Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist • Hacker News Board

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#101

Post by Retric » Sun, Jun 18, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

yangchi wrote: post #82

foepys wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always been like this. Be smug and aggressive when it goes right and cry for help when something goes wrong. The housing crisis was the same. Claim you got the thing that makes everybody rich and when everything went inevitably downhill, ask the "enemy" aka the regulator/government/police to bail you out.

It's been long time since I read Too Big To Fail, so what I recall could be wrong, but i don't think your statement about the 2008 bailout is entirely true if that book wasn't a lie. Almost the majority of Wall Street refused the bailout money. Paulson almost force them. The bailout money eventually made a profit ($15B). One could argue that the return rate was low (0.6% annualized), but still, this is far different…

US has debt which costs more than 0.6% annualized so no even by the most optimistic analysis, it was a direct net loss.

It depends on how you calculate it but, actual costs where over 50 billion net loss. But, it was really important for politicians to point to it as a 'success' so there is more than a little creative accounting going on.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#102

Post by mannykannot » Sun, Jun 18, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

gus_massa wrote: post #62

rtpg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't it a bit disingenuous to say it was just the position of Ethereum founders? People wanted their money back. It's almost as if some recourse for actions done in bad faith is a useful tool to have as a society...

That's not what says https://www.ethereum.org/ > Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.

Among those of us who see some value in smart contracts, there are two camps: those who are realistic about their limits and challenges, and those who have bought in to a massive delusion. This quote epitomizes the latter.

For example, how does 'run exactly as programmed' rule out fraud? Fraud is as programmable as legitimate activity.

For example, if fraud is not possible, then what was the justification for the hard fork?

People who have bought into a delusion find it hard to evaluate evidence - for example "Van de Sande is eager to move on. “It was really just a blip,” he says." So what was all the fuss about? After all, it was just two lines of code, so simple in retrospect, and now it has been fixed, so there's nothing to worry about, right?

Perhaps my favorite quote is "“I’m absolutely amazed. Why has no one traced this back and found out who did it?” asks Stephan Tual, the third co-founder of Slock.it." He is amazed that in one respect, this digital currency lived up to one of their major claimed benefits?

I am also not at all surprised by the 'shoot the messenger' complaints about Sirer's involvement.

The reality is that the verification of software, especially at this scale, is a really difficult problem, and everyone who has bought into the delusion seems to think that someone else is going to do it for them - I doubt that even 1% know how to do it themselves. So much for 'trustless'.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#103

Post by slewis » Sun, Jun 18, 2017, 4:09 PM UTC

n8n3k wrote: post #59

Thief? He strictly followed the terms of a contract by people who were very clear that "code is law" and who did not want institutions were the result is decided by human judgement.

I'm glad the hard fork happened, because it makes clear and public that there is no "coding around" the possibility of human oversight. Better for that to happen early than late IMO. And people sure still seem to be onboard.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#104

Post by mannykannot » Sun, Jun 18, 2017, 4:14 PM UTC

One thing not mentioned in this article is that the hard fork was only feasible because there was not much else in the way of contracts on Ethereum at the time, other than the DAO itself. If there had been vast networks of interdependent, concurrent contracts and their obligations, as envisioned by many of the most vociferous proponents of smart contracts, I think a rollback would have been impossible, at least in practice. Next time, they may not be so lucky.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#105

Post by patrickg_zill » Sun, Jun 18, 2017, 4:15 PM UTC

yangchi wrote: post #82

foepys wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always been like this. Be smug and aggressive when it goes right and cry for help when something goes wrong. The housing crisis was the same. Claim you got the thing that makes everybody rich and when everything went inevitably downhill, ask the "enemy" aka the regulator/government/police to bail you out.

It's been long time since I read Too Big To Fail, so what I recall could be wrong, but i don't think your statement about the 2008 bailout is entirely true if that book wasn't a lie. Almost the majority of Wall Street refused the bailout money. Paulson almost force them. The bailout money eventually made a profit ($15B). One could argue that the return rate was low (0.6% annualized), but still, this is far different…

Lehman didn't assist with the LTCM bailout, like all the other big brokerages did. That's why they were chosen to be sacrificed to scare Congress.

Every official source that explains the 2008 crisis is full of lies. The big banks all engaged in massive fraud and the bailout was the cover up.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#106

Post by zenkat » Sun, Jun 18, 2017, 4:18 PM UTC

Etherium's fundamental premise -- "code is law" -- presupposes a general solution to the formal verification of program correctness. This is an unsolved problem (and is likely unsolvable in the complete case).

Put simply, all code has bugs. How can Etherium ever work in practice at scale?

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#107

Post by bayonetz » Sun, Jun 18, 2017, 4:20 PM UTC

kator wrote: post #55

pjc50 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, could someone post a link to the source so we can all see?

See https://github.com/slockit/DAO/blob/v1.0/DAO.sol#L666

On that note, could someone familiar with this code explain what the problem is?

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#108

Post by kerkeslager » Sun, Jun 18, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

slewis wrote: post #103

n8n3k wrote: post #59

Thief? He strictly followed the terms of a contract by people who were very clear that "code is law" and who did not want institutions were the result is decided by human judgement.

I'm glad the hard fork happened, because it makes clear and public that there is no "coding around" the possibility of human oversight. Better for that to happen early than late IMO. And people sure still seem to be onboard.

It doesn't make that clear at all. It just makes clear that the Ethereum community is committed to profiteering rather than decentralization.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#109

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sun, Jun 18, 2017, 4:23 PM UTC

hsod wrote: post #91

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, why not just use current contract law with centuries of jurisprudence? Without, "code is the contract", Ethereum is a pointless, buggy, leaky abstraction of current contract law.

Perhaps in some cases a broad consensus mechanism (like hard fork) is preferable to putting it in the hands of 12 random people.

> Perhaps in some cases a broad consensus mechanism (like hard fork) is preferable to putting it in the hands of 12 random people

Sounds good in theory. In practice it's mob rule. We have pretty good evidence, i.e. history, that the rule of law is better.

Re: Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

#110

Post by kerkeslager » Sun, Jun 18, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

mannykannot wrote: post #104

One thing not mentioned in this article is that the hard fork was only feasible because there was not much else in the way of contracts on Ethereum at the time, other than the DAO itself. If there had been vast networks of interdependent, concurrent contracts and their obligations, as envisioned by many of the most vociferous proponents of smart contracts, I think a rollback would have been impossible, at least in pr…

The success of the DAO performing a 51% attack on Ethereum virtually ensures that Ethereum is useless for other contracts. Your contracts hold no value of they can be rolled back at the whim of the holders of the largest contract in the system for reasons that have nothing to do with your contract.