Byzantine Generals Problem
E105795
The Byzantine Generals Problem is a classic computer science and distributed systems thought experiment that illustrates the difficulty of achieving reliable consensus among participants in the presence of faulty or malicious actors.
All labels observed (5)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Byzantine Generals Problem canonical | 4 |
| Byzantine agreement | 1 |
| Byzantine agreement problem | 1 |
| Byzantine fault tolerance | 1 |
| The Byzantine Generals Problem | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T886648 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Byzantine Generals Problem Context triple: [Leslie Lamport, knownFor, Byzantine Generals Problem]
-
A.
Paxos
Paxos is a small Greek island in the Ionian Sea, known for its clear turquoise waters, olive groves, and tranquil, less-touristed atmosphere.
-
B.
Merkle puzzles
Merkle puzzles are an early cryptographic protocol that introduced the concept of public-key exchange by allowing two parties to establish a shared secret over an insecure channel using computationally asymmetric “puzzle” problems.
-
C.
Diffie–Hellman key exchange
Diffie–Hellman key exchange is a foundational cryptographic protocol that enables two parties to securely establish a shared secret over an insecure communication channel.
-
D.
Algorand blockchain protocol
Algorand blockchain protocol is a scalable, secure, and energy-efficient public blockchain platform designed by cryptographer Silvio Micali that uses a pure proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
-
E.
Secrecy, Authentication, and Public Key Systems
"Secrecy, Authentication, and Public Key Systems" is Ralph Merkle's influential doctoral thesis that helped lay the foundations of modern public-key cryptography and secure communication protocols.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Byzantine Generals Problem Target entity description: The Byzantine Generals Problem is a classic computer science and distributed systems thought experiment that illustrates the difficulty of achieving reliable consensus among participants in the presence of faulty or malicious actors.
-
A.
Paxos
Paxos is a small Greek island in the Ionian Sea, known for its clear turquoise waters, olive groves, and tranquil, less-touristed atmosphere.
-
B.
Merkle puzzles
Merkle puzzles are an early cryptographic protocol that introduced the concept of public-key exchange by allowing two parties to establish a shared secret over an insecure channel using computationally asymmetric “puzzle” problems.
-
C.
Diffie–Hellman key exchange
Diffie–Hellman key exchange is a foundational cryptographic protocol that enables two parties to securely establish a shared secret over an insecure communication channel.
-
D.
Algorand blockchain protocol
Algorand blockchain protocol is a scalable, secure, and energy-efficient public blockchain platform designed by cryptographer Silvio Micali that uses a pure proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.
-
E.
Secrecy, Authentication, and Public Key Systems
"Secrecy, Authentication, and Public Key Systems" is Ralph Merkle's influential doctoral thesis that helped lay the foundations of modern public-key cryptography and secure communication protocols.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
computer science problem
ⓘ
distributed systems problem ⓘ thought experiment ⓘ |
| addressesProblem |
agreement in distributed systems with unreliable components
ⓘ
consensus with arbitrary (Byzantine) faults ⓘ |
| appliedIn |
blockchain systems
ⓘ
cryptocurrency consensus ⓘ distributed databases ⓘ mission-critical distributed control systems ⓘ replicated state machines ⓘ |
| assumes |
asynchronous or partially synchronous communication
ⓘ
message passing between processes ⓘ |
| describes |
Byzantine failures
ⓘ
coordination among distributed processes ⓘ difficulty of achieving agreement in presence of faulty or malicious actors ⓘ |
| difficulty |
messages may be lost, delayed, or forged
ⓘ
traitors can send conflicting information to different parties ⓘ |
| field |
computer science
ⓘ
cryptography ⓘ distributed computing ⓘ game theory ⓘ |
| formalResult |
requires at least 2f+1 rounds in some models to tolerate f Byzantine faults
ⓘ
requires at least 3f+1 processes to tolerate f Byzantine faults in synchronous systems ⓘ |
| goal |
agreement despite presence of traitors
ⓘ
all loyal generals agree on a common plan of action ⓘ |
| hasAuthor |
Leslie Lamport
ⓘ
Marshall Pease ⓘ Robert Shostak ⓘ |
| implies | need for Byzantine fault tolerant algorithms ⓘ |
| influenceOn |
design of secure distributed protocols
ⓘ
research on consensus in adversarial environments ⓘ |
| inspired |
Byzantine fault tolerant consensus protocols
ⓘ
Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance ⓘ |
| involves |
loyal generals
ⓘ
traitorous generals ⓘ unreliable messengers ⓘ |
| mainTopic |
Byzantine Generals Problem
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Byzantine fault tolerance
consensus ⓘ fault tolerance ⓘ reliability in distributed systems ⓘ |
| originalPaperTitle |
Byzantine Generals Problem
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
The Byzantine Generals Problem
|
| publicationYear | 1982 ⓘ |
| publishedIn | ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
Byzantine fault
ⓘ
Byzantine fault tolerance ⓘ FLP impossibility result ⓘ consensus algorithm ⓘ state machine replication ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Byzantine Generals Problem Description of subject: The Byzantine Generals Problem is a classic computer science and distributed systems thought experiment that illustrates the difficulty of achieving reliable consensus among participants in the presence of faulty or malicious actors.
Referenced by (8)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Byzantine fault tolerance
Byzantine Generals Problem
→
originalPaperTitle
→
Byzantine Generals Problem
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
this entity surface form:
The Byzantine Generals Problem
subject surface form:
The Part-Time Parliament
subject surface form:
Reaching Agreement in the Presence of Faults
subject surface form:
Reaching Agreement in the Presence of Faults
this entity surface form:
Byzantine agreement
subject surface form:
Reaching Agreement in the Presence of Faults
subject surface form:
Reaching Agreement in the Presence of Faults
this entity surface form:
Byzantine agreement problem