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

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

#331

Post by gnidan » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:24 PM UTC

mholmes680 wrote: post #326

I know very little of Ethereum aside from the articles that pop up here, but I'm trying to compare this event to my existing currency. I have cash under my bed, i have it in 10+ accounts in financial institutions, and most of it is insured by the FDIC... so I've reduced my risk profile greatly. Does ethereum/ether allow me offline wallets? Can i have multiple accounts/wallets and easily administrate them? Is any agen…

You can use a securely hidden private key mnemonic (12-word, high entropy phrase) on a piece of paper, along with an offline "airgapped" computer, to sign transactions, then transfer the signed transactions to a device with internet access to publish it to the network.

That's probably the most secure method of managing keys yourself, assuming access to physical security. A good approximation of this solution is the use of a hardware wallet, which keeps the private key behind a secure enclave (USB interface, transaction signing occurs within the enclave)

There's no insurance or anything like that, either privately offered or via government regulation. The crypto market is still immature, so I wouldn't be surprised to see protections emerge in the coming decade. In the meantime, there is no equivalent to a bank for crypto assets—the best practice is currently to manage offline wallets oneself. Certainly be careful, though, user error is a big risk!

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

#332

Post by andrepd » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

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…

Cash is not for the general public. Someone can mug you and take your banknotes, and the solution to that problem is an authority mugging those people and taking the money and giving it back.

Not a sound argument.

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

#333

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:27 PM UTC

Jabanga wrote: post #323

ceejayoz wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

The bans in question are on the state itself, recognizing such marriages. Unlike anti-miscegenation laws, there is no criminal sanction for those who enter a relationship that they consider marriage. >No, they were struck down by the Supreme Court, and only in 2003! Strictly speaking, that's a law against sodomy, not homosexuality. But I can agree that such laws can be construed as anti-homosexual, given that any sex…

You're attempting some pretty fine hair splitting here.

Some, but not all anti-miscegenation laws banned interracial cohabitation and sex. In some states only attempting to get married was punishable. The same was true for same-sex marriage, which would've required lying on a form and thus perjury (which some states specifically made a felony: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/10/indian...).

As for sodomy laws, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_Stat... states "Three states specifically target their statutes at same-sex relations only: Kansas, Kentucky, and Texas" - and the ones that didn't certainly saw selective application preferentially targeting same-sex acts.

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

#334

Post by sunir » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:30 PM UTC

Jabanga wrote: post #179

dullgiulio wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, no. One hundred times, no. Governments in the west are quite accountable, voted for and with a system of checks and balances that has evolved over time, through wars and revolutions. Some random benevolents overlords (white-hat hackers) that save you just because they are magnanimous was the only option only in the most primive societies. Thankfully we moved on from those times, don't you agree?

Your Whig history of an ever progressing political system is not accurate in my opinion. I've written this comment before, and I'll repeat it as it's relevant to your comment: Societies have gradually grown more unfair as the political system has strained under their growing complexity. According to political scientists, the average voter has an extremely limited understanding of what their government is doing. The t…

I know it's popular in America to be cynical about politics, but maybe it is worth realizing other countries have their shit together and maybe just maybe it is the American cynicism that is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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

#335

Post by lathiat » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:32 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #332

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…

Cash is not for the general public. Someone can mug you and take your banknotes, and the solution to that problem is an authority mugging those people and taking the money and giving it back. Not a sound argument.

That is so accurate

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

#336

Post by bloominglotus » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:32 PM UTC

Jabanga wrote: post #179

dullgiulio wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, no. One hundred times, no. Governments in the west are quite accountable, voted for and with a system of checks and balances that has evolved over time, through wars and revolutions. Some random benevolents overlords (white-hat hackers) that save you just because they are magnanimous was the only option only in the most primive societies. Thankfully we moved on from those times, don't you agree?

Your Whig history of an ever progressing political system is not accurate in my opinion. I've written this comment before, and I'll repeat it as it's relevant to your comment: Societies have gradually grown more unfair as the political system has strained under their growing complexity. According to political scientists, the average voter has an extremely limited understanding of what their government is doing. The t…

In block chain, 51% of the network can decide to modify the ledger to do things that aren't true. That's all it takes to completely change how much money is in my account in a "distributed" bank. I don't own it, and it's certainly not robust against demagogues.

Demagogues are by definition political opportunists who play on populism to advance their politics. If democratic elections have a vulnerability to them, so certainly do "distributed systems" where a simple majority has enough power to control "history"

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

#337

Post by bloominglotus » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:36 PM UTC

Jabanga wrote: post #320

sharemywin wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By design, they enshrine the rights of the individual participant to freely interact in a free market, by preventing the majority from creating any rules to limit access to the platform. So they don't have the same need to adapt as an interventionist government, that imposes itself on the economy through majority dictate, does. In the case of Ethereum, the Turing Completeness also makes it so that each contract is li…

Do you remember when the majority hard-forked, changed history, and restored millions of ether to DAO?

Is that not blatantly a majority imposing themselves on the economy through majority dictate?

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

#338

Post by jMyles » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:37 PM UTC

dullgiulio wrote: post #173

return0 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> something is very wrong with your system To be clear, neither of the two situations is "more moral" than the other. In the end however, the question remains: who you trust. Governments have resolved the question long ago (by enforcing trust), cryptocurrencies are just now starting to face the same question. You are correct however that who you Trust remains the greatest issue behind creating a currency.

Look, no. One hundred times, no. Governments in the west are quite accountable, voted for and with a system of checks and balances that has evolved over time, through wars and revolutions. Some random benevolents overlords (white-hat hackers) that save you just because they are magnanimous was the only option only in the most primive societies. Thankfully we moved on from those times, don't you agree?

> Governments in the west are quite accountable, voted for and with a system of checks and balances that has evolved over time, through wars and revolutions.

I think this is where you're losing people. For the most part, it isn't true, and the trend seems to be shaped as a downward slope.

The "government" of the US still imprisons 2 million people, mostly because it has a list of plants and chemicals it doesn't like and won't negotiate on. That's just one example of its ongoing dysfunction.

It's completely reasonable, in a mature and thoughtful society, to try doing things in a completely different way. I'm not sure that cryptocurrencies are a good answer, but they're at least a good question.

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

#339

Post by andrepd » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:40 PM UTC

dullgiulio wrote: post #173

return0 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> something is very wrong with your system To be clear, neither of the two situations is "more moral" than the other. In the end however, the question remains: who you trust. Governments have resolved the question long ago (by enforcing trust), cryptocurrencies are just now starting to face the same question. You are correct however that who you Trust remains the greatest issue behind creating a currency.

Look, no. One hundred times, no. Governments in the west are quite accountable, voted for and with a system of checks and balances that has evolved over time, through wars and revolutions. Some random benevolents overlords (white-hat hackers) that save you just because they are magnanimous was the only option only in the most primive societies. Thankfully we moved on from those times, don't you agree?

No, no, one thousand times no.

History is not a linear progression, as far as societal and political developments are concerned. Our current government system is not the pinnacle of development so far, let alone the ultimate, final system.

And even by that view, as you say yourself the current system, if satisfactory, took hundreds of years to develop. Crypto currencies were invented 7 years ago.

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

#340

Post by Y7ZCQtNo39 » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:41 PM UTC

bloominglotus wrote: post #336

Jabanga wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your Whig history of an ever progressing political system is not accurate in my opinion. I've written this comment before, and I'll repeat it as it's relevant to your comment: Societies have gradually grown more unfair as the political system has strained under their growing complexity. According to political scientists, the average voter has an extremely limited understanding of what their government is doing. The t…

In block chain, 51% of the network can decide to modify the ledger to do things that aren't true. That's all it takes to completely change how much money is in my account in a "distributed" bank. I don't own it, and it's certainly not robust against demagogues. Demagogues are by definition political opportunists who play on populism to advance their politics. If democratic elections have a vulnerability to them, so c…

So if a majority of participants (50% + 1 of the network) wanted to say, "rob" the wealthy top 1% of wallets and redistribute wealth by rewriting the history of the blockchain, nothing could stop them?