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I mean, stopping the attacker is certainly doing justice, but a soft fork of the underlying Ethereum software that targets a specific account feels like it unde

I mean, stopping the attacker is certainly doing justice, but a soft fork of the underlying Ethereum software that targets a specific account feels like it undermines the idea of Ethereum itself. Ethereum should be a platform, and any technology platform should be simple and reliable- add in an authority's ability to push out updates that muck around with contracts directly (even if they must then be consciously accepted by end users) takes away enough simplicity and reliability that it threatens the practicality of contracts worth millions of dollars. A more principled response would be to simply shrug and say "contracts are hard, lets be extra careful in the future" and move on. An unscrupulous hacker would get rich, but if that's the worst that happens during Ethereum's bootstrap phase its an unequivocal win. Sooner or later the lesson will have to be learned, if anything like Ethereum becomes widely used.

darawk 10y ago
Ya the big problem with it is that not only would a bad actor get rich (not so bad), but he'd likely flood the markets with eth, tanking the price which would hurt people that didn't even invest in the DAO. And secondly, it'd make switching to proof of stake in the future a more dubious proposition, knowing that a known malicious actor controlled 10% or more of all the ether in existence. Those IMO are the big reasons to soft fork, not to prevent the enrichment of the thief. IMO really, the guy deserves something for finding the flaw. If it were up to me, i'd give him some of the money - just not enough to cause problems for the network.
- zenogais 10y ago
  You can't have the same actor both flood the markets to temporarily drive down the price and control a major stake of Ether - it's an either or proposition. In the first case, assuming the move was purely malicious rather than self-interested, the price dip would likely not be fatal to Ethereum, but it would suck for a bit. The more likely move is sell-offs in chunks at price highs, as this would maximize profit which would seem to be the motive here so far. In the second case, the actor still doesn't control a majority, Ethereum's disinflationary nature erodes at that percentage stake at regular intervals, and they are incentivized to act positively wrt the Ethereum network to protect the value of their sizable assets. I think it comes down to a matter of time preference. People who want their money back now or justice for the wronged aren't acting in a way that is seemingly interested in the longterm health of Ethereum. They just want what's best for them whether money or the gratification of revenge, and they want it now. The best longterm thing for Ethereum is for the investors to eat their losses, and for the appropriate amount of risk aversion to enter the ecosystem. This will create massive, positive incentives to create ways of reliably building and vetting future contracts. IMO that is better long term for Ethereum than the short term gains of a hard or soft fork.
- Trundle 10y ago
  If you think an asset is worth $x and it drops below that amount for a while. That's a benefit isn't it? You get to invest more at a lower price. When the asset returns to its true value you now have more of it.
- bcbrown 10y ago
  > a known malicious actor Isn't the entire idea of trustless systems that everyone is assumed malicious?
wmf 10y ago
Perhaps an equally principled response would be to fix all known bugs across all contracts at once.
- haimez 10y ago
  Or, you know, to encode the contracts in an unambiguous, verifiable language. Nevermind, let's just use JavaScript because it has the biggest available developer base.
  - woah 10y ago
    Maybe another good option is to restrict our commenting to things we have knowledge of.

darawk 10y ago

Ya the big problem with it is that not only would a bad actor get rich (not so bad), but he'd likely flood the markets with eth, tanking the price which would hurt people that didn't even invest in the DAO. And secondly, it'd make switching to proof of stake in the future a more dubious proposition, knowing that a known malicious actor controlled 10% or more of all the ether in existence. Those IMO are the big reasons to soft fork, not to prevent the enrichment of the thief. IMO really, the guy deserves something for finding the flaw. If it were up to me, i'd give him some of the money - just not enough to cause problems for the network.

zenogais 10y ago
You can't have the same actor both flood the markets to temporarily drive down the price and control a major stake of Ether - it's an either or proposition. In the first case, assuming the move was purely malicious rather than self-interested, the price dip would likely not be fatal to Ethereum, but it would suck for a bit. The more likely move is sell-offs in chunks at price highs, as this would maximize profit which would seem to be the motive here so far. In the second case, the actor still doesn't control a majority, Ethereum's disinflationary nature erodes at that percentage stake at regular intervals, and they are incentivized to act positively wrt the Ethereum network to protect the value of their sizable assets. I think it comes down to a matter of time preference. People who want their money back now or justice for the wronged aren't acting in a way that is seemingly interested in the longterm health of Ethereum. They just want what's best for them whether money or the gratification of revenge, and they want it now. The best longterm thing for Ethereum is for the investors to eat their losses, and for the appropriate amount of risk aversion to enter the ecosystem. This will create massive, positive incentives to create ways of reliably building and vetting future contracts. IMO that is better long term for Ethereum than the short term gains of a hard or soft fork.
Trundle 10y ago
If you think an asset is worth $x and it drops below that amount for a while. That's a benefit isn't it? You get to invest more at a lower price. When the asset returns to its true value you now have more of it.
bcbrown 10y ago
> a known malicious actor Isn't the entire idea of trustless systems that everyone is assumed malicious?

wmf 10y ago

Perhaps an equally principled response would be to fix all known bugs across all contracts at once.

haimez 10y ago
Or, you know, to encode the contracts in an unambiguous, verifiable language. Nevermind, let's just use JavaScript because it has the biggest available developer base.
- woah 10y ago
  Maybe another good option is to restrict our commenting to things we have knowledge of.