281–290 of 409 posts
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There was a wonderful summary of what smart contracts are. https://twitter.com/qrs/status/1395784294451265536 > Smart contracts should be considered self-funded bug-bounty platforms.
Mark the "should". It's just an opinion, not a fact.
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This is a thing that confused me about smart contracts. I don't see how they can exist without a judicial system. They do seem to have some uses under that framework. Like the system is auditable so you can prove if someone cheated and changed a contract out from under you (and you lost your copy), but that's only a minor improvement on the current system. The US has a lot of legal policy that is based on spirit of t…
> The US has a lot of legal policy that is based on spirit of the law Yes, but that's a wrong and unfair way to define and apply laws. > humans are imperfect Smart contracts and "code is the law" mantra don't contradict this. You're imperfect and you commit a mistake, you lose. You find a mistake in someone else's code, you win. This is much better than the current legal system where we are all collectively forced to…
>Yes, but that's a wrong and unfair way to define and apply laws.
Sounds like you're interpreting how to define and apply the law there based on what you feel is the right and fair way to do so. Seems a bit paradoxical.
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That sort of depends on what the exploit is, right? For example, if DRNK costs $1 per unit, but I find out that by putting in $1.25 I get 2 units, have I actually exploited the machine? Is it not reasonable to assume that discount was intended? Now, of course, if I'm prying open the machine with a prybar then we could argue that's just theft. But, putting money in the machine and getting units out is the intended int…
And what if the vending machine measures coins by weight, and you so happen to have a "coin" that is just a properly-weighted blank. You're still interacting with the vending machine as technically intended . But by not inserting the correct amount of money, you are not interacting with it as intended by the creators. The smart contract implements a technical intent, just like the vending machine. But that technical…
However, that's not what happened in this attack. This attack was far more akin to the "getting 2 units for $1.25" that I described. In fact, that's exactly what it was at the root of it. At no point did the attacker actually exploit code.
The technical and explicit intent was followed to a T here. The attacker got a loan (perfectly within the intent) bought a bunch of the index (again, within the intent) sold a bunch of a underlying stock of the index (Again, within intent), sold the index, and sold the loan. Nowhere in this process was there a "this violates the essence of the contract".
And, let's be frank here, it's not like the attacker didn't open themselves to a huge liability. Anyone that saw this attack in progress could have bought sushi coin or UCI and ultimately drained away the income this attacker was earning, potentially putting them on the hook for a pretty massive loan.
Now, would such a scheme be legal if this were actual securities and not crypto? Nope, because we put more protection around real securities in the US and other countries. However, crypto went out of it's way to make itself above the law and outside of securitifaction. That, in fact, was the entire point of crytpo, to be something governments COULDN'T regulate.
> But in our email exchanges, he argued that he'd executed a perfectly legal series of trades. In real finance, there is an understanding that technical loopholes can exist, since not every outcome can be foreseen when writing laws, but the legal system can frequently prosecute against a series of actions which are, individually, legal, but which together are taken in order to achieve something illegal. That is, mode…
The Worlds littlest skyscraper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_littlest_skyscraper
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Imagine in your example the vending machine has a variable pricing and lowers its price if nobody purchases soda. Is it theft to wait longer than the designers thought people would wait and purchase the DRNK at price lower than the machine owner thought they would. I think a better example is a claw gambling machine. You pay Fiat for a chance to grab fiat out of a pool. If you come up with a strategy whereby you can…
Broken slot machines do happen, and it's been made very clear that the player does not benefit. https://www.aol.com/2016-11-02-broken-slot-machine-dupes-wom... https://www.foxnews.com/us/not-a-winner-oregon-woman-denied-... However, this works both ways. If the mistake is in the favor of the player, they are obligated to pay out: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-slot-machine-in-las-vega...
"Malfunction voids all wins."
Here, it's also been made very clear. "Code is law".
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More like a piñata full of money sitting next to a whole pile of sticks.
I get that you share the opinion of the tweet. It still does not mean that this is how the legal system will see it.
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That sort of depends on what the exploit is, right? For example, if DRNK costs $1 per unit, but I find out that by putting in $1.25 I get 2 units, have I actually exploited the machine? Is it not reasonable to assume that discount was intended? Now, of course, if I'm prying open the machine with a prybar then we could argue that's just theft. But, putting money in the machine and getting units out is the intended int…
> For example, if DRNK costs $1 per unit, but I find out that by putting in $1.25 I get 2 units, have I actually exploited the machine? Is it not reasonable to assume that discount was intended? What if you remove the last part? What if you know, clearly, that your interaction what not what the designer wanted? > So, that's what I'd say the difference is. A smart contract defines all the interactions that are valid.…
Well, then they should have designed a better vending machine, shouldn't they? It may be unethical but I certainly wouldn't call it illegal. Again, back to the gas analogy, I don't think someone pumping gas at $0.20 is breaking the law even though that's clearly not the intent.
> What do you mean by "valid"?
None of the interactions for this attack were using the system in a way it wasn't meant to be used. It wasn't exploiting code. It was buying and selling assets in a way that enriched the attacker. That is a valid interaction.
Also, the whole point of these contracts IS that the code is the specification. That's the whole point of crypto in general. Trust nobody and let the blockchain determine truth.