METHOD FOR ACHIEVING BYZANTINE AGREEMENT WITH EARLY STOPPING AND WITHOUT AUTHENTICATION.

The general context for Byzantine Agreement is a network of n processors that have a means for conducting several synchronized phases of information exchange, after which they must all agree on some set of information. Byzantine Agreement results when, in the presence of undetected faulty processors, all correct processors are able to agree either on the value sent by the originator or on the conclusion that the originator is faculty. The method proposed permits Byzantine Agreement without using authentication; however, it allows one to stop early under many usual circumstances. Thus, the method can be both efficient in terms of early stopping time when only a few faults occur and reliable in the sense of handling many potential faults.