed on 2012/11/13 5:14 UTC
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Assume two nodes in a peer-to-peer network initiating a communication.

In this communication, one node has to serve as a "sender", another as a "receiver" (role names are arbitrary here).

I'd like the nodes to assert either role with approximately equal probability. That is, in N communications with various other nodes a given node would assume the "sender" role roughly N/2 times. Since there's no third-party arbiter available, nodes should agree on their roles by exchanging messages.

The catch is that we can encounter a rogue node which would try to become the "receiver" in most or all cases, and coax the other side to always serve as a "sender".

I'm looking for an algorithm to assign roles to sides of communication so that no side could get a predetermined role with high probability. It's OK for the side which is trying to cheat to fail to communicate.

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