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The ethereum “hacker” didn't hack anything

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Re: The ethereum “hacker” didn't hack anything

#51

Post by msbarnett »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #39
will_brown wrote: post #24

What is with the smart contract propaganda. Let's put everything in a legal perspective using the DAO as the example...was what occurred there a "hack" or just a proper function of the contract which all parties agreed? let's assume, all things being equal, the DAO smart contract wasn't a smart contract on the block chain but a regular contract, which included a provision allowing any single party to unilaterally tak…

>was what occurred there a "hack" or just a proper function of the contract which all parties agreed? both. Lawyers are just hackers of the legal system. the runtime environment is the courtroom. The contract is the code. loopholes and technicalities are another name for bugs.

This is a very naive view of the legal system.

In reality, a lawyer trying to "hack" a contract with some technicality will run afoul of a judge telling them to sit down and shut up. Judges exist to discern the intent behind the contract and thereby fix "bugs" in the contract that would otherwise lead to absurd, unintended outcomes.

"Loopholes" matter a hell of a lot less in real life than in episodes of Law & Order or whatever you've been watching.

Re: The ethereum “hacker” didn't hack anything

#52

Post by [deleted] »

tylersmith wrote: post #21
stale2002 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Courts will absolutely use intent to judge contracts. The interesting thing with the DAO though, was the explicit INTENT of the contract, was for it to be entirely governed by the code. As in, the announcement website, and all the marketing for the DAO included a whole lot of lines like "None of the information here is binding. The only thing that it binding is the code. The contract is the code". So, it is arguable,…

The intent of all smart contracts is to be exactly what the code says. That is why they exist. For any case where you want to consider intent you should not use smart contracts. People using smart contracts when that's not what they really want are going to cause damage to the ecosystem that will take years to undo.

[deleted]

Re: The ethereum “hacker” didn't hack anything

#53

Post by tylerhou »

woodandsteel wrote: post #27

One of the problems with Ethereum smart contracts is they are trying to do something that is basically impossible. A contract is an explicit set of rules as to what the involved parties are supposed to do in every relevant situation that could arise. The problem is that in the real world it is very often simply impossible to anticipate every possible relevant situation. That is because the real world is so complicate…

The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded in 2016 to Oliver Hart, who made contributions to contract theory, and more specifically, the incompleteness of contracts. NPR's Planet Money has a good introduction: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/11/18/502475485/episo...

Re: The ethereum “hacker” didn't hack anything

#54

Post by vit05 »

woodandsteel wrote: post #27

One of the problems with Ethereum smart contracts is they are trying to do something that is basically impossible. A contract is an explicit set of rules as to what the involved parties are supposed to do in every relevant situation that could arise. The problem is that in the real world it is very often simply impossible to anticipate every possible relevant situation. That is because the real world is so complicate…

You are thinking about contracts in a limited and restricted way. The economy today is about contracts, everything involves an agreement between two parties. It is not always necessary thousands of signed pages, sometimes they are simple things. There are thousands of standardized contracts that are signed by thousands of people and only a small percentage of them end up in conflict.

"IF-WHEN-THEN"

Re: The ethereum “hacker” didn't hack anything

#55

Post by thinkmassive »

Spivak wrote: post #31
honestlyreally wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court can order the contract's private key to be magically willed into existence? The law often sees itself as onnipotent, but it stands no chance against cryptography and unnamed contract authors.

They don't have to. Just like encryption having the ability to use violent force enables all sorts of side channel attacks. But in the case of an anonymous scammer they would probably hold the Etherium Inc. responsible for the damages.

Who is Etherium Inc?

Re: The ethereum “hacker” didn't hack anything

#56

Post by coretx »

grey-area wrote: post #7

On the actual contract, it's possible a court would find that the contract was between parties x and y, and therefore party z inserting themselves into it is not valid. Often law comes down to intent, so the hacker could well find themselves in trouble, even if technically all they did was play by the rules allowed by the contract. There is another interesting point here, which I think applies to Bitcoin too - if the…

Intent as the premise for judgement is typical for Western rights philosophy, but it's not for large other parts of the world , and that is a fact. Furthermore, the acts of Z could be part of X or Y operandi, but this is probably unfalsifiable.

Re: The ethereum “hacker” didn't hack anything

#57

Post by indrax »

msbarnett wrote: post #22
tylersmith wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent of all smart contracts is to be exactly what the code says. That is why they exist. For any case where you want to consider intent you should not use smart contracts. People using smart contracts when that's not what they really want are going to cause damage to the ecosystem that will take years to undo.

The question becomes, under what circumstances would you EVER want to use a smart contract for a non-trivial amount of money? Since smart contracts are software, and all software has bugs, and to a first approximation nobody is interested in having a significant amount of their money, time, or goods erased by a software bug, of what use are these things other than as a curiosity?

When you trust the code more than the courts. All courts have bugs. Your trust or distrust may be unfounded, but I think that's the biggest reason.

Re: The ethereum “hacker” didn't hack anything

#59

Post by Joeboy »

msbarnett wrote: post #22
tylersmith wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent of all smart contracts is to be exactly what the code says. That is why they exist. For any case where you want to consider intent you should not use smart contracts. People using smart contracts when that's not what they really want are going to cause damage to the ecosystem that will take years to undo.

The question becomes, under what circumstances would you EVER want to use a smart contract for a non-trivial amount of money? Since smart contracts are software, and all software has bugs, and to a first approximation nobody is interested in having a significant amount of their money, time, or goods erased by a software bug, of what use are these things other than as a curiosity?

I suppose the hope is that eventually somebody will come up with a smart contract that:

a) Does something useful...

b) ...in a way that's somehow significantly preferable to "dumb" alternatives;

c) gets adequately battle-tested in the real world;

d) can be reused ad infinitum, maybe with trivial variations

It seems to me that it's not out of the question that that will happen, but it's also by no means certain. It seems to me that once you get far beyond simple remittances it becomes extremely difficult to reliably codify intent.

Re: The ethereum “hacker” didn't hack anything

#60

Post by [deleted] »

ryanlol wrote: post #41
int_19h wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes contracts valid and enforceable in the first place is the backing of the law. And the law can choose to not recognize such contracts as valid, or recognize them only with various caveats.

Smart contracts enforce themselves, there's no need for the law to recognize them.

[deleted]
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