Secure latency estimation with Treeple

A network latency estimation scheme associates a "position" to every peer in a distributed network such that the latency between any two nodes can be accurately estimated from their positions. Applications for these schemes include efficient overlay construction, compact routing, anonymous route selection, and efficient byzantine agreement. We present a new latency estimation scheme, Treeple. Our scheme is different from existing ones in several aspects: Treeple is provably secure, rather than being able to resist known attacks; positions in Treeple are not Euclidean coordinates and reflect the underlying network topology; finally, positions in Treeple are accurate, stable, and can be assigned to peers not participating in the system.