ODIN: Tamper-Resistant Round Trip Time Measurement for Distributed Systems
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Measuring round trip time (RTT) in a hostile network is an unsolved problem in distributed systems engineering. Accurate RTT measurements are important for distributed systems in which timing packet arrival is useful, such as in a decentralized exchange (DEX) with fairness guarantees. In this paper we present a new RTT measurement algorithm for securely measuring RTT to an untrusted server. We measure the RTT indirectly in order to prevent tampering since a malicious node operator can arbitrarily change any RTT measurement that interacts with his machine. The algorithm approximates the RTT to a node by measuring the RTT to the node that serves the /24 subnet containing the target node's IP address. This new RTT measurement algorithm provides an accurate, practical, and generic solution for collecting network latency data in a hostile network environment.
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