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153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

etherscan.io

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Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#261

Post by davidgerard »

kbenson wrote: post #235
wheelerwj wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i know that you're not really serious when you generalize against all of us crypto simpletons, but anytime theres a stupid amount of money on the table people are bound to rush to pick it up. and that means mistakes. the work being done on public blockchains is unlike anything else done before. You don't have he luxury of keeping your db behind a vpn running on a vm platform secured and maintained by the worlds large…

I think a big part of the complaint is about the implicit assumption that because people are smart, and have experience with cryptography, they necessarily have the experience to design a sane and safe programming language given their goals. They did put themselves way out there, and that takes ambition, but also hubris. I wish they were able to figure out which one was driving them at certain points a bit better, as…

Actually, I think Solidity being designed to turn bad node.js coders into bad smart contract coders was key to Ethereum's success.

I've written a book on this (hit upload five minutes ago! release Monday!) which hammers on this point (and all the stuff surrounding this issue). I think Solidity is actually designed with worse is better in mind, because Ethereum is the first smart contract platform that anyone actually used. Some tried doing them in Bitcoin, but Ethereum's the first that gets lots of action. And so many other blockchains lift the smart contract functionality straight from Ethereum.

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#262

Post by ridgeguy »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #58
finnh wrote: post #11

I've posted this before [0], but it's still apropos regarding the foolishness that is Ethereum. [Ethereum] only makes sense if all of the following obtain: (a) the code is 100% bug-free (b/c accidents cannot be rewound) (b) all code-writers are 100% honest (their code does what they say) (c) all contract participants are 100% perfect code readers (so as to not enter into fraudulent contracts) (Strictly speaking, only…

This is somehow the top comment, but doesn't deal with the issue at hand. In fact it entirely ignores it. The theft wasn't due to an issue in the core protocol of Ethereum, it's due to faulty code in a single piece of software (as you can see throughout the rest of the thread). It's a matter of poor engineering practices, not a flaw in the fundamentals of the protocol. If an engineer designed a bridge, and it failed…

I have zero domain expertise in cryptocurrencies or Ethereum, but much experience with unexpected failures of "guaranteed" things and processes.

To use your analogy - I'd view the bridge design engineer as having guaranteed that the design process could not possibly result in construction of a bridge that fails. That seems closer to what Ethereum would have us believe.

A bridge design domain expert presumably understands: - that design process uses strut calculations (and therefore includes measures to guarantee those calculations can never be wrong); - that bridges may be built from steel (and therefore includes inspection routines that guarantee faulty steel can never be used); - that the environment acts on bridges through corrosion and earthquakes (and therefore includes routines that absolutely always preclude failures arising from the bridge's environment); - etc., etc., etc.

Maybe it's just my ignorance or misunderstanding of this domain, but I see Ethereum as naive in its guarantee of perfectly predictable behavior.

A guaranteed flawless protocol that fails (for whatever reason) when implemented in reality, isn't.

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#263

Post by nebulous1 »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #245
ChrisClark wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't a third party wallet actually. It is the local Parity wallet and node. What this was, was a bug in the multisig contract that Parity would give you to deploy. So it is a contract you personally deploy onto the ethereum network and then interact with. You do own it, you own the private keys for the address, etc. But the bug allowed any other address to add themselves as owners and withdraw from it. Luckily…

https://github.com/paritytech/parity About Parity Parity's goal is to be the fastest, lightest, and most secure Ethereum client. We are developing Parity using the sophisticated and cutting-edge Rust programming language. Parity is licensed under the GPLv3, and can be used for all your Ethereum needs. Parity comes with a built-in wallet. How is this not a third-party wallet? They say right on the page that they're tr…

You compared it to Mt Gox, which is where the confusion is coming from. With an online service like Mt Gox you don't have control of the coins at all.

I have no issue using an open source implementation of something. You haven't explained why that's an issue.

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#264

Post by Claire88 »

lomnakkus wrote: post #238
dvcc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would an unmarked function get the broadest possible scope in a language designed for contracts? I'm always surprised by the decisions made around Ethereum, and just how much value people have poured into it.

