The LotusEater Attack

1
The Lotus-Eater Attack

• Ian A. Kash
• Cornell University
• Joint work with Eric J. Friedman
• and Joseph Y. Halpern

They started at once, and went about among the
Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them
to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that
those who ate of it left off caring about home -
The Odyssey
2
Satiable Systems

• Satiable A user stops providing service if he
  receives sufficient service.
• Satiable systems arise from Tit-for-tat-like
  designs
• BitTorrent Cohen 03
• BAR Gossip Li et al. 06

3
The Lotus-Eater Attack

• Provide excellent service to some portion of the
  system.
• Those nodes are satiated and stop providing
  service.
• Remaining nodes receive reduced or no service.

4
Attacking BAR Gossip
5
Conclusions

• Designing systems to account for user incentives
  sometimes creates opportunities for attacks
• In satiable systems, one way to be bad is to be
  very, very good.
• Thanks!