April 2018
The Byzantine Generals Problem A group of generals, each commandeering a part of the Byzantine army has surrounded an enemy city. To attack the city, all generals have to agree on a battle plan. Generals can communicate via messengers only. The messengers might be captured by the enemy and the message might never reach the other general. The difficulty in the agreement is that one or more generals might be traitors and are interested in sabotaging the battle plan. To this end, they might send fal se messages, distort messages or not send any messages at all. All loyal generals will act according to the plan. A small number of traitors should not cause the loyal generals to adopt a bad plan.