The Byzantine Generals Problem - An Intro To Blockchain

To learn more about Blockchain, please visit the full district0x education portal here:

Learning about Blockchain, Bitcoin and/or Ethereum? We recommend starting with the Byzantine General Problem. BGP is a classic problem faced by any distributed computer system network. Also known as Byzantine Fault Tolerance - solving this problem is the backbone of what makes the blockchain so exciting.

Transcript:

To help understand the blockchain, let’s examine a classic agreement issue known as The Byzantine Generals problem.

In this scenario, several army troops surround a castle they hope to conquer. Each troop has one general designated as the lead.

The troops are dispersed, so a central command is difficult.

To coordinate, the generals must relay a message instructing when to act, but only a simultaneous attack ensures victory.

The problem is that the generals do not know who is loyal and who is a traitor. So how can the generals reach a collective decision and conquer the castle?

This is where blockchain comes to the rescue.

The blockchain uses a distributed ledger, which functions like the distributed attack. Inputs to the ledger (like the attack messages) must be trusted.

Much like the troops surrounding the castle, how can a network trust the other members AND ensure that the messages are valid?

Here is how:

All participating members must agree on every message that is transmitted. If a member is corrupt -OR- the message is corrupt - then the message will be resisted, and the network will not be affected.

Before broadcasting their message to the block - a miner is required to compute a complex “proof-of-work” puzzle. Solving this correctly creates a hash, validates the message, and a “consensus” is reached.

In the case of the Byzantine generals, proof of work on the blockchain ensures that they can only send trusted messages to the troops, which guarantees a successful coordinated attack.

For additional information on the concepts covered in this video, or to learn more about blockchain and the technology it powers, check out the additional content modules within the education portal.

[abdulrahmanzaki]

I almost didn't understand what is he talking about, but I was very satisfied with the animation lol !

[dj]

This is an excellent example of a very poor explanation of BGP.

[chiabeast]

What's the name of the jingle in the background? It's pretty good!

[BadSavage]

I'm still trying to figure out what this is going to get used for I know it's not going to be for an attacking a castle.

All's I know is it's 4 cents and I went to 50 cents . Please be good 😂

[tablab]

This is like the underpants gnomes version of the Byzantine Generals' Problem. Step one, send some encrypted messages; step step three, successful attack!

[DeFiKoch]

When the blockchain is hacked, and blocks are counterfeited, because the chain is distributed evenly/decentrally - those counterfeits are clearly spotted as every action/step is saved to it’s corresponding time - the earlier being the real.

[JC-XL]

Worst explanation ever. They never clearly stated the problem or solution, and just to make it even worse threw in the proof of work mention

[aaronschultz]

So... solved with the magic of the blockchain.

[eternaldoorman]

This guy sounds so happy he makes me feel gay! 😂

[chrissgchriss]

Was all good until the miner showed up. He just read off the tech papers we all read before coming here. No insight given. Here is mine. Let’s say you got 10 friends. One of your friends tells you your girlfriend is cheating. The others say no. You would more than likely trust the other friends consensus - where all your friends are trusted equally. So how many friends have to tell you girlfriend is cheating - until the message that she is NOT cheating is deemed incorrect. Which means she is cheating? 4? 6? Because all 10 friends don’t act independently - the 10 friends know each other - hence the mining of all the friends info of what they know about the girl. Then they give you their consensus of girlfriend cheating is true or false. That’s my explanation. Am I close? The mining is just the guy checking out everyone’s data to see if it matches.