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What meaningful distinction is drawn by using one of these words over the other? "Hacked" typically implies it happened over the net, whereas "stolen" typically

What meaningful distinction is drawn by using one of these words over the other? "Hacked" typically implies it happened over the net, whereas "stolen" typically implies it physically happened in person. The former is more appropriate here, no?

jsmith99 5y ago
I like to distinguish attacks where money was stolen using stolen credentials from those that occured simply by manipulating smart contracts. Some crypto enthusiasts would consider the second type of attack to be legitimate activity rather than theft, so long as the attacker stayed within the letter of the 'law' as expressed on chain.
fsckboy 5y ago
hacking a system and stealing a key (copying) is a lot less interesting than hacking a key by exploiting some cryptographic weakness
bruce511 5y ago
I'm not sure I agree. I mean secrets can be stolen. Apparently pirating music or movies is theft and so on. We've often seen the naritive of Big company stealing ideas etc from smaller companies. So stealing can extend beyond simple physical property, and could acceptably encompass IP as well.
- cesaref 5y ago
  It's a smart move by the entertainment industry to try to rebrand piracy as theft, as the public at large understand theft as a bad thing. Legally though I think it's 'copyright infringement' which sounds a lot less sexy.
  - teknopaul 5y ago
    Certainly in the UK theft is "taking possession with intent to permanently deny the owner of it". Copyright infringement is not theft by that definition. Saw this great stand-up skit by someone who was asked to compare copyright infringement to stealing a car... It like stealing a car but You just stick you finger out, touch the car, and it's your car! And the owner still has the car! And literally all my friends do it!
toyg 5y ago
I guess I'm old, but "hacked" to me typically involves trickery in manipulating the object itself, not just exfiltrating it. You hack a system to copy data, you don't "hack data". If you say you hacked keys, I expect you manipulated those keys with some crypto wizardry, but in this case it just means somebody somehow obtained them somehow.

jsmith99 5y ago

I like to distinguish attacks where money was stolen using stolen credentials from those that occured simply by manipulating smart contracts. Some crypto enthusiasts would consider the second type of attack to be legitimate activity rather than theft, so long as the attacker stayed within the letter of the 'law' as expressed on chain.

fsckboy 5y ago

hacking a system and stealing a key (copying) is a lot less interesting than hacking a key by exploiting some cryptographic weakness

bruce511 5y ago

I'm not sure I agree. I mean secrets can be stolen. Apparently pirating music or movies is theft and so on. We've often seen the naritive of Big company stealing ideas etc from smaller companies. So stealing can extend beyond simple physical property, and could acceptably encompass IP as well.

cesaref 5y ago
It's a smart move by the entertainment industry to try to rebrand piracy as theft, as the public at large understand theft as a bad thing. Legally though I think it's 'copyright infringement' which sounds a lot less sexy.
- teknopaul 5y ago
  Certainly in the UK theft is "taking possession with intent to permanently deny the owner of it". Copyright infringement is not theft by that definition. Saw this great stand-up skit by someone who was asked to compare copyright infringement to stealing a car... It like stealing a car but You just stick you finger out, touch the car, and it's your car! And the owner still has the car! And literally all my friends do it!

toyg 5y ago

I guess I'm old, but "hacked" to me typically involves trickery in manipulating the object itself, not just exfiltrating it. You hack a system to copy data, you don't "hack data". If you say you hacked keys, I expect you manipulated those keys with some crypto wizardry, but in this case it just means somebody somehow obtained them somehow.