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Is something like this a legal ToS in the US? Also, one can argue that if they had truly taken every precaution then either intruders would not be able to brea

• juliangoldsmith 13y ago
  Bitcoin is too new for standards; nobody really knows how to run a business based on Bitcoin yet. Also, even if you take every reasonable precaution, there's still a possibility that your systems can be broken into.
  • declan 13y ago
    Corollary: Even if you take every reasonable legal precaution, there's still a possibility that you can be held liable once the class action lawsuit is filed.
    • andrewfong 13y ago
      Yes, but who would pay if you won? The corporation's assets have been stolen, and presumably there aren't enough left over to cover the shortfall (hence the closure of the site). Moreover, unless they screwed up their corporate formalities, the individual shareholders should be protected from this type of loss. Limited liability is one of the main reasons why corporations exist in the first place.
      • dragonwriter 13y ago
        > Moreover, unless they screwed up their corporate formalities, the individual shareholders should be protected from this type of loss. Corporate formalities alone don't prevent piercing the corporate veil.
        • andrewfong 13y ago
          Yes, but it's really hard to pierce the corporate veil if all the formalities are in place. Negligence alone won't let you pierce the veil. Unless the shareholders effectively embezzled the corporation's assets, I don't see how you get around it.
          • dragonwriter 13y ago
            > Negligence alone won't let you pierce the veil. Sure, but undercapitalization alone can with certain types of creditors, and gross undercapitalization can be a significant factor in favor of piercing the veil in other cases. And actively concealing a known "leak" of funds held in trust for customers arguably goes far beyond mere negligence.
            • tptacek 13y ago
              Point of order: negligence alone routinely "pierces the veil", doesn't it? It's a tort.
              • dragonwriter 13y ago
                > Point of order: negligence alone routinely "pierces the veil", doesn't it? Not alone, it doesn't routinely. > It's a tort. Anything that produces civil liability is a tort. It wouldn't be much of a veil if anything that was a tort routinely pierced it.
                • tptacek 13y ago
                  I'm definitely not trying to be argumentative, but as I understand it, corporate limited liability doesn't shield individuals (including agents of the company) from tort liability. Also, it's not really true that anything that produces civil liability is a tort, is it? Civil liability also arises from contract law.
                  • dragonwriter 13y ago
• aroch 13y ago
  Yes, just like a non-FDIC insured bank can tell you 'too bad, too sad' if they're robbed and your money was stolen. Unless you're specifically insured against loss, banks aren't obliged to give you money lost due to robbery unless you some how prove the robbery was the result of, say, gross negligence.
  • jamesaguilar 13y ago
    > Yes, just like a non-FDIC insured bank Are there such things? In practice, are they a significant portion of the banking market?
    • dragonwriter 13y ago
      Yes, some state (rather than federal) banks are not FDIC insured. (Also, credit unions are a lot like banks and are not FDIC insured, but most of them are CUA insured, which is functionally the same thing.)
• nathankot 13y ago
  I think we should try get a set of open-source standards together: github.com/nathankot/BISS