Ethereum is Doomed • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethereum is Doomed

#61

Post by Spivak » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 1:39 AM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #55

JorgeGT wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From The DAO Terms: The terms of The DAO Creation are set forth in the smart contract code existing on the Ethereum blockchain at 0xbb9bc244d798123fde783fcc1c72d3bb8c189413. Nothing in this explanation of terms or in any other document or communication may modify or add any additional obligations or guarantees beyond those set forth in The DAO’s code. Any and all explanatory terms or descriptions are merely offered f…

It's fraud. It doesn't pass the officious bystander test.

Yes, this would be considered fraud in the US legal system, but that's not the point.

* If you have to involve the legal system then the project has failed because the whole point was to have a contract enforcement mechanism which doesn't need a court system.

* If a legal system can override the smart contract then there's no point to even having one since the ultimate authority still resides with the state.

Re: Ethereum is Doomed

#62

Post by endergen » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 1:43 AM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #33

endergen wrote: post #29

I love that Smart Contracts act basically as bug bounties to make the Ethereum systems, community knowledge, and open contracts improve dramatically.

I love how law and court systems are basically bug bounties on legal systems, community knowledge, and social constructs. Society will inevitably improve dramatically. Oh wait, no. We just turned programmers into politicians and lawyers. I think more people will be pissed when they find out that "trust in the system" ultimately means "trust the writer of the smart contract". Unlike law, which has admitted that insane…

I hear your sentiment. But not your argument as much. Politicians and Lawyers are inherently > smart contract writers?

'I think more people will be pissed when they find out that "trust in the system" ultimately means "trust the writer of the smart contract".' How is this different than not trusting Lawyers?

'Unlike law, which has admitted that insane things happen and provides "emergency stops" (ie: Supreme Court can say whatever the heck they want and provide a check against any of Congress's laws)... there isn't really a way to add human "emergency stops" to the equation of Ethereum.' Agreed on using Ethereum contracts anytime in the near future (or ever) for anything life or death or over exposing your self financially is insane. There are plenty of cases that are a better fit for a smart contract system. People should invest affordable proportions of their money.

Re: Ethereum is Doomed

#63

Post by coldtea » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 1:43 AM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #54

IanCal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the hack legal? A system letting you in if you poke it just right doesn't mean you are legally allowed in. I fail to see how a bug in banking software would be any different to the bug in the DAO.

No, it was fraud. I asked a lawyer, and the stealing of $50 million would not be considered a clause of the contract (it doesn't pass the officious bystander test). As much as programmers might try to remove lawyers and courts from our lives, they are vital to actually doing things with other people where you might have a difference of opinion on what a particular agreement means.

First of all, the "officious bystander" test is from English law, not US law.

Second, while there are similar tests in other countries' legal systems, it's not that clear cut whether this would be considered such a case or not -- a single lawyer's opinion aside.

Re: Ethereum is Doomed

#64

Post by dkarapetyan » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 1:50 AM UTC

heliumcraft wrote: post #58

timmytokyo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum is doomed, and not just because it's based on a poor design. It's doomed because it just shot its credibility to shreds by protecting a single, uniquely privileged contract. Forking proves that the ethereum network cannot be trusted as the neutral contract arbitrator it was designed to be. The idea of smart contracts is an interesting one, and perhaps another project will come along and do it better. But Eth…

Based on a poor design? according to who? It's the most advanced blockchain out there by far and wide! This was a single contract with a flaw, it's like saying the whole internet is doomed because some website got a SQL injection.

I don't think "most advanced blockchain out there" is actual praise. Systems, especially systems that are meant to serve as a substrate for more advanced systems must be simple to understand and reason about. Making the foundation turing complete is indeed poor design.

Re: Ethereum is Doomed

#65

Post by aakilfernandes » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 1:51 AM UTC

coldcode wrote: post #48

aakilfernandes wrote: post #23

Here's a better explanation of the attack: http://vessenes.com/more-ethereum-attacks-race-to-empty-is-t... Ethereum is not doomed. But devs do need to be educated of this attack.

It is doomed, who would trust a contract now with real "money"? Unless you have a mathematically rigorous proof that the contract is trustworthy I sure wouldn't.

Hopefully no on ever trusts a contract with 100 mill for a while, but for lower values and simpler contracts... absolutely i would.

Re: Ethereum is Doomed

#66

Post by dkarapetyan » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 1:52 AM UTC

aakilfernandes wrote: post #46

anaphor wrote: post #45

What if they had used a language without the possibility of recursion and without loops? I'm being serious. Languages that disallow certain types of recursion, and disallow loops exist. You'd think they would've used something that actually allows for total functions that are guaranteed to terminate in a certain way, instead of a JavaScript clone...

We want to allow recursion and loops. We want to be able to run arbitrary code. We just need to be a little wiser about how we do it.

How did this madness start? I don't want law to be turing complete. Especially programatic law. Why are people so nonchalant about this? This is not sane design. You want totality and termination proofs. At least that's what I would look for in any programatic system of law.

Re: Ethereum is Doomed

#67

Post by heliumcraft » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 1:55 AM UTC

dkarapetyan wrote: post #64

heliumcraft wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on a poor design? according to who? It's the most advanced blockchain out there by far and wide! This was a single contract with a flaw, it's like saying the whole internet is doomed because some website got a SQL injection.

I don't think "most advanced blockchain out there" is actual praise. Systems, especially systems that are meant to serve as a substrate for more advanced systems must be simple to understand and reason about. Making the foundation turing complete is indeed poor design.

If your goal is a calculator, then a computer is a poor design indeed.

Ethereum is meant to be a platform and goes far beyond what Bitcoin can do.

Re: Ethereum is Doomed

#68

Post by teslaberry » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 1:55 AM UTC

run for the bitcoin hills!.

Re: Ethereum is Doomed

#69

Post by Retra » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 2:10 AM UTC

dkarapetyan wrote: post #64

heliumcraft wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on a poor design? according to who? It's the most advanced blockchain out there by far and wide! This was a single contract with a flaw, it's like saying the whole internet is doomed because some website got a SQL injection.

I don't think "most advanced blockchain out there" is actual praise. Systems, especially systems that are meant to serve as a substrate for more advanced systems must be simple to understand and reason about. Making the foundation turing complete is indeed poor design.

Turing completeness is not an implication of poor anything. All it does is remove certain kinds of generality from your proofs. You can still prove things, you just have to be careful stating what the assumptions are.

Re: Ethereum is Doomed

#70

Post by sp332 » Tue, Jun 21, 2016, 2:15 AM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #42

SlipperySlope wrote: post #2

The programming classic "Mythical Man Month" had a chapter for the "second system effect". Its where developers put lots of complicated features in to the second system in a series. Its a pattern for failure. In this case, Ethereum developers built a much more complicated cryptocurrency by making it Turing complete - to the extent of writing their own new computer language and virtual machine to run it. They skipped…

Is it a case of Second System Effect, or Build One to Throw Away? I don't have an opinion either way, but just pointing out that the very same pattern is also known as a successful one in some cases.

Build one to throw away means you're building the same "system" again, but with more specific requirements based on what you learned. Second system effect is building a bigger system will broader and vaguer requirements.

(Also, Brooks later said: "This I now perceived to be wrong, not because it is too radical, but because it is too simplistic. The biggest mistake in the 'Build one to throw away' concept is that it implicitly assumes the classical sequential or waterfall model of software construction." He wrote a later book, The Design of Design, encouraging iterative development.)