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Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

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Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#11

Post by wwwv »

DINKDINK wrote: post #8
wwwv wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The principle of Ethereum is that code is law, the "hacker" followed the law to the letter and acted in a prescribed manner. What's the crime here exactly?

The ethereum foundations reaction to the DAO hack proved that the "code is the contract" is not true. Which questions the very value of smart contracts on the ethereum blockchain because it's proven that they're immutable now This is a good discussion: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-17/blockchai...

All obfuscation around a central controlling group that have the ability to reverse any transactions they don't like or negatively financially impact them, in other words.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#13

Post by AJRF »

atomical wrote: post #4

Is it even illegal to hack Ethereum? Some purists would say the smart contract was behaving as written.

It isn't, if you take the case under contractual law there is absolutely no basis to charge the person who extracted the $55m. The contract had 'flaws' but it was the contract, so tough cookies it agreed to something you didn't like, but you wrote it! (Except we know now it was too big to fail, which in turn means centralization)

The DAO was pumped up by VCs and friends of the founder of Ethereum, which, before the launch, attracted some people who had clout from the big banks and enterprises, ergo, if the DAO failed then Ethereum failed in the eyes of the most lucrative customers & developers there.

The thing that pissed of purists so much was, that when it first came out it was marketed as this beautiful "world computer" that would be incorruptible by anyone, but the hard fork made it apparent that the values of the Ethereum community had changed to value support of banks & business over that idea.

I was at a conference this week and watched a lecture by one of the founding board members of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, who was getting the crowd fired up about the idea of ICO's, and then directly after his talk, David Birch from Consult Hyperion came on and said that people who are involved in the launch of new tokens in this current feverish phase are extremely likely to go to jail for fraud. Was hilarious

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#14

Post by yorwba »

wwwv wrote: post #12
dboreham wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an easy "yes".

Should be easy to describe then.

IANAL, but here is how I would argue:

The DAO was created with the intention to allocate its funds according to a certain voting scheme, with everyone's power determined by the number of tokens they held. But the program did not correctly implement this intention, and the DAO hack exploited the difference to bring the funds under control of the attacker. This most likely violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and was thus illegal.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#15

Post by Zarath »

yorwba wrote: post #14
wwwv wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should be easy to describe then.

IANAL, but here is how I would argue: The DAO was created with the intention to allocate its funds according to a certain voting scheme, with everyone's power determined by the number of tokens they held. But the program did not correctly implement this intention, and the DAO hack exploited the difference to bring the funds under control of the attacker. This most likely violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and…

As I understand it, the DAO website explicitly stated that the code of the contract superseded any written or stated intent. Basically: The code is the law.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#16

Post by bhaak »

Zarath wrote: post #15
yorwba wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but here is how I would argue: The DAO was created with the intention to allocate its funds according to a certain voting scheme, with everyone's power determined by the number of tokens they held. But the program did not correctly implement this intention, and the DAO hack exploited the difference to bring the funds under control of the attacker. This most likely violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and…

As I understand it, the DAO website explicitly stated that the code of the contract superseded any written or stated intent. Basically: The code is the law.

I can write anything on a website.

That doesn't mean that it is legally binding.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#17

Post by tajen »

wwwv wrote: post #11
DINKDINK wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ethereum foundations reaction to the DAO hack proved that the "code is the contract" is not true. Which questions the very value of smart contracts on the ethereum blockchain because it's proven that they're immutable now This is a good discussion: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-17/blockchai...

All obfuscation around a central controlling group that have the ability to reverse any transactions they don't like or negatively financially impact them, in other words.

Said "hacker" could even take Ethereum to a civil court and win a trial for changing the DAO's code: Ethereum long claimed that transactions were unrevokable and only contracts had value, causing tort to the hacker when rules were reversed...

Given the number of people involved, it could even be juged as organized crime against one person...

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#18

Post by ghaff »

yorwba wrote: post #14
wwwv wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should be easy to describe then.

IANAL, but here is how I would argue: The DAO was created with the intention to allocate its funds according to a certain voting scheme, with everyone's power determined by the number of tokens they held. But the program did not correctly implement this intention, and the DAO hack exploited the difference to bring the funds under control of the attacker. This most likely violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and…

Which is one of the issues with smart contracts. Yes, written contracts are the contract in the physical world. And sometimes people get outlawyered or just plain screw up and lose money because of circumstances that they didn't foresee. But when things come to court, there's still generally some oversight usually provided through the court system or mediators to put the brakes on clearly absurd and/or unfair results. Which is generally considered a positive thing.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#20

Post by moomin »

bhaak wrote: post #16
Zarath wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, the DAO website explicitly stated that the code of the contract superseded any written or stated intent. Basically: The code is the law.

I can write anything on a website. That doesn't mean that it is legally binding.

The behaviour of the founders would almost certainly mean the phrase was interpreted as advertising rather than a legal commitment.
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