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In other words: ETH was an insecure blockchain and once compromised, there is no legal or operational recourse, with the implication that issues could indeed ex

In other words: ETH was an insecure blockchain and once compromised, there is no legal or operational recourse, with the implication that issues could indeed exist today. House of Cards.

VectorLock 5y ago
Ethereum has forked to roll-back hacks in the past, likely for something as big as making ETH from thin air they'd do the same with even less hesitation.
- jollybean 5y ago
  Yes, and they can do it for whatever reason they want. One might argue therefore that ETH is centrally controlled, and with considerably less oversight and reasonable oversight than, for example, most central banks.
  - SparkyMcUnicorn 5y ago
    Anyone can fork ETH, and a fork is only successful if there's consensus.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      Funny how that "consensus" seems to be defined as "among those who have the most". So how is that any more decentralised, any less of an oligarchy, than the old system?
berkes 5y ago
No. This was neither ETH, nor the Ethereum blockchain. Nor does this imply more issues indeed exist today.
- jollybean 5y ago
  From the bounty: "The Summary On 2/2/2022, I reported a critical security issue to Optimism—an "L2 scaling solution" for Ethereum—that would allow an attacker to replicate money on any chain using their "OVM 2.0" fork of go-ethereum (which they call l2geth)." No - sorry - ETH doesn't get a 'pass' on this. The 'Rest Of The World' is tired of the Crypto Scam Delusion masquerading as something reasonable and watching these critical failures getting swept under the rug. This issue demonstrates that critical failures will exist in the wild (and it's wrong to suggest that they won't come up in the future - they will) creating an existential flaw for systems in which there is no intrinsic remedy. Forks by 'completely arbitrary central powers' entirely defeat the purpose. Just last week we had the FBI arrest criminals laundering literally billions in Crypto. It's a tiring fraud absorbing enormous amounts of attention and energy for no apparent benefit but entertainment. The concept is currently fundamentally flawed, it belongs in 'side project' territory for now, not in the mainstream.
  - fastball 5y ago
    By definition an "L2 scaling solution" is not the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum itself clearly is a secure blockchain given the fact that it has not been exploited directly ever, as far as I am aware. Smart contracts running in the EVM obviously have exploits galore, but that is different from Ethereum itself being vulnerable. Just like it is different when the Java Virtual Machine itself has an exploit (uncommon) vs when a program that runs in the JVM does (very common). You can of course argue that the lack of inherent soundness / correctness in Ethereum smart contracts makes the entire chain less useful since running smart contracts is kinda the whole point, but then you should make that argument rather than saying dumb things like: > ETH was an insecure blockchain
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > Ethereum itself clearly is a secure blockchain given the fact that it has not been exploited directly ever, as far as I am aware. Oh, so it can only be exploited indirectly. Yeah, wow, that makes it oh-so-secure.
  - pshc 5y ago
bannedbybros 5y ago
davidmurdoch 5y ago
This is like saying that because someone is able to write buggy money transference software that lets users change their own account balance within _that buggy software_ that your personal bank is now insecure.
- jollybean 5y ago
  No it's not, though. I expect that my bank is not perfectly secure. And when it fails, there will be ways to redress the problem, i.e. account insurance, bank refunds, legal recourses etc.. Blockchains have 'no way out'. When there is a problem, it breaks everything. Recently, there was a grift on ETH and to overcome the problem, there was a massive fork, which is enormously hypocritical because it implies that there are 100% 'Central Authorities' with ETH, who are unarmed, unrestrained by any regulation or oversight, policy and probably any legality. Etc. The only way for Blockchains to maintain their ideological integrity is if they are 'perfect'. But they are not 'perfect' and require 'maintenance and oversight'. Ergo they are self defeating their own purpose. Ultimately, it's a ruse or will mostly be used as such.

In other words: ETH was an insecure blockchain and once compromised, there is no legal or operational recourse, with the implication that issues could indeed exist today. House of Cards.

VectorLock 5y ago

Ethereum has forked to roll-back hacks in the past, likely for something as big as making ETH from thin air they'd do the same with even less hesitation.

jollybean 5y ago
Yes, and they can do it for whatever reason they want. One might argue therefore that ETH is centrally controlled, and with considerably less oversight and reasonable oversight than, for example, most central banks.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 5y ago
  Anyone can fork ETH, and a fork is only successful if there's consensus.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Funny how that "consensus" seems to be defined as "among those who have the most". So how is that any more decentralised, any less of an oligarchy, than the old system?

berkes 5y ago

No. This was neither ETH, nor the Ethereum blockchain. Nor does this imply more issues indeed exist today.

jollybean 5y ago
From the bounty: "The Summary On 2/2/2022, I reported a critical security issue to Optimism—an "L2 scaling solution" for Ethereum—that would allow an attacker to replicate money on any chain using their "OVM 2.0" fork of go-ethereum (which they call l2geth)." No - sorry - ETH doesn't get a 'pass' on this. The 'Rest Of The World' is tired of the Crypto Scam Delusion masquerading as something reasonable and watching these critical failures getting swept under the rug. This issue demonstrates that critical failures will exist in the wild (and it's wrong to suggest that they won't come up in the future - they will) creating an existential flaw for systems in which there is no intrinsic remedy. Forks by 'completely arbitrary central powers' entirely defeat the purpose. Just last week we had the FBI arrest criminals laundering literally billions in Crypto. It's a tiring fraud absorbing enormous amounts of attention and energy for no apparent benefit but entertainment. The concept is currently fundamentally flawed, it belongs in 'side project' territory for now, not in the mainstream.
- fastball 5y ago
  By definition an "L2 scaling solution" is not the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum itself clearly is a secure blockchain given the fact that it has not been exploited directly ever, as far as I am aware. Smart contracts running in the EVM obviously have exploits galore, but that is different from Ethereum itself being vulnerable. Just like it is different when the Java Virtual Machine itself has an exploit (uncommon) vs when a program that runs in the JVM does (very common). You can of course argue that the lack of inherent soundness / correctness in Ethereum smart contracts makes the entire chain less useful since running smart contracts is kinda the whole point, but then you should make that argument rather than saying dumb things like: > ETH was an insecure blockchain
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > Ethereum itself clearly is a secure blockchain given the fact that it has not been exploited directly ever, as far as I am aware. Oh, so it can only be exploited indirectly. Yeah, wow, that makes it oh-so-secure.
- pshc 5y ago

bannedbybros 5y ago

davidmurdoch 5y ago

This is like saying that because someone is able to write buggy money transference software that lets users change their own account balance within _that buggy software_ that your personal bank is now insecure.

jollybean 5y ago
No it's not, though. I expect that my bank is not perfectly secure. And when it fails, there will be ways to redress the problem, i.e. account insurance, bank refunds, legal recourses etc.. Blockchains have 'no way out'. When there is a problem, it breaks everything. Recently, there was a grift on ETH and to overcome the problem, there was a massive fork, which is enormously hypocritical because it implies that there are 100% 'Central Authorities' with ETH, who are unarmed, unrestrained by any regulation or oversight, policy and probably any legality. Etc. The only way for Blockchains to maintain their ideological integrity is if they are 'perfect'. But they are not 'perfect' and require 'maintenance and oversight'. Ergo they are self defeating their own purpose. Ultimately, it's a ruse or will mostly be used as such.