4 ms·

The $280M Ethereum bug

30 points by kushti 9y ago

ecesena 9y ago
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15642856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15642856
Zamicol 9y ago
It's not an ethereum bug, it's a parity bug. Ethereum worked exactly as coded.
- Legogris 9y ago
  Not even a bug in Parity, but in a smart contract made by the Parity team.
Legogris 9y ago
Misleading title. This was not a bug in Ethereum, but in the code for a particular popular multi-sig wallet people use on Ethereum. I don't mean to trivialize it, but this is kind of like saying "Bitcoin was hacked" when MtGox went down.
- swsieber 9y ago
  Kinda - your point is technically true. OTOH, Ethereum really encourages these types of bugs due to how it's setup. These types of bugs are characteristic to things written in Solidity. So no, Ethereum didn't have a bug, it just encourages buggy programs, and this is great example.
  - DiNovi 9y ago
    this same logic means the internet encourages bugs
    - sn0risn 9y ago
      The internet does encourage bugs.
      - vernon99 9y ago
        “The $280M internet bug”?
viach 9y ago
Why didn't they choose at least pure functional language for smart contracts? Imo that would reduce the amount of dramas...
- tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
  How would it have done that?
  - viach 9y ago
    No mutable state, no objects, just one way flow of data transformation. For example https://www.fstar-lang.org https://www.fstar-lang.org
- 6nf 9y ago
  It would not have stopped this particular bug. The problem here is that the 'destructor' method was open to anyone to execute, when really it should have been restricted to the creator / owner only. They exposed a call to the public that should have been 'private'
45h34jh53k4j 9y ago
I dont think its fair to say a code review would have fixed this -- its an operational bug. They failed to initialise the library (ie: assigning ownership) after deploying it. Last time the smart contract let anyone initialise it (which was a code problem). Either way its pretty much the end of Parity. I bet those PolkaDot investors are going to be mad when their tokens are worthless!

30 points by kushti 9y ago

ecesena 9y ago

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15642856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15642856

Zamicol 9y ago

It's not an ethereum bug, it's a parity bug. Ethereum worked exactly as coded.

Legogris 9y ago
Not even a bug in Parity, but in a smart contract made by the Parity team.

Legogris 9y ago

Misleading title. This was not a bug in Ethereum, but in the code for a particular popular multi-sig wallet people use on Ethereum. I don't mean to trivialize it, but this is kind of like saying "Bitcoin was hacked" when MtGox went down.

swsieber 9y ago
Kinda - your point is technically true. OTOH, Ethereum really encourages these types of bugs due to how it's setup. These types of bugs are characteristic to things written in Solidity. So no, Ethereum didn't have a bug, it just encourages buggy programs, and this is great example.
- DiNovi 9y ago
  this same logic means the internet encourages bugs
  - sn0risn 9y ago
    The internet does encourage bugs.
    - vernon99 9y ago
      “The $280M internet bug”?

viach 9y ago

Why didn't they choose at least pure functional language for smart contracts? Imo that would reduce the amount of dramas...

tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
How would it have done that?
- viach 9y ago
  No mutable state, no objects, just one way flow of data transformation. For example https://www.fstar-lang.org https://www.fstar-lang.org
6nf 9y ago
It would not have stopped this particular bug. The problem here is that the 'destructor' method was open to anyone to execute, when really it should have been restricted to the creator / owner only. They exposed a call to the public that should have been 'private'

45h34jh53k4j 9y ago

I dont think its fair to say a code review would have fixed this -- its an operational bug. They failed to initialise the library (ie: assigning ownership) after deploying it. Last time the smart contract let anyone initialise it (which was a code problem). Either way its pretty much the end of Parity. I bet those PolkaDot investors are going to be mad when their tokens are worthless!