FROST Federation

A federation of nodes running FROST to generate threshold signatures for itself and on the request of clients.

The federation also saves and synchronises data and commands sent by clients. The federation then runs a priori known validation scheme on the data before generating a threshold signature.

System Model

Network Connectivity

1. A federation of nodes with point to point network connectivity.

2. All point to point connections are authenticate and confidential using Noise Protocol.

3. All point to point connections are reliable with no ordering guarantees.

4. Echo-broadcast between all nodes to satisfy the FROST broadcast channel requirements.

5. Clocks synchronised using ntp to satisfy partial synchrony requirements.

Round Time

1. Round time of 5 seconds [TODO: Determine this if this is enough for a network of size 100 nodes, and then adjust this as required]

Federation Clients

1. Clients connect to any node in the federation and send data and commands to any node in the federation.

2. The federation synchronises data and commands received from clients.

Threshold Signatures

1. The federation runs preprocessing DKG rounds every fixed interval

2. On client requests or on the need from within the federation, a threshold signature is generated for the provided message.

Validate Before Signing

1. The federation is provided a validation protocol it runs on the synchronised data, before it generates a threshold signature.

2. This allows clients to use the federation as a BFT validation and signature generation service