Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The ethereum “hacker” didn't hack anything

jsfour.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 72 posts

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

#61

Post by mannykannot »

ryanlol wrote: post #20
elnygren wrote: post #15

It seems we have some mismatch between the abstraction layer where we want to talk about cryptocurrencies and how their actual implementation goes. IMHO, we are venturing to the domain of lawyers; most people are not just going to be saying computer code == what-we-agreed-here because most people are just normal people and they couldn't care about computer code. And let's face it, cryptos are already full of normal p…

If computer code == what-we-agreed-here isn't what you want, then you don't want smart contracts.

> If computer code == what-we-agreed-here isn't what you want, then you don't want smart contracts.

That is one thing that both skeptics and the most zealous of smart-contract proponents agree on.

Many of Ethereum's key players thought that was what they wanted until they found themselves in a contract containing a 'clause' they had not anticipated.

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

#62

Post by will_brown »

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.

Mind explaining your personal experience with breach of contract matters in civil court? Are you a lawyer, or have you been a plaintiff/defendant in any breach of contract matter, were they state court matters or federal matters?

If none, check out some of the foundation legal principles of contract law, including, but not limited to: offer, acceptance, bargained for exchange, mutual assent, consideration, "four-corners", contractual intent, illusory promises, statute of frauds, UCC (uniform commercial code), illegal per se.

The contract isn't the "code", the contract is the contract and if anything the law is the "code" (in fact in many states and federally laws are called code), just because layman and tech people don't understand the law/code, doesn't mean its full of loopholes, technicalities and bugs...though as a layman watching the disaster that is smart contracts executing in ways people did not understand and authors marketed in plain language, I would says smart contracts are full of bugs.

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

#63

Post by Joeboy »

vit05 wrote: post #54
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"

> There are thousands of standardized contracts that are signed by thousands of people and only a small percentage of them end up in conflict

But how many contracts are there where nothing can be disputed? That seems to me to be the case where a smart contract could be useful. If you're relying on the parties to be honest and compliant then you've gained nothing by having a smart contract, afaics. All you've done is introduced some extra mess into the existing tangle of legal and informal incentives and disincentives.

I'm open to suggestions but I'm not sure many such use cases exist. To the extent they do (eg. provably fair casinos), I'm not sure they provide anything compelling over existing dumb alternatives.

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

#64

Post by grey-area »

Joeboy wrote: post #59
msbarnett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 se…

I think it'd be far more useful to work on tools for reliably codifying agreement and intent, in order to make it easier to generate and parse contracts agreed by humans. The aim should be to restrict what it is possible to say in a contract, not expand the space to infinite possibilities as a Turing complete language does.

I'm not convinced powerful languages will ever be suitable for this - the language used for contracts should be less flexible and powerful than human languages, not more - we attempt this with legalese and conventions associated with contracts already (they don't really use english say but a limited subset of it), why not take it a step further and define specific and incredibly limited axioms which can be connected to form immutable contracts with limited ambiguity and no room for error.

Smart contracts assume that incredibly difficult problem is already solved and then start attaching money directly to the contract (why!), that in my view is far too optimistic about the state of software and the capability of humans to manage it.

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

#65

Post by grey-area »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #36
grey-area wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this isn't about DAO, its true that recourse to courts undermines a central tenet of smart contracts, hence as you say DAO people would probably insist the code is the contract, until a problem occurs. In fact the DAO fork brings up another problem which applies to Bitcoin too - the developers (and miners if a POW coin) are de facto arbiters of the fate of millions, and if this sort of system were to gain wides…

this is the original sin of bitcoin. Either the protocol can't be updated even for legitimate technical reasons or there exists a group of people who can change bitcoin arbitrarily thus defeating the purpose. Right now the answer seems to be that a bitcoin politic exists but it is an extremely conservative politics. The miners know that if they are seen to be a centralized body in control then the value of bitcoin (a…

Agreed. This cuts to the heart of my objections to bitcoin.

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

#66

Post by woodandsteel »

vit05 wrote: post #54
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"

I was thinking of serious business contracts, and for ongoing relations, like Firm A agrees to deliver 1,000 widgets every month to firm B. If you talk to an experienced business person, they will have a hundred stories about how something unexpected happened in such cases, or large, complex business deals.

>There are thousands of standardized contracts that are signed by thousands of people and only a small percentage of them end up in conflict.

That's because, as I explain, when something happens the contract did not anticipate, the involved parties almost always work things out informally

For simple things done in large numbers, smart contracts might makes sense. Except if many people are using the same contract, it is more attractive to hackers to try to find a bug.

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

#67

Post by int_19h »

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.

Ah, but there is. Because if the smart contract "enforces itself" in a way that contract law doesn't recognize as valid, then the law can force the reversal of said contract.

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

#68

Post by js4 »

agotterer wrote: post #48
js4 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was exactly my (the author) point.

But that doesn't make ATM's or the blockchain any less useful. The technology is still sound in both cases. But anything built by humans (I suppose machines too?) has the potential to be flawed, especially software.

There is a difference between an ATM and blockchain app though.

If an ATM spits out too much money and that violates the terms of service you signed with the bank (or the ATM provider) the bank has a way to recover the funds since they can rely on the legal system to enforce the terms.

The blockchain exists to enforce the validity of state changes (transactions). There is no other value outside of that.

Thus, if you are reliant on the legal system to enforce blockchain contracts there is no reason to have a contract on the blockchain since the only real benefit is decentralized consensus. You are better off just rolling a few EC2 instances and writing an old fashioned contract.

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

#69

Post by js4 »

msbarnett wrote: post #51
IIAOPSW wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

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

Or if you are a company trying to avoid paying taxes.

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

#70

Post by js4 »

Joeboy wrote: post #59
msbarnett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 se…

ERC20 Tokens (the ICO market) fit this description. Though they are basically just creating new currencies.
Post reply on HN