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Critical Update on DAO Vulnerability

blog.ethereum.org

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Re: Critical Update on DAO Vulnerability

#71

Post by lazaroclapp »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #54
nneonneo wrote: post #30

The provided link is just a page showing a bunch of transactions. For someone like me, who is not so intimate with the Ethereum terminology in use (but who is still interested in the DAO, as an observer), could someone provide a layman's explanation of what's going on? Somewhat more specifically, I'm wondering the following: - At a high level, what does this attack actually consist of? - How does ethereum "go missing…

Presumably the attacker will stop short of doing anything that would completely destroy the currency, since they now own a lot of it

I think they could also be shorting ETH, in dollars/euros/rubles/yuans, in which case destroying the currency would be excellent business for them, even if they can't extract what they stole.

Re: Critical Update on DAO Vulnerability

#73

Post by buttershakes »

joosters wrote: post #61
johncolanduoni wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is just a 51% attack then we didn't learn anything about etherium qua etherium or blockchains qua blockchains... but we'll learn something about the lower bound for being big enough that they're not a realistic possibility.

It's an interesting question - is the DAO 'too big to fail' ? I wonder how different ether will turn out to be, will they bail it out by rolling back the blockchain?

Rolling back the blockchain would have some pretty serious ramifications, as the possibility of that becomes greater it makes sense to sell as quickly as possible into another chain to retain value.

Re: Critical Update on DAO Vulnerability

#74

Post by narrator »

I always though that Etherium had a huge attack surface. Each script has to be security audited, etc. That's the thing about Bitcoin. It's as simple as possible while still being secure and useful and has been beat up and audited by the best security pros in the world. Distributed Systems are not easy. Secure distributed systems with Byzantine fault tolerance are even harder. Etherium is just trying to do too much.

Re: Critical Update on DAO Vulnerability

#75

Post by buttershakes »

narrator wrote: post #74

I always though that Etherium had a huge attack surface. Each script has to be security audited, etc. That's the thing about Bitcoin. It's as simple as possible while still being secure and useful and has been beat up and audited by the best security pros in the world. Distributed Systems are not easy. Secure distributed systems with Byzantine fault tolerance are even harder. Etherium is just trying to do too much.

Most people really don't understand the difficulties involved. It's an incredibly hard thing to get right.

Re: Critical Update on DAO Vulnerability

#77

Post by infodroid »

joosters wrote: post #26

Just remember, when the developers inevitably appear with suggestions about how to stop the hack, roll back the blockchain, or come up with other schemes to block the hackers, they are showing everyone that all the talk of blockchains being decentralised, or being beyond the control of governments or other powers... is a complete lie. If this hack can be stopped, then it demonstrates that the currency can be manipula…

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder and Chief Scientist of Ethereum, just called for a DAO and ETH trading halt at all Ethereum exchanges: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4oif2x/dao_attack...

Re: Critical Update on DAO Vulnerability

#78

Post by tinkerrr »

joosters wrote: post #26

Just remember, when the developers inevitably appear with suggestions about how to stop the hack, roll back the blockchain, or come up with other schemes to block the hackers, they are showing everyone that all the talk of blockchains being decentralised, or being beyond the control of governments or other powers... is a complete lie. If this hack can be stopped, then it demonstrates that the currency can be manipula…

Also remember that this isn't the first time this idea of 'lets rollback a blockchain due to a hack/attack' has been floated or even tried. The first major blockchain rollback almost completely destroyed the cryptocurrency [1]. Since then, some major hacks have happened and the community/developers rejected the idea of a rollback [2][3]. That was a hard lesson, and hopefully the current developers will learn from the short history.

Also to your point, yes, Ethereum is not as decentralized as some would like to claim, either from a stakeholder perspective, or from a mining perspective, or even from a 'who holds the power' perspective. I suspect that's what makes it so efficient though, in terms of changing protocol, or making decisions on behalf of stakeholders.

[1] http://247cryptonews.com/vericoin-lack-integrity-bailout-min...

[2] https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/official-nxt-decision-blockc...

[3] http://www.newsbtc.com/2014/12/17/opal-recovers-1-7-million-...

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