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A hacker stole $31M of Ether – how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

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Re: A hacker stole $31M of Ether – how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

#101

Post by jacquesm »

wildmusings wrote: post #100
jacquesm wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of smart contracts is that lawyers' (and judges) opinions are not relevant. As soon as you need them and they have some power to make the thing go one way or the other the whole smart contract concept has failed.

As long as real people can be hauled before a real court, judges and lawyers--but more importantly, the law --will be highly relevant.

You really just simply do not get it. Just like the law can not define Pi to be 3 the law should not be able to influence the outcome of a smart contract if smart contracts work at all because that is how it is intended to work, smart contracts are supposed to be the entirety of the agreement, no outside interpretation should make a difference nor could it make a difference.

This is where the Ethereum crowd has - in my eyes at least - already failed with how the handled the previous hack, the concept is as currently implemented fundamentally flawed.

https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/the-dao-the-hack-...

I can see the dilemma (get the money back or kill Ethereum) must have been a tough one but if they really wanted Ethereum to be taken serious they should have chalked that up to their education fund and call it a day.

Re: A hacker stole $31M of Ether – how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

#102

Post by onion2k »

rtpg wrote: post #89
mehwoot wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once code is developed that proves to be bug free, it can be used over and over with no bugs! Doesn't seem to quite work like that in real life.

quicksort? cat? ls? I mean some of these things have bugs still, but generally when you have something of fixed scope then there are less bugs over time. Especially if you're restricting your scope to something simple

Those 3 examples that are both relatively simple and more than 40 years old are unlikely to convince people that something new and complex is worth the risk.

Re: A hacker stole $31M of Ether – how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

#103

Post by MrMoenty »

Dolores12 wrote: post #86
owenversteeg wrote: post #52

I think the fundamental problem here is an economic one. Make three assumptions: 1) most contracts worth implementing in Ethereum are fairly complex 2) even given great developers, bugs are inevitable in complex code 3) the budget of the contract-makers' security team MUST be smaller than that of the hackers You quickly see that if the chance of a bug is nonzero, "smart contracts" don't make economic sense. If you ha…

If you link it to real world, any legal contract may have flaws. It all depends who got a better lawyer. Same analogy goes here.

In the real world, contract law is written to not just take contracts at face value, but to also let judges take external factors into account. This includes customs, the parties intentions, whether they are acting in good faith, etc.

This is precisely because it was deemed impractical to write contracts that could be 'computationally' interpreted line by line. Seems like the etherium is slowly rediscovering this fact the hard way.

Re: A hacker stole $31M of Ether – how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

#104

Post by daddyo »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #98

As an Ethereum investor, this hack has shaken my belief in Ethereum ever making sense as an ecosystem. Smart contracts which will always be fallible plus irreversible blockchain transactions seems like a peanut butter and tuna fish sandwich. I moved my money out of Ethereum for now.

Thanks. Just sold 100k.

Re: A hacker stole $31M of Ether – how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

#105

Post by esseti »

But now, how can the hacker spend it or transoform to USD? To spend them if on online stuff is rather ok, execpt the fact that the items (if are a phisical objects) needs to be sent to an address. If he's going to transoform them to USD or BTC or whatever they need to use a platform, which asks for ids and co.

so, how can he get rich without getting caught?

Re: A hacker stole $31M of Ether – how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

#106

Post by onion2k »

gciruelos wrote: post #24

Nothing was stolen. All I see is a programmer abiding by the contracts.

In legal terms you'd need to make the argument that the programmer abided by the letter of the contract rather than the spirit of the contract. That might well be a reasonable defence in the case of smart contracts, but it'd need to be tested in a court.

Re: A hacker stole $31M of Ether – how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

#107

Post by wildmusings »

jacquesm wrote: post #101
wildmusings wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as real people can be hauled before a real court, judges and lawyers--but more importantly, the law --will be highly relevant.

You really just simply do not get it. Just like the law can not define Pi to be 3 the law should not be able to influence the outcome of a smart contract if smart contracts work at all because that is how it is intended to work, smart contracts are supposed to be the entirety of the agreement, no outside interpretation should make a difference nor could it make a difference. This is where the Ethereum crowd has - in…

I do get it. I just don't think that's realistic. What smart contracts should be according to you is mostly irrelevant to how the law will treat them.

Re: A hacker stole $31M of Ether – how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

#108

Post by canoebuilder »

buzzybee wrote: post #73
owenversteeg wrote: post #52

I think the fundamental problem here is an economic one. Make three assumptions: 1) most contracts worth implementing in Ethereum are fairly complex 2) even given great developers, bugs are inevitable in complex code 3) the budget of the contract-makers' security team MUST be smaller than that of the hackers You quickly see that if the chance of a bug is nonzero, "smart contracts" don't make economic sense. If you ha…

Regarding smart contracts and other inventions of cryptocurrency: I think, most of all, the crypto market is absolutely vicious, in a way that both capital markets and technology companies haven't seen(in the public eye) for many, many years. As of right now there's still some faith left that Ethereum is going to go places because firms keep trying to use the technology on the basis of hype. Unlike with most overhype…

This is like if Apple and Google had daily columns on the front page showing every bug or support issue that they experienced in the past 24 hours.

Things is, with Apple and Google there is a rather low ratio of spectacular failures to output of products that are in many cases, rather effing amazing. Whereas with the cryptocurrencies unfortunately, the spectacular failures be they in the form of scams, schemes, or heists, more or less are the story.

It's not like these recurrent tales of avarice, greed, or just plain seediness are crowding out the print space for the tales of all the amazing things cryptocurrencies are bringing about, there's room to tell that story to, but where is it.

At this point it's getting harder and harder to locate where there is that glint of hidden potential in cryptos in the face of all the malice and fuckups.

Re: A hacker stole $31M of Ether – how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

#109

Post by jacquesm »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #68
HaseebQ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grant your point, but disagree with your framing of the problem. I think a good analogy here is to compare to American settlers. You're going to have a few waves: the explorers who move into totally uncharted territory and take on significant risk by using smart contracts. These are kinda crazy people who love the innovation, and I'd argue this is the majority of people in the space right now. Eventually there will…

> Basically collecting on low-hanging fruit. J.P. Morgan, many finance companies, some savvy governments will step in to capitalize on easy wins. You think a lack of technology is what's keeping these giants back from innovating? There's a reason many banks still have mainframes powering large portions of their internals. Lack of new tech is not holding them back.

> There's a reason many banks still have mainframes powering large portions of their internals.

There are many reasons. Institutional inertia for one, a lack of sufficiently knowledgeable people another. Banks are not innovating because you can't get around them anyway. And personally I don't mind, I'd much rather have my $ parked with an entity that moves slowly and predictably than with some 'move fast and break stuff' outfit that gives me a heartattack 3 times per year by showing me a $0 balance and no support department to call.

Re: A hacker stole $31M of Ether – how it happened, and what it means for Ethereum

#110

Post by jacquesm »

onion2k wrote: post #102
rtpg wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

quicksort? cat? ls? I mean some of these things have bugs still, but generally when you have something of fixed scope then there are less bugs over time. Especially if you're restricting your scope to something simple

Those 3 examples that are both relatively simple and more than 40 years old are unlikely to convince people that something new and complex is worth the risk.

Unix is anything but simple.

And 40 years ago they were actually able to convince people that this new thing was worth the risk and that's why we're having this conversation today.

Early adopters are simply early, they will most likely lose their shirt but some of them will end up making you wish that you too were an early adopter.

It's a bit like angel investing.

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