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Single-Bit Messages Are Insufficient in the Presence of Duplication

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Distributed Computing – IWDC 2005 (IWDC 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 3741))

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Abstract

Ideal communication channels in asynchronous systems are reliable, deliver messages in FIFO order, and do not deliver spurious or duplicate messages. A message vocabulary of size two (i.e., single-bit messages) suffices to encode and transmit messages of arbitrary finite length over such channels. This note proves that single-bit messages are insufficient once channels potentially deliver duplicate messages. In particular, it is shown that no protocol allows the sender to notify the receiver which of three values it holds, over a bidirectional, reliable, FIFO channel that may duplicate messages. This implies that messages must encode some additional control information, e.g., in the form of headers or tags.

Work was partially supported by ARC Discovery Grant RM02036.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales, and NICTA, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

    Kai Engelhardt

  2. Department of Electrical Engineering, Technion, Haifa, 32000, Israel

    Yoram Moses

Authors
  1. Kai Engelhardt
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  2. Yoram Moses
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India

    Ajit Pal

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago, 60607, Chicago, Illinois

    Ajay D. Kshemkalyani

  3. Computer Science and Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, 721 302, Kharagpur, WB, India

    Rajeev Kumar

  4. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, 721 302, Kharagpur, India

    Arobinda Gupta

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Engelhardt, K., Moses, Y. (2005). Single-Bit Messages Are Insufficient in the Presence of Duplication. In: Pal, A., Kshemkalyani, A.D., Kumar, R., Gupta, A. (eds) Distributed Computing – IWDC 2005. IWDC 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3741. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11603771_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11603771_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-30959-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32428-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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