News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:A software change allowed FTX to use client money by swiper_lux on Tuesday December 13, 2022 @07:32PM (#33978389)
Brings up a question: what is the chance of blaming some of this on an "innocent" coding error? Can you get jail for not writing unit tests, swallowing an exception, a type conversion you did not expect?
Re:A software change allowed FTX to use client money by siva7 on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @02:58AM (#33981102)
Zero Chance. Singh already proved intent with his source code comment. Him claiming to be unaware of violating the law won't prevent him from getting almost certainly jailed.
Re:A software change allowed FTX to use client money by Gigachad on Wednesday December 14, 2022 @07:32AM (#33982615)
Seeing all the crypto bros go to jail is the heart warming start to 2023 I needed.
Re:A software change allowed FTX to use client money by polygamous_bat on Tuesday December 13, 2022 @07:39PM (#33978437)
I believe that really depends on (a) how much harm it caused downstream, (b) how much of it is caused by your actions. Per Matt Levine's column today, it's not the whole problem that FTX had sloppy accounting – rather that SBF went around advertising the "sophisticated risk engine" which in reality was crap. This action accounts for fraud.

I don't see you being jailed for your random GitHub project being sloppy. However, if your closed source software that you advertise as 100% safe and secure gets used by a chemotherapy clinic, and then it comes out to be downright sloppy after killing 20 patients you may be accused of fraud. Anyway, not a lawyer so take it with a grain of salt.

Re:A software change allowed FTX to use client money by gcr on Tuesday December 13, 2022 @08:37PM (#33978923)
I hope it also depends on a reasonable expectation of oversight and access controls when you're working in high-risk fields. Finance engineers should probably be expected to be familiar with laws concerning what they do.
Re:A software change allowed FTX to use client money by 8note on Tuesday December 13, 2022 @09:30PM (#33979299)
The relevant deadly chemotherapy example: https://youtu.be/Ap0orGCiou8
Re:A software change allowed FTX to use client money by BurningFrog on Tuesday December 13, 2022 @08:26PM (#33978820)
Interesting.

The perfect crime would be to add a natural looking bug in the code that can be exploited by someone else, and then we split the money!

Re:A software change allowed FTX to use client money by gurchik on Tuesday December 13, 2022 @08:52PM (#33979044)
> The Underhanded C Contest is an annual contest to write innocent-looking C code implementing malicious behavior. In this contest you must write C code that is as readable, clear, innocent and straightforward as possible, and yet it must fail to perform at its apparent function. To be more specific, it should perform some specific underhanded task that will not be detected by examining the source code.

> Every year, we will propose a challenge to coders to solve a simple data processing problem, but with covert malicious behavior. Examples include miscounting votes, shaving money from financial transactions, or leaking information to an eavesdropper. The main goal, however, is to write source code that easily passes visual inspection by other programmers.

http://underhanded-c.org/

Re:A software change allowed FTX to use client money by greenonions on Tuesday December 13, 2022 @08:55PM (#33979064)
Genius, but it has to be a bug that you haven't knowingly prevented before, otherwise it'd be suspicious.