> Byzantine has I think been misused. It’s the least number of good members you need to be successful, not the best number.
Could you elaborate? It sounds like you are talking more about challenges of distributed consensus (elections, raft). What I have in mind is distributed peering algorithms for decentralized networks. No consensus, elections, or quorum required. You may wish to run consensus algos on top of such networks but that's one layer up, if you will.
Byzantine in the context of unpermissioned networks is often explained as the sybil problem, which maps to the issues you mention.
Applying OP to this setting wouldn't mitigate that but I'm thinking it can be used as a framework to model and reason about these systems. Perhaps even prove certain properties (assuming some form of sybil resistance mechanism, I guess).
A distributed network still needs to figure out either the best route or best routes to get packets into and out of the network. Even if you assume cryptography to deal with the MITM issue.
Think about how BGP makes the front page news about once every couple of years.
Uhm, sure? By running simulations we can evaluate various scenarios. The results referenced in OP look applicable for modeling and evaluation. For BGP as well.
Any CS students out there looking for thesis material? :)