153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack

Re:153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack by RexetBlell on Wednesday July 19, 2017 @05:13PM (#14807991)

Can't you say the same thing about software that uses encryption in general? For example your browser, yet you still trust it. Also, what you said applies to critical software in airplanes, and cars like Tesla, yet you still somehow trust it without reading the code.

Maybe you should replace the word "Ethereum" with "sotware". "Software in general makes sense is all the following are true"

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack by AlexandrB on Wednesday July 19, 2017 @05:40PM (#14808220)

> Can't you say the same thing about software that uses encryption in general? For example your browser, yet you still trust it.

Software in general doesn't exist in a vacuum - it's backed by all the centuries-old meatspace institutions like common law, courts, and lawyers that provide a recourse when something goes wrong. As I understand Ethereum's whole purpose is to replace a lot of these institutions with "smart contracts" (correct me if I'm wrong). If Ethereum has to rely on the same institutions as every other piece of software to deal with contract disputes isn't it just adding more complexity to transactions?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack by eek05 on Wednesday July 19, 2017 @06:09PM (#14808457)

Not necessarily. Without judging the suitability of Ethereum for this, if you have something that does automated contracts at e.g. 9 nines reliability (fails one time in a billion), it may be very much worthwhile even if you have to fall back to the court system for the one in a billion occurrence.

Now, I'm skeptical of Ethereum's suitability in this space - the design doesn't seem to be geared enough towards correctness. However, they've also done some things that I really like (e.g. rolling back The DAO), so I'm not counting them out just yet.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack by empath75 on Wednesday July 19, 2017 @06:43PM (#14808643)

Rolling back the dao set a terrible precedent, and people that were ripped off in the latest hack should rightfully be asking for another fork. If there isn't one, then it'll be apparent that the developers will only protect their own interests.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack by youdontknowtho on Wednesday July 19, 2017 @09:22PM (#14809387)

That's a great point. It will be interesting to see what they do here. My bet is that they cover their interests, with an outside chance that they make up some kind of BS about percentage of ethereum in circulation vs the size of the fraud.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack by ssambros on Wednesday July 19, 2017 @05:33PM (#14808162)

We already have "software", but please remind us why do we need "Ethereum" specifically?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack by finnh on Wednesday July 19, 2017 @06:05PM (#14808428)

You're right that software can & will have bugs... but I think that makes my point?

To clarify, my point isn't "software has bugs! don't trust it for anything". My point is "software has bugs! don't make it the forum of last resort for contractual disputes".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:153k Ether Stolen in Parity Multi-Sig Attack by sum627u on Wednesday July 19, 2017 @07:49PM (#14808991)

Safety-critical software, for flight in particular, is required to meet rigorous certification standards and processes specified by law that include independent engineering review. You can't just slap in something from github, write some tests and call it a day.

[ Parent | on HN ]