It's a good indicator that these people may be experts in one area, but not necessarily in others. Language design is actually notoriously difficult in general[1], but if you're doing language design for a security-critical language[2]... well, that requires actual mechanized proof , IMO. Not just proof of "design", but proof of the implementation. Anything else is a huge gamble. (And I'm sure there are some 'investo…

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Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#265

Post by davidgerard »

theseatoms wrote: post #211
jacopofar2 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for that DAO of last summer, in that case the law changed...

Ethereum's original sin

The DAO hit every objection from smart contract skeptics, bang bang bang - legal code doesn't work at all like computer code, immutability means you can't fix mistakes, immutability means you can't deal with changes in circumstance, immutability means you must code with 0 bugs - but even we were surprised when they went "lol immutability guarantee" the second the big boys were in danger of losing money.

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#266

Post by cesarb »

oh_sigh wrote: post #173
resf wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a blockchain, the participants in the network have unlimited authority to modify the "law" of the blockchain, even retroactively. If there is sufficient consensus among Ethereum users for a hard fork, then it can happen.

Yes, and that 'feature' of block chains is never really touted by blockchain supporters. Basically, if 51% of the network think you have too much money, they can just take it from you with no recourse available.

> Basically, if 51% of the network think you have too much money, they can just take it from you with no recourse available.

That's not how it works. Even if you had 99.99% of the hash rate, you still have to work within the rules of the chain, so a "give me your money" without a valid signature would still be rejected as invalid by every full node (and you just wasted your hashing power). What having 51% or more of the hash rate allows is a double spend attack: you can undo recent transactions, so you can spend a coin twice.

But the rules of the chain can be changed. If for instance 90% of the full nodes decide to change their software so that "give me your money" is now valid in some special circumstance X even without a valid signature, and that "give me your money" transaction is sent to the network, these 90% of the nodes will allow it to be added to the chain, and let the chain grow on top of it; while the other 10% will grow a separate chain on top of the last block without the "give me your money" transaction. Soon, each side has an incompatible view of which transactions are in the blockchain; this is called a "hard fork". And if the minority side is small enough, it will no longer matter if they still say you have your money, since everyone else you want to transact with will say you don't.

That's what blockchain proponents tend to omit: the blockchain is a social construct. Its rules are fixed as long as the majority of participants want them to be. When they decide to change the rules, like that time when the Bitcoin developers fixed a database bug which changed the validity of some blocks, the rules will change. Even retroactively.

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#267

Post by chillydawg »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #6
abhi3 wrote: post #3

That's like 30 Million USD at current prices? This is close to the DAO hack in USD value, not another fork now surely?

A hard fork couldn't undo the damage if everybody wanted to. The exploiter/hacker/scammer, whatever you want to label them, can move ETH into other coins on exchanges immediately. This will cause an innocent party to buy them, removing any chance of reversal affecting the person[s] responsible. During the DAO hack, the funds were prevented from moving anywhere so a hard fork caused a direct reversal. That's my unders…

Eth is worth less right now, as there is an implicit chance that all transactions will be rolled back to a few hours ago. Hence any buyer of ETH will be getting a fair price for the risk. Wild west all round.

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#269

Post by davidgerard »

quickthrower wrote: post #228
dna_polymerase wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can literally feel how Ethereum changes the law. I mean, seriously, no need for lawyers anymore. On ethereum it's is simple: You got fucked, live with it. "Bad faith? It's the code, didn't you read it?"

Not just the code but hopefully the compiler and processors (at large i.e. Intel) have no bugs that causes unintuitive behaviour.

Good thing that isn't the case! WHOOPS that already happened in Solidity didn't it https://medium.com/@muneeb/solar-storm-a-serious-security-ex...

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#270

Post by grandalf »

1_player wrote: post #255
grandalf wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. It will take time, but eventually Solidity (or some other alternative smart contracts approach) will likely be very trustworthy and secure.

No, being Turing complete makes it impossible to be 100% secure and trustworthy, by definition. It is possible to have trusted contracts, iff their logic is (mathematically) proven. But the VM can't make contracts more secure by itself.

> It is possible to have trusted contracts, iff their logic is (mathematically) proven.

Suppose a non-Turing-complete language were used instead. Now, imagine a contract that is highly complex. If a layperson decides to trust that contract without reading the code, does it matter whether the language used to implement the contract was Turing-complete or not?

I'd argue that trust of contracts is pragmatically more of a social concept than a computational concept, since at scale the vast majority of contract users would make their trust decision about a contract based on non-technical factors.

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