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Poly Network hacker returns $258M after stealing $600M

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Re: Poly Network hacker returns $258M after stealing $600M

#121

Post by user-the-name »

brigandish wrote: post #89
mschuster91 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we seem to want to tear down all the institutions and values that got us here. Strike a "we", replace by "rich elites". "Small government" means in practice that most of what governments are doing now with taxpayer money at no-profit will be done by private for-profit companies, at a worse service level, or that regulations/regulatory agencies will be torn down. For the first, just look at private prisons - make a…

Sorry to invoke a No True Scotsman here but if you ask an advocate of truly small government (of which I am one) I very much doubt private prisons would be an example they’d accept as a fair representation of their position. The expansion of criminal law is often in pursuit of and to justify growing government and its reach. By all means end private prisons, they’re only needed at that scale because big government is…

"The purpose of a system is what it does".

Maybe you didn't mean for your position to lead to private prisons. But it does, anyway, and that is all that matters.

Re: Poly Network hacker returns $258M after stealing $600M

#123

Post by Taek »

wesleywt wrote: post #96
jshen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how the crypto community encourages circumventing laws, UNTIL someone steals from them using their own “smart” contract then calls on authorities for help.

Can someone explain to me why HN is so anti-crypto?

It used to be very strange to me, but honestly think the answer is that a large number of HN community members are - somewhat ironically - very closed minded. Once you start to think in that framework you see it everywhere, and it goes all the way back to the original DropBox thread where some guy said "this is stupid you could just combine FTP with SVN".

Of course that doesn't apply to everyone, and perhaps not even them majority, but certainly at least the majority that shows up in crypto threads. HN members tend to be very smart, very technical, and very confident, all of which combine into this ugly blind spot to creative/unusual forms of technical innovation. Crypto in particular is good at sitting right in the center of that blind spot.

This explanation has made more sense to me than anything else I've seen, you'll have to decide for yourself if you agree with it.

Re: Poly Network hacker returns $258M after stealing $600M

#124

Post by dagw »

mschuster91 wrote: post #70
andy_ppp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this a lot about our politics now, we seem to want to tear down all the institutions and values that got us here.

> we seem to want to tear down all the institutions and values that got us here. Strike a "we", replace by "rich elites". "Small government" means in practice that most of what governments are doing now with taxpayer money at no-profit will be done by private for-profit companies, at a worse service level, or that regulations/regulatory agencies will be torn down. For the first, just look at private prisons - make a…

Strike a "we", replace by "rich elites".

I don't agree. My 'poor' leftie friends are all about tearing shit down, while most 'rich' people I know are pretty happy with the way things are, wanting only to make small tweaks here and there.

Re: Poly Network hacker returns $258M after stealing $600M

#126

Post by ethanbond »

r00f wrote: post #119
hamburgerwah wrote: post #16

I haven't seen any evidence there was in fact a hack at all. A digital contract was used in a way that complied with the contract that the bonehead writers of that contract did not intend. That's it. If bad contract writers get to cry "hack" and beg for their money back there is no point to digital contracts at all. If someone had physically or electronically broken into systems and illicitly copied private keys that…

If developer didn't put size check in his software then it's not bug with RCE exploit, it's just doing what author has intended. Where do we put a border?

Around the entire system saying, “this system’s behavior is not strictly/formally verified to mirror my exact intentions and behaviors can be defined as malignant or disallowed post-facto.”

But that’s antithetical to the value prop of smart contracts.

Re: Poly Network hacker returns $258M after stealing $600M

#127

Post by loceng »

dpwm wrote: post #99
andy_ppp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this a lot about our politics now, we seem to want to tear down all the institutions and values that got us here.

This was at least an observed property of some modern reformers in 1929: > In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up…

In Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson dedicates the first chapter/rule to this:

"Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement."

Re: Poly Network hacker returns $258M after stealing $600M

#128

Post by pastacacioepepe »

EGreg wrote: post #11
yellow_lead wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't stolen. Code is law. /s

Taxation is theft /s

Can't trust the government to use my taxes well, I'd rather trust a handful of sociopathic individuals with an obsession for capital cumulation /s

Re: Poly Network hacker returns $258M after stealing $600M

#129

Post by gego »

unionpivo wrote: post #73
ALittleLight wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered about things like this with video games. I played RuneScape a while back and one of the things my brother and I would do is lure unsuspecting players into the wilderness to kill them and take their stuff. That stuff, RuneScape gold, weapons, and armor, has some real world value. We took it from other people, often by lying to them (e.g. "follow me into the wilderness, I'll show you something cool"). Cou…

Another game where that happens regularly is Eve online.

In EVE it is explicitly allowed

Re: Poly Network hacker returns $258M after stealing $600M

#130

Post by brigandish »

user-the-name wrote: post #121
brigandish wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to invoke a No True Scotsman here but if you ask an advocate of truly small government (of which I am one) I very much doubt private prisons would be an example they’d accept as a fair representation of their position. The expansion of criminal law is often in pursuit of and to justify growing government and its reach. By all means end private prisons, they’re only needed at that scale because big government is…

"The purpose of a system is what it does". Maybe you didn't mean for your position to lead to private prisons. But it does, anyway, and that is all that matters.

Contracting out the running of prisons by the government is a recent innovation[1]. Are we to say that government was historically small in 1983 and has remained small and then notice that somehow there are more private prisons in the US now? That's not a description I'd want to defend.

The US is also not the only place where prisons are private[2], there's the southern hemisphere's Sweden a.k.a. big government paradise, and it has a private prison.

To say either "public" or "private" and ascribe some sort of good or bad to them without providing any reasoning is presumptuous in the least, but to then tell someone what their actual position is - in your view - after making such a presumption would only be to compound an error.

I know what I meant, try to focus on what you mean and fixing that before mischaracterising my views again, thank you.

[1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/history-of-amer...

[2] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/crit...

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