!!! Overview[1][2][3]
[{$pagename}] is a thought experiment meant to illustrate the pitfalls and design challenges of attempting to coordinate an action] by communicating over an unreliable link.

[{$pagename}] is about obtaining [Distributed Consensus]

[{$pagename}] is related to the more general [Byzantine Generals Problem] (though published long before that later generalization) and appears often in introductory classes about computer networking. [{$pagename}] shows that [Transmission Control Protocol] ([TCP]) can not guarantee state consistency between endpoints and why, though it applies to any type of two party communication where failures of communication are possible. 

A key concept in epistemic logic, this problem highlights the importance of common knowledge. 

[{$pagename}] was the first computer communication problem to be proved to be unsolvable. An important consequence of this proof is that generalizations like the [Byzantine Generals Problem] are also unsolvable in the face of arbitrary communication failures, thus providing a base of realistic expectations for any [Distributed Consensus] [protocols].

Systems that are [Byzantine Fault Tolerance] ([BFT]) are "tolerant" of the [{$pagename}] and the [Byzantine Generals Problem]

!! More Information
There might be more information for this subject on one of the following:
[{ReferringPagesPlugin before='*' after='\n' }]
----
* [#1] - [Two_Generals%27_Problem|Wikipedia:Two_Generals%27_Problem|target='_blank'] - based on information obtained 2016-08-28- 
* [#2] - [Byzantine_fault_tolerance|Wikipedia:Byzantine_fault_tolerance|target='_blank'] - based on information obtained 2016-08-29- 
* [#3] - [The Byzantine Generals Problem|http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/byz.pdf|target='_blank'] - based on information obtained 2016-08-29-