Byzantine fault tolerance enables distributed systems to reach consensus despite malicious actors.
Key concepts:
- Byzantine generals problem: Reaching agreement with traitors
- 3f+1 rule: Need 3f+1 nodes to tolerate f faulty nodes
- PBFT: Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance algorithm
- Quorum: 2f+1 matching votes needed for consensus
Byzantine nodes (red) may send conflicting messages to disrupt consensus.