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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

#251

Post by sharemywin »

Jabanga wrote: post #233
throwawayjava wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your Whig history As this point you've already lost everyone who doesn't already ready the same pamphlets you read and agree. Either because they have read those pamphlets and eye-roll, or because they haven't and figure you're a rambling extremist. It's literally equivalent to communists beginning propaganda pieces with "Attention all Comrades!" That said, I disagree with you, so feel free to keep talking this way…

>As this point you've already lost everyone who doesn't already ready the same pamphlets you read and agree. Usage of the term "Whig history" is not confined adherents of a particular ideology, and does not require one to have/not-have any particular set of beliefs to use it (other than believing that the history of some institution is not a story of progress).. In other words, it's not comparable to "comrade". >Appe…

How are bitcoin or ethereum not highly resistant to change.

Explain to me how you would go about changing either of those protocols?

And yes there are lots of altcoins but ethereum very quickly is going to replace a good chunk of how things are transacted. And a non-profit without some kind of policy for baked in leadership change sounds a lot like a dictatorship to me.

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

#252

Post by ceejayoz »

Jabanga wrote: post #222
aaron-lebo wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Societies have gradually grown more unfair as the political system has strained under their growing complexity. Is this not a revisionist view of history? Modern republics are pretty new things. There were serfs (and absolute autocracy) in Russia as of 1860, slaves in the US until the 1860s, voting tied to gender until the 1920s, colonial empires without fair representation until 1950, laws against interracial and ho…

You're absolutely right. I should clarify that I mean that the societies in the advanced world have grown more unfair over the last 120 years. >laws against interracial and homosexual marriage until the 1980s and 2014 respectively, state-sponsored inquisitions and pogroms until recently, etc. Laws against interracial marriage in the US were struck down by the Supreme Court in 1967. There are no laws against homosexua…

> There are no laws against homosexual marriage. Such marriages are simply not legally recognized in some jurisdictions. With anti-miscegenation laws, entering into such marriages was actually a felony.

Come on, that's just blatantly false.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_constitutio...

> But to your point, there were laws against homosexual activity up until the 1960s, which have been repealed.

No, they were struck down by the Supreme Court, and only in 2003! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas

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

#253

Post by theWatcher37 »

esseti wrote: post #105

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?

Nice try thief! Hey guys I found him!

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

#254

Post by seanalltogether »

There's a quote from John Carmack that heavily influences my take on OOP and DRY programming in general.

"A large fraction of the flaws in software development are due to programmers not fully understanding all the possible states their code may execute in." http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/169296/Indepth_Functional...

As long as ethereum contracts support stateful OO contracts, they are bound to run into these kinds of bugs.

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

#255

Post by meddlepal »

jacquesm wrote: post #99
wildmusings wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fascinating point. Can any lawyers comment on how the law might see this?

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.

This is adorably naive hacker thinking.

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

#256

Post by jacquesm »

ricksharp wrote: post #228
will_brown wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not you (or anyone else) think the law should influence the outcome of smart contracts...it certainly does. So far a few states (US) have passed laws regarding "blockchains", "smart contracts" and the like. For example, seeking to avoid any legal uncertainty surrounding blockchain transactions and smart contracts relating to certain digital assets, Arizona passed HB 2417, the following on point: - A very s…

Wow, that's the best definition I have heard for Smart Contract (and maybe for Block Chain). I never thought a legal definition would be clearer than every "common" definition I have read. It's like the author of every blog post I've seen titled "What is Ethereum?" has no idea what title they used. I guess that just shows how hype makes it hard to get to the truth.

But it is only a local definition. Some other legislative body might make a different one.

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

#258

Post by duiker101 »

ckastner wrote: post #130

> Having sounded the alarm bells, a group of benevolent white-hat hackers from the Ethereum community rapidly organized. They analyzed the attack and realized that there was no way to reverse the thefts, yet many more wallets were vulnerable. Time was of the essence, so they saw only one available option: hack the remaining wallets before the attacker did. > By exploiting the same vulnerability, the white-hats hacked…

I haven't had much time to follow the story or look into ether so sorry if this is a naive question but I keep seeing this "white hat hacker robbing the remaining wallets" and haven't see yet anyone mentioning what are they going to do with what they stole?

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

#259

Post by throwawayjava »

ricksharp wrote: post #228
will_brown wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not you (or anyone else) think the law should influence the outcome of smart contracts...it certainly does. So far a few states (US) have passed laws regarding "blockchains", "smart contracts" and the like. For example, seeking to avoid any legal uncertainty surrounding blockchain transactions and smart contracts relating to certain digital assets, Arizona passed HB 2417, the following on point: - A very s…

Wow, that's the best definition I have heard for Smart Contract (and maybe for Block Chain). I never thought a legal definition would be clearer than every "common" definition I have read. It's like the author of every blog post I've seen titled "What is Ethereum?" has no idea what title they used. I guess that just shows how hype makes it hard to get to the truth.

Agreed.

For all the hate that lawyers and judges receive, they are as good as mathematicians at coming up with (or at least recognizing and choosing) concise and simple definitions.

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

#260

Post by dboreham »

Cakez0r wrote: post #172

I have to expect that some bug like this has surely happened with a traditional bank too, causing them to lose a bunch of money. Humans inevitably write buggy software regardless of the platform. The difference with blockchain-based currencies is that their failures are forced to happen in public. I'd be interested to know what banks do when they discover that something doesn't add up in their ledger. I can't believe…

It happens all the time but banks just call up the counterparty and ask for their money back.
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