the Byzantine Generals Problem

The Byzantine Generals Problem illustrates challenges in achieving consensus among distributed parties, especially when some may act dishonestly or fail to communicate properly. Imagine a group of army generals surrounding a city who must decide on a common attack strategy. They must communicate through messengers, but some generals might betray the group by sending false messages or failing to show up. The problem highlights the difficulty of ensuring that all loyal generals agree on a single course of action, which is crucial in decentralized systems like computer networks or blockchain, where trust and reliability are essential despite the risk of failures or deception.