arxiv: 2605.05801 · v1 · submitted 2026-05-07 · 💻 cs.LO · cs.DC

Recognition: unknown

Self-Correcting Gossip Protocols

Giorgio Cignarale , Hans van Ditmarsch , Stephan Felber , Malvin Gattinger , Hugo Rincon Galeana , Vaishnavi Sundararajan

Authors on Pith no claims yet

Pith reviewed 2026-05-08 04:49 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification 💻 cs.LO cs.DC

keywords gossip protocolsself-correcting protocolsdynamic epistemic logictransmission errorsfaulty messagesdistributed computing

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The pith

Dynamic epistemic logic lets gossip protocols self-correct faulty message transmissions without any central coordinator.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The paper investigates gossip protocols that can fix transmission errors caused by faulty messages. It applies dynamic epistemic logic to model how these corrections occur autonomously during protocol execution. This modeling reveals how self-correction changes protocol optimality and how the resulting protocols compare with versions limited to bounded memory or full information.

Core claim

Gossip protocols modeled in dynamic epistemic logic can correct transmission errors due to faulty messages without a central authority coordinating protocol execution, and this correction mechanism affects their optimality relative to bounded memory and full information protocols.

What carries the argument

Dynamic epistemic logic for modeling autonomous correction of faulty messages in gossip protocols.

If this is right

Self-correction of faulty messages occurs without any central authority directing the protocol.
The introduction of self-correction alters the optimality properties of the gossip protocol.
Self-correcting protocols exhibit different optimality behavior than bounded-memory protocols and full-information protocols.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

The approach may generalize to other distributed message-passing systems that must tolerate faults without added detection layers.
One could test whether the same logic framework yields self-correction for larger numbers of agents or higher error rates.

Load-bearing premise

Dynamic epistemic logic provides a framework sufficient to enable self-correction of transmission errors without extra mechanisms or assumptions about error detection.

What would settle it

A concrete gossip protocol execution in which a faulty message transmission cannot be corrected using only the dynamic epistemic logic model and requires either external error detection or central coordination to recover.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2605.05801 by Giorgio Cignarale, Hans van Ditmarsch, Hugo Rincon Galeana, Malvin Gattinger, Stephan Felber, Vaishnavi Sundararajan.

**Figure 1.** Figure 1: Mutual recursion and termination proof. Edge labels say how view at source ↗

**Figure 2.** Figure 2: Overview of results proven in Lean (with links to documentation). view at source ↗

read the original abstract

We investigate self-correcting gossip protocols with errors. In distributed computing, protocols with errors have been widely investigated in temporal epistemic logics. Instead, we propose a dynamic epistemic logic. We show how to correct transmission errors due to faulty messages without a central authority coordinating protocol execution, how this affects optimality, and how this compares to bounded memory and full information protocols.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Desk Editor's Note private letter to a colleague

The paper reframes gossip protocols with transmission errors using dynamic epistemic logic to show autonomous self-correction without central coordination and to compare optimality against bounded-memory and full-information cases.

read the letter

The main takeaway is that they switch from temporal epistemic logic to dynamic epistemic logic to model how agents can correct faulty messages on their own. This lets them describe error correction happening through local information updates rather than external fixes, and they track what that does to the usual optimality bounds while contrasting it with bounded-memory and full-information protocols. The shift in logic seems to give a cleaner way to represent the dynamic changes that errors introduce. The comparisons to other protocol styles are useful for seeing the practical trade-offs in fault-tolerant gossip settings. The modeling looks like a reasonable fit for the problem, and the claims about no central authority needed line up with what the abstract sets out. The soft spots are in the execution details. The abstract stays high-level on the actual protocol definitions and the update rules, so the strength of the self-correction result depends on whether the DEL semantics really deliver correction without extra detection assumptions or hidden coordination. If the proofs are fully worked out and the comparisons are tight, that would be fine, but those parts need checking. This is aimed at people who already work on epistemic logic for distributed systems or on gossip protocols with faults. A reader comfortable with DEL will get the most from the technical parts. It deserves a serious referee to verify the formal claims and see how general the optimality results turn out to be.

Referee Report

1 major / 0 minor

Summary. The manuscript investigates self-correcting gossip protocols that handle transmission errors from faulty messages. It proposes dynamic epistemic logic (rather than temporal epistemic logic) as the modeling framework, claims to demonstrate decentralized correction without a central authority, analyzes the resulting effects on optimality, and compares the approach to bounded-memory and full-information protocols.

Significance. If the modeling, correction mechanisms, and optimality results are formally established, the work would offer a novel application of dynamic epistemic logic to fault-tolerant gossip protocols in distributed computing. This could clarify trade-offs between error correction, memory bounds, and information completeness in a decentralized setting.

major comments (1)

[Abstract] Abstract: the central claims—that transmission errors can be corrected without central coordination, that this affects optimality, and that comparisons to bounded-memory and full-information protocols are possible—are asserted at a high level but are unsupported by any definitions of the protocol, update rules, semantics, optimality criteria, or proof sketches. These elements are load-bearing for the contribution.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

1 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for their review and constructive feedback on our manuscript. We address the major comment below.

read point-by-point responses

Referee: [Abstract] Abstract: the central claims—that transmission errors can be corrected without central coordination, that this affects optimality, and that comparisons to bounded-memory and full-information protocols are possible—are asserted at a high level but are unsupported by any definitions of the protocol, update rules, semantics, optimality criteria, or proof sketches. These elements are load-bearing for the contribution.

Authors: The abstract is intentionally concise, following standard academic practice to summarize contributions within length limits. The full manuscript supplies the supporting elements: the gossip protocol with transmission errors is formally defined in the dynamic epistemic logic setting; update rules for decentralized self-correction of faulty messages (via epistemic state changes without central authority) are specified; the semantics are those of dynamic epistemic logic adapted to error models; optimality criteria are defined as minimizing the number of transmissions needed to reach states where all agents hold correct information; and comparisons to bounded-memory and full-information protocols, including proof sketches, are developed in the technical sections. We can revise the abstract to include brief pointers to these formal components for improved clarity. revision: partial

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No significant circularity

full rationale

The paper proposes using dynamic epistemic logic to model self-correction of transmission errors in gossip protocols without central coordination. The abstract and summary describe a modeling framework, comparisons to bounded-memory and full-information protocols, and effects on optimality. No equations, fitted parameters, self-definitions, or load-bearing self-citations are exhibited that reduce any claimed result to its own inputs by construction. The derivation chain rests on formal semantics and update rules external to any circular reduction, making the work self-contained against external benchmarks in epistemic logic.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 1 axioms · 0 invented entities

Review is based solely on the abstract; no specific free parameters, axioms, or invented entities are detailed in the provided text.

axioms (1)

domain assumption Dynamic epistemic logic can model knowledge updates sufficiently to enable self-correction of transmission errors in gossip protocols
This is the core modeling choice stated in the abstract as the basis for the proposed approach.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5361 in / 1180 out tokens · 64858 ms · 2026-05-08T04:49:11.184706+00:00 · methodology

discussion (0)

Reference graph

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