Byzantine fault tolerance

From an essay by American computer scientist Robert Shostak, who simplified the computing problem in a hypothetical siege by the Byzantine Empire. In the siege, a group of Byzantine generals, without central command and physically separated, need to vote to determine whether all troops should besiege the fortress or withdraw. Faults are metaphorized with traitors who could vote selectively and messengers delivering the votes, who could fail to deliver votes or forge them.

Byzantine fault tolerance (usually uncountable, plural Byzantine fault tolerances)

1. (computing) The dependability of a fault-tolerant (distributed) computer system, where components may fail without perfect information about the state of the components.

   Synonym: BFT

   • 2020, Joseph Holbrook, Architecting Enterprise Blockchain Solutions, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 121:

     Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) came about since it represents a valid solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem. BFT is a crucial part of an effective blockchain platform, and there are multiple ways in which tolerance can be implemented.

• Byzantine attack

• Byzantine fault on Wikipedia.Wikipedia