Reality check on ethereum

[crypto_coiner]

This hack is in sync with the conversations I have had with the devs yesterday and today.
Their blockchain actually does not add any value to the table beyond hashing tx id and snippets of txt, and not securely.
For hackers the cake is mouth-watering-- for honest end-users, there is nothing to see. Dont touch it.

[MaVo]

Does all this refer to DAO or to ETH as well or, broadly speaking on a technical level, can’t the two be separated from each other anyway?

[dysconnect]

It’s TheDAO that’s failing but people are dumping ETH on a combination of FUD, reduced long term prospects and the risk that the attacker dumps the huge amount of stolen ETH.

By long term prospects I mean the realization that the ETH is far from being magical.

[crypto_coiner]

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ethereum-to-hardfork-dao-to-be-dismantled/
The Ugliest

[crypto_coiner]

Peter Todd (peterktodd)

[crypto_coiner]

(The ugliest) of history repeats itself.

Personal statement regarding the fork • r/ethereum

[dysconnect]

Given miner incentives, the soft fork is likely to happen but the hard fork is not.

[Chronos]

(The ugliest) of history repeats itself.

Amazing. I remember that NXT hack. I followed it closely, and was actually surprised that it wasn’t rolled back via hard-fork.

[creon]

Wow, seeing this thread for the first time. Interesting how conservative this community is w.r.t. Ethereum, I thought it would be very much in the spirit of many shareholders. Your Hayek coin would be far simpler to implement there, I guess.

Vitalik is a good person, bitcoin magazine was the only great technical source about the tech in early days and his blog post itself is outstanding. Its disgusting what kind of attributes some members make fun of in this thread. In fact I even think he is handling this forking situation quite well. The problem is not so much that a smart contract fucked up but that 10% of the supply are in this stupid contract.

Disclosure: I dumped all my NSR into ETH when I left the community but I never owned any DAO tokens, not because the of the idea but because I don’t like the slock.it team. Turns out that I seem to have a good feeling for incompetent devs.

[crypto_coiner]

That makes much sense:
“A soft or hard fork would amount to seizure of my legitimate and rightful ether, claimed legally through the terms of a smart contract. Such fork would permanently and irrevocably ruin all confidence in not only Ethereum but also the in the field of smart contracts and blockchain technology. Many large Ethereum holders will dump their ether, and developers, researchers, and companies will leave Ethereum. Make no mistake: any fork, soft or hard, will further damage Ethereum and destroy its reputation and appeal.”

OPEN LETTER FROM THE ATTACKER
http://pastebin.com/CcGUBgDG

[dysconnect]

You make it seem like somebody in this thread attacked Vitalik Buterin ad hominem but I scanned through and saw none.

[cryptog]

Although it seems that he does not have the signature of the attacker i agree intuitively with the writer.

[DavidMc0]

“A soft or hard fork would amount to seizure of my legitimate and rightful ether, claimed legally through the terms of a smart contract. Such fork would permanently and irrevocably ruin all confidence in not only Ethereum but also the in the field of smart contracts and blockchain technology…”

The attacker didn’t read up on the ‘terms’ of a blockchain, in which the entire thing is subject to a distributed consensus. If you try to rip off the stakeholders who maintain that consensus, they can quite rightly pull the rug out from under your feet if they so desire.

[cryptog]

hey can quite rightly pull the rug out from under your feet if they so desire.

well only the ethereum miners, not the dao token holders can vote.

[crypto_coiner]

Blockchain Company's Smart Contracts Were Dumb

[crypto_coiner]

Solar-storm: A serious security exploit with Ethereum, not just the DAO

Ethereum is Doomed

I'm off, sold all my DAO, all my ETH and unsubscribed • r/ethereum

DAO soft fork voting on Ethpool & Ethermine

[DavidMc0]

Yes, and who knows how they’ll vote.

My point is that the immutability of the contract (or anything else on a blockchain) is subject to the consensus maintaining the immutability, and the attacker didn’t factor this in. They can get in a huff about it, but they don’t have any legal/moral legs to stand on.

The actions of miners / other stakeholders (exchanges, wallets, big ETH holders, the ‘economic majority’ etc) doing a hard fork to recover funds would not be illegitimate or wrong as the attacker implies, it would just demonstrate how the system can thwart their theft.

I’ll be very happy if the attacker ends up with 0 ETH

[cryptog]

Yes. I do not see a problem in deciding to fork per se.
I see a potential problem in the centralized nature of the methodology of decision making.

[crypto_coiner]

My point is that the immutability of the contract

What does it mean?

[DavidMc0]

Immutable means something cannot be changed after its creation.

An immutable contract is a contract that cannot be ‘muted’ , or changed after being created.

Blockchains are generally though of as providing a good degree of immutibility, because only a consensus of the distributed stakeholders who maintain the blockchain can override the immutibility of the ledger.

However, some blockchain proponents seem to have forgotten