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

forbes.com

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

#141

Post by sireat »

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?

There are many here who have seen crypto to overpromise and underdeliver for over 10 years.

PS Mined some BTC in 2011 and some LTC in 2012-2013.

The original promise (per Satoshi) was that it could be used as electronic money. That goalpost was moved onto other currencies and sidechains and regular public acceptance has been low.

Most of crypto activity is related to other crypto(see Ethereum, see DeFi). All of the "cool" stuff happening in crypto seems to be dealing with other crypto...

It is useless to non-crypto people.

The only somewhat useful moral use case are remittances to unstable countries.

The rest of crypto is just bad bad stuff: scams, ransomware, large scale capital transfers by bad actors(tax evaders being the least evil).

I am in a business(high rate of CC fraud) where I would really benefit from an easy onramp for non crypto users.

PSS Last not least, POW and the horrible incentives going along with it is a serious issue as well. POS remains unproven in the field.

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

#142

Post by enkid »

sureglymop wrote: post #52
NorwegianDude wrote: post #31

Since the beginning I've always looked at cryptocurrencies as a free for all. If you're dumb enough to leak your key, then the value is gone. If you send your currency away to something without looking into it first, then it's your own stupidity. Lost your key? Great job, dumbass. Crypto currency is and has always been a "do what you want, but if you mess up, it's on you" in my eyes. It seems most people using crypto…

Most people will not hold their own wallet. They just buy cryptocurrency through an exchange and let it sit as an "investment". They don't manage the wallet themselves and don't use the cryptocurrency for transactions. They simply think this is a quick way to make money and see it more as a more volatile alternative to the stock market.

And then someone hacks the exchange and they lose their money and they ask "how could this happen?" But they mean that literally because they didn't know it was even a possibility.

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

#143

Post by bob33212 »

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?

There are two distinct pieces. One piece is the technology and white paper behind Bitcoin. Most engineers on HN think that is very impressive and a legitimate technological achievement.

The other piece is a reaction to the pro crypto crowd who are making claims about how amazing crypto is and why it is the future. Most of these people have a large financial interest in moving the price of various coins up. The use cases so far 10 years into this are buying drugs and ransomware and the price going up.

Another example "Smart Contracts" are supposed to be this amazing technology for changing the world, but as you see here they have some significant downsides that the pro crypto people seem to either ignore or not understand.

It isn't just HN folks who feel this way. One of the smartest and most accomplished AI engineers alive today had this to say. https://twitter.com/karpathy/status/1401267972044328961

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

#144

Post by enkid »

capableweb wrote: post #76
Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #3

From what I recall, the hacker basically doxxed himself by accident by signing a message from his real wallet, linked to exchange wallets which presumably has his KYC info. From there, it was all over. Even if he could launder all that money, international authorities would find him. In fact, the writing style of his messages provide a pretty big clue where he is - Ukraine or Russia.

> In fact, the writing style of his messages provide a pretty big clue where he is - Ukraine or Russia. I think we're past trying to assume peoples identities based on writing styles, it's too easy to fake for the hackers, simply drop 1% of the words you're using and now suddenly people think you're no longer a native English speaker. And not only is it easy to guess wrong or easy for the hacker to fake, it also adds…

There are consistent words that get dropped for different languages. For a very simple example, iirc, most Slavic language don't have a word for "is," or articles, so if the author says "dog brown" instead of "the dog is brown," they probably originally speak some Slavic language (or something with similar features). You're correct it's not conclusive, but it's also not about dropping random words.

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

#145

Post by jstx1 »

nadam wrote: post #139
wesleywt wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I was thinking about this a lot. I used to think that most HN users are very smart, but the crypto discussions here are extremely dumb full of misconceptions and hatred. For example yesterday there was an article upvoted and vehemently discussed here, but anyone having a basic understanding of crypto would know that the article was total garbage (and full of hatred). It was like someone with primary-school mathematic…

It's also possible that some people understand all of this and still don't think that crypto is a good idea, or that it has worked out well in practice, or that it does anything meaningful.

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

#146

Post by analognoise »

pmorici wrote: post #38
mlazos wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s so funny to me when everyone touts crypto + smart contracts as revolutionary™ then when you follow a system implemented with them to its logical conclusions you have analogs to everything that already exists. Lawyers to audit the contracts for bugs (and yes there can be bugs in a formally verified spec as well), courts to arbitrate disagreements, and an authority to enforce rules when someone finds a security ho…

Just because there are similar mechanisms doesn’t mean they haven’t been improved on in some way. Lawyers and courts are notoriously inefficient if this implementation achieves efficiencies, even if the mechanisms are analogous, seems like progress.

"Smart contracts" that lock up all the money because of a = rather than It turns out some of the inefficiency is necessary for everything to function, and ultimate efficiency is a dumb idea. Who knew?

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

#147

Post by kmmlng »

RVuRnvbM2e wrote: post #39
pmorici wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because there are similar mechanisms doesn’t mean they haven’t been improved on in some way. Lawyers and courts are notoriously inefficient if this implementation achieves efficiencies, even if the mechanisms are analogous, seems like progress.

> It’s important to remember that when you start from scratch there is absolutely no reason to believe that you are going to do a better job than you did the first time. First of all, you probably don’t even have the same programming team that worked on version one, so you don’t actually have “more experience”. You’re just going to make most of the old mistakes again, and introduce some new problems that weren’t in t…

Counterexample: SpaceX. Sometimes, starting from scratch can be very helpful.

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

#148

Post by nadam »

jstx1 wrote: post #145
nadam wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about this a lot. I used to think that most HN users are very smart, but the crypto discussions here are extremely dumb full of misconceptions and hatred. For example yesterday there was an article upvoted and vehemently discussed here, but anyone having a basic understanding of crypto would know that the article was total garbage (and full of hatred). It was like someone with primary-school mathematic…

It's also possible that some people understand all of this and still don't think that crypto is a good idea, or that it has worked out well in practice, or that it does anything meaningful.

Ok. In my opinion an algorithmic censor-resistant, deflationary value network is a useful potential technology that can give us potentially the best store-of-value known to mankind so far. Why isn't it meaningful to further research this technology in your opinion? (While mathematicians are researching all kinds of esoteric topics?) In my opinion proof-of-stake research is one of the most-important research topics today.

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

#149

Post by ryanmarsh »

simonsaidit wrote: post #63
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

The article tries to imply that the hacker had a change of heart after a public plea to return the funds. In reality, parts of the crypto community moved quickly to block transactions involving the funds and some security researchers claimed they had solid leads on tracking down the hacker’s identity. I think the hacker realized that if their identity was compromised then the legal system wouldn’t look kindly on some…

They blocked very little and can only do very little. He seems to know enough that I don’t believe he’s scared of them finding his identity His own explanation is the one I find the most truth in. https://sites.google.com/view/hackersconfession/home/hacker-...

I would have loved it if he sent every coin he stole to the burn address as a big fuck you.

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

#150

Post by stavros »

pc86 wrote: post #136
RVuRnvbM2e wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s important to remember that when you start from scratch there is absolutely no reason to believe that you are going to do a better job than you did the first time. First of all, you probably don’t even have the same programming team that worked on version one, so you don’t actually have “more experience”. You’re just going to make most of the old mistakes again, and introduce some new problems that weren’t in t…

If you're going to just quote someone and pretend that serves as a cogent argument you'll probably want to pick someone a little smarter and more well-rounded than Spolsky.

Is your only objection towards the argument that it was made by Spolsky?
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