Bitcoiners who have dug into the game theory aspect associated with the "Byzantine Generals Problem" and how proof of work solves this problem may have some understanding about what a "Byzantine Fault" is.

For those who don't, it is an error: a byzantine fault tolerant system does not distinguish between them because there is never enough data to determine whether it is a mistake, accident, or malicious intent.

No different to humans, machines make errors. The most basic type of error can stem from a failed transmission, and that can even be no fault of either end of the channel they are sent on.

Similarly, a fault can also be intentional. The most basic fact about all malicious acts is that they are intended to cause an error, which causes the attacker the ability to acquire something that they have no right to.

Only a record of the history of the acts, and errors, of an entity can start to acquire enough data to start to impute malicious intent. When it can be determined that the error would cause profit to the err-er, you can start to build up a probability that the entity is malicious.

Humans can make errors even more easily than machines, even a series of otherwise non-associated relays passing messages across the internet.

Those who we trust, our friends, family who we have a record in our memories of their mostly consistent lack of errors or credible efforts to amend these errors are still prone to errors.

And for some of us, more than others, our track record of errors is above average, and we may have even made extraordinary efforts to correct them, but they happen for various reasons, a common one is memory and attention problems, both organic and chemically- and experientially induced.

You should therefore not trust anyone 100%, and whatever you think is the level of reliabliity you have seen in the past may not be a constant at all times, it can be that someone is going through something that is making them make mistakes far above their normal rate of errors. Or they can even have a birdie in their ear misinforming them about the facts of a situation that leads them to make incorrect judgements that are from errors in their information.

Striving to avoid and correct errors is the mark of a good person. But even the best people are not seeing all of the information and may have sources of information that are being deliberately poisoned.