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153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

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Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#331
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said here last week "Also the lead developer is some kid who believes very much in moving fast and breaking things. This philosophy may work for a social network site but not for other people's money." This philosophy permeates the community of Etherum development. Bitcoin disabled most of the smart contracts op codes for a very good reason. I wouldn't recommend putting anything of value into an Etherum smart co…

Do you have examples of this, or just hearsay?

Beyond the one we're already discussing?

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#332
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said here last week "Also the lead developer is some kid who believes very much in moving fast and breaking things. This philosophy may work for a social network site but not for other people's money." This philosophy permeates the community of Etherum development. Bitcoin disabled most of the smart contracts op codes for a very good reason. I wouldn't recommend putting anything of value into an Etherum smart co…

Do you have examples of this, or just hearsay?

the story you are commenting on is a good example

it should not be this easy to lose sixteen million dollars

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#333
post #25

Here's the root error I believe: https://github.com/paritytech/parity/blob/master/js/src/cont... The initWallet function should have been marked internal, but was instead not marked. Unmarked functions default to public in Solidity, so anyone can call that function and reinitialize the wallet to be under their control

I can literally feel how Ethereum changes the law. I mean, seriously, no need for lawyers anymore. On ethereum it's is simple: You got fucked, live with it. "Bad faith? It's the code, didn't you read it?"

I realize that was probably satire or sarcasm or both, but since I've seen people actually seriously take that position I'm going to go ahead and respond as if it was serious.

How do these smart contract deal with the real world? I can see how they can work for things that entirely involve activities that take place on the block chain (e.g., a smart contract that automatically pays a crowd funded project if and only if it meets a threshold for pledges by a deadline, and refunds the donors otherwise).

But suppose our contract is something like I will pay you $X in Ethereum when you deliver to me 125 bales of Surat cotton, guaranteed to be middling fair merchant's Dhollorah [1], delivered at the Liverpool docks from Bombay on the next sailing of the Peerless.

How do we put all of that into a smart contract? Can a smart contract trigger payment only when the cotton arrives? Can it check to make sure it arrived on the ship specified in the contract?

And what happens if it turns out that there are two ships named Peerless, unrelated to each other, one of which is sailing from Bombay to Liverpool in October, and one in December? I only know about the December one, and it is on that one that I'm expecting the cotton. You only know about the October one, and so it is on that one you send the cotton. The cotton arrives before I'm ready to deal with.

Unless dealing with all that can be included in the smart contract, and executed by the smart contract without human intervention, lawyers will still be needed...and they will be needed almost as much as they are now.

PS: my cotton hypothetical is based on a real case: Raffles v Wichelhaus, EWHC Exch J19, (1864) 2 Hurl & C 906. There really were two unrelated ships both having and neither deserving the name Peerless, and both working the India / England trade routes, both scheduled for Bombay to Liverpool, one in October and one in December.

[1] Dhollorah is a very dirty cotton of a longish staple, which when cleared is very white, as if bleached. For for more than you probably ever wanted to know on this and other types of cotton, see the book "Cotton Spinning and Weaving: A Practical and Theoretical Treatise" by Herbert Edward Walmsley, page 71. It's from the late 19th century and is public domain now I believe, and you can find it on Google Books.

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is rolling back transactions that are clearly part of a robbery a bad thing?

Define robbery.

Are you asking for a formal definition that could be put in code? Sorry, there just isn't one.

The same laws which apply to stealing tangible things and cash also apply to stealing cryptocurrency.

In the very unlikely event that the perpetrators came out and sued the Ethereum developers for violating their contract and taking "their" money back, a judge would look at the facts and then decide how the law applies to this particular case. IANAL, but I'm ready to bet that the thieves will go to jail for a while :-)

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#335
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said here last week "Also the lead developer is some kid who believes very much in moving fast and breaking things. This philosophy may work for a social network site but not for other people's money." This philosophy permeates the community of Etherum development. Bitcoin disabled most of the smart contracts op codes for a very good reason. I wouldn't recommend putting anything of value into an Etherum smart co…

Do you have examples of this, or just hearsay?

You should ask yourself what the Bitcoin developers are doing while Ether takes their market share. The answer is the exact same thing, at https://elementsproject.org

Now why hasn't there been as much publicity about this? Is it because Vitalik Buterin is a wunderkind genius who simply beat them to market? Nope, the Bitcoiners are simply being more responsible and making sure they get the formula right before rushing to market.

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can literally feel how Ethereum changes the law. I mean, seriously, no need for lawyers anymore. On ethereum it's is simple: You got fucked, live with it. "Bad faith? It's the code, didn't you read it?"

Matt Levine has some thoughts [1] on that matter. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-17/blockchai...

That dude's read a lot of DFW.

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're being downvoted because you're exactly right. The crypto-anarchists love to say "the code is the law", but the reality is that losing your retirement savings because somebody forgot to mark a method private is a pretty shitty outcome. For all its warts, a legal system backed by a jury of your peers is still the best way of sorting out the actual intent of a contract when the shit hits the fan.

Well then ethereum is not for THOSE people. It is fine if you don't like those features. But it turns out that a lot of people DO want them. The people who want to court system can already use the court system. Now we just have more options and choices.

Why do you think that the court system somehow doesn't apply to what happens on ethereum ?

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#338
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People write this stuff off so fast. Here we have a parity developer, probably one of the most competent in the Ethereum ecosystem, and he screwed up to the tune of losing $30m of other people's money. If HE can't get it right, what business do you have running around saying that anyone who can make a webpage can make a decentralized application? We are playing with money. Dealing with attackers is not as simple as r…

Dear god, I've been thinking crypto is a bubble since 2010. At some point, we have to admit this is not just a bubble. It's a new unproven evolving technology

I actually think eth has a lot of potential, but I don't think he's saying crypto is a bubble. He's probably talking about the ICO "bubble", which isn't a controversial thing to claim. Eth has already halved in value in the last month which is mostly put down to the crazy value being pumped into ICO's slowing down.

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#339

It's "cynical" to point out these problems will keep happening, but then they keep happening. So, not much to say.

Well yeah, as long as there are cars, people will get in car accidents... That doesn't mean we should ride horse buggies forever.

Re: 153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

#340
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have examples of this, or just hearsay?

You should ask yourself what the Bitcoin developers are doing while Ether takes their market share. The answer is the exact same thing, at https://elementsproject.org Now why hasn't there been as much publicity about this? Is it because Vitalik Buterin is a wunderkind genius who simply beat them to market? Nope, the Bitcoiners are simply being more responsible and making sure they get the formula right before rushing…

You sound very biased on this.
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