Byzantine Generals

From A comparison of the Byzantine Agreement problem and the Transaction Commit Problem. Jim Gray. 1990

The Byzantine Generals Problem grew out of attempts to build a fault-tolerant computer to control an unstable aircraft. The goal was to fred a design_that could tolerate arbitrary faults in the computer. The designers assumed that they could verify the computer software, so the only remaining problem was faulty hardware. Faulty computer hardware can execute even CO~Tect programs in crazy ways. So, the designers postulated that most computers functioned correctly, but some functioned in the most malicious way conceivable. Thus, the Byzantine Generals Problem was formulated [6], [4].