METHOD AND SYSTEM THAT DETERMINE MALICIOUS NODES IN A DISTRIBUTED COMPUTATION NETWORK

A computation is divided into computation tasks that are sent to worker nodes and distributed results are received in response. A redundant subtask is sent to each of the worker nodes, the redundant subtask being a random linear combination of the computation tasks sent to others of the worker nodes. The worker nodes perform the redundant subtasks to produce redundant results. The redundant result of each worker node is combined with distributed results of others of the worker nodes to determine whether one or more of the worker nodes are acting maliciously. Optionally, the worker nodes can be initially evaluated for trustworthiness using a homomorphic hash function applied to an initial computation task and applied to results of the initial tasks. If the results of both hash functions match, then the worker nodes are considered trustworthy and can be used for subsequent computations with redundant subtasks as described above.