Re:When's a van a van and when's it a car?
by pjc50 on Friday October 19, 2018 @04:53AM
(#18255206)
Things like taking the seats out of the van are "exploits" in the same sense as infosec. They are developed by looking at the existing rules and carefully designing something that meets the letter of the rules but not the spirit.
Often the "hacker" solutions go the other way: come up with a thing, then come up with a convoluted non-obvious justification as to why the existing rules don't apply. This doesn't work nearly as well.
For example, the Bitcoin white paper doesn't mention the Howey test. It's not actually engineered to avoid securities law, it's just presumed that anonymity makes it unenforcable or irrelevant. Some of the more recent coins address that, FileCoin is possibly the best example of a "utility token" pretending not to be a security.
Often the "hacker" solutions go the other way: come up with a thing, then come up with a convoluted non-obvious justification as to why the existing rules don't apply. This doesn't work nearly as well.
For example, the Bitcoin white paper doesn't mention the Howey test. It's not actually engineered to avoid securities law, it's just presumed that anonymity makes it unenforcable or irrelevant. Some of the more recent coins address that, FileCoin is possibly the best example of a "utility token" pretending not to be a security.