Experimental analysis of privacy loss in DCOP algorithms

Distributed Constraint Optimization (DCOP) is rapidly emerging as a prominent technique for multiagent coordination. Unfortunately, rigorous quantitative evaluations of privacy loss in DCOP algorithms have been lacking despite the fact that agent privacy is a key motivation for applying DCOPs in many applications. Recently, Maheswaran et al. [3, 4] introduced a framework for quantitative evaluations of privacy in DCOP algorithms, showing that early DCOP algorithms lose more privacy than purely centralized approaches and questioning the motivation for applying DCOPs. Do state-of-the art DCOP algorithms suffer from a similar shortcoming? This paper answers that question by investigating the most efficient DCOP algorithms, including both DPOP and ADOPT.

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