Research corpus ConsensusBLC-STUDY-0146

The Byzantine Generals Problem

With oral messages, more than two thirds must be loyal. With signed messages, any number of traitors can be tolerated if a loyal commander is heard.

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Record

Authors: Leslie Lamport, Robert Shostak and Marshall Pease
Date: 1982
Publisher: Leslie Lamport, Robert Shostak and Marshall Pease
Version: Source cited by the 1982 study. The study is the reading. This page does not add a second essay.
Document ID: BLC-STUDY-0146
DOI: None recorded
Last reviewed: 1 October 2026
Licence: No licence recorded. Rights status under review.

No hash is published. This build does not store those PDF bytes, so a checksum would be invented. Where a legacy path exists, it points at the Internet Archive copy of the old library.

Direct answer

With oral messages, more than two thirds must be loyal. With signed messages, any number of traitors can be tolerated if a loyal commander is heard.

Where to read

Official source — Lamport, Shostak, Pease
Blockchain Lab study, the canonical readingOriginal commentary. Not a transcription of the paper.

Metadata and commentary only. The reading is the study page.

Full text

Full text is not published on this page. Public availability is not a licence to republish a document. Blockchain Lab has not recorded a licence that permits an HTML transcription, a training set, or a retrieval corpus of the paper. Text on this page is Blockchain Lab's own wording, or a pointer to a study that is also Blockchain Lab's wording.

What changed

A reading of the public document. Not a copy of it, and not a claim about a later network that reused the name.

Relationships

Canonical readingByzantine Generals study
Related paperPBFT
Related paperHotStuff

Cite this record

These citations point at the source document. They are not a licence to copy it.

Author–date

Lamport, L., Shostak, R., & Pease, M. (1982). The Byzantine Generals Problem. Leslie Lamport, Robert Shostak and Marshall Pease. https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/byz.pdf

BibTeX

@techreport{byzantinegenerals1982,
  title = {The Byzantine Generals Problem},
  author = {Leslie Lamport, Robert Shostak and Marshall Pease},
  year = {1982},
  institution = {Leslie Lamport, Robert Shostak and Marshall Pease},
  url = {https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/byz.pdf},
  note = {Rights status: Official external source only. Blockchain Lab record: https://blockchainlab.com/research/corpus/papers/byzantine-generals}
}

RIS

TY  - RPRT
TI  - The Byzantine Generals Problem
AU  - Leslie Lamport
AU  - Robert Shostak
AU  - Marshall Pease
PY  - 1982
PB  - Leslie Lamport, Robert Shostak and Marshall Pease
UR  - https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/byz.pdf
N1  - Rights status: Official external source only
ER  -

CSL-JSON

[
  {
    "type": "report",
    "id": "BLC-STUDY-0146",
    "title": "The Byzantine Generals Problem",
    "author": [
      {
        "literal": "Leslie Lamport"
      },
      {
        "literal": "Robert Shostak"
      },
      {
        "literal": "Marshall Pease"
      }
    ],
    "issued": {
      "date-parts": [
        [
          1982
        ]
      ]
    },
    "publisher": "Leslie Lamport, Robert Shostak and Marshall Pease",
    "URL": "https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/byz.pdf",
    "note": "Rights status: Official external source only. Not a licence to republish the paper."
  }
]

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Rights record

Source status: Official source
Use status: Metadata and commentary only. The reading is the study page.
Rights: Official external source only
Training and retrieval: Not permitted from this site. There is no rights-cleared full text to retrieve or to train on.

Rights and licensing Corrections