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And the code was flawed, doing something that was unintended, therefore the law was flawed. This happens all the time in traditional written law. Legalese exis

And the code was flawed, doing something that was unintended, therefore the law was flawed. This happens all the time in traditional written law. Legalese exists for this very reason.

TekMol 5y ago
How do you know it was unintended? Just because one side says so? Because that side has a big brand name? That is exactly what I mean with "Whoever has the highest reputation is right". The initial promise of crypto was the opposite: That the little Joe has the same rights as the big guys. Because code is law. And code does not care about the budget of your legal department and your marketing department.
- leppr 5y ago
  "Code is law" is either nonsensical or redundant when applied to a complex Turing complete language such as Solidity. If you can't accurately predict the implications of the lines of code in a smart contract, then it's as good as saying "The laws of physics are laws. That ball ended in my garden following the laws of gravity and thermodynamics, asking for me to return it to you is breaching the initial promise of the physical world". This may change with better smart contract languages that can reconcile intent with effect[1], but while talking about complex Ethereum smart contracts, the "Code is law" argument has no value. Furthermore, as long as you keep within the bounds of trustless cryptocurrency (unfortunately not a tautology these days), code is indeed law. The ETH this person acquired cannot be confiscated. [1] e.g. https://scilla.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://scilla.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
  - lottin 5y ago
    > The ETH this person acquired cannot be confiscated. That's only because there's no ETH. All there is is a ledger. And ledgers can be "ammended", as they have been in the past, effectively stealing the hacker's ETH back.
MattGaiser 5y ago
Yes, but loopholes in law still allow something to happen until the law is fixed.
- terminalcommand 5y ago
  The main issue with law is that it is written in an ambiguous language. Theoretically you could write more precise laws with code. Maybe they should have let a group of contract lawyers proofread what the code does. Lawyers look for bugs, inconsistencies, errors, loopholes all the time.

And the code was flawed, doing something that was unintended, therefore the law was flawed. This happens all the time in traditional written law. Legalese exists for this very reason.

TekMol 5y ago

How do you know it was unintended? Just because one side says so? Because that side has a big brand name? That is exactly what I mean with "Whoever has the highest reputation is right". The initial promise of crypto was the opposite: That the little Joe has the same rights as the big guys. Because code is law. And code does not care about the budget of your legal department and your marketing department.

leppr 5y ago
"Code is law" is either nonsensical or redundant when applied to a complex Turing complete language such as Solidity. If you can't accurately predict the implications of the lines of code in a smart contract, then it's as good as saying "The laws of physics are laws. That ball ended in my garden following the laws of gravity and thermodynamics, asking for me to return it to you is breaching the initial promise of the physical world". This may change with better smart contract languages that can reconcile intent with effect[1], but while talking about complex Ethereum smart contracts, the "Code is law" argument has no value. Furthermore, as long as you keep within the bounds of trustless cryptocurrency (unfortunately not a tautology these days), code is indeed law. The ETH this person acquired cannot be confiscated. [1] e.g. https://scilla.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://scilla.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
- lottin 5y ago
  > The ETH this person acquired cannot be confiscated. That's only because there's no ETH. All there is is a ledger. And ledgers can be "ammended", as they have been in the past, effectively stealing the hacker's ETH back.

MattGaiser 5y ago

Yes, but loopholes in law still allow something to happen until the law is fixed.

terminalcommand 5y ago
The main issue with law is that it is written in an ambiguous language. Theoretically you could write more precise laws with code. Maybe they should have let a group of contract lawyers proofread what the code does. Lawyers look for bugs, inconsistencies, errors, loopholes all the time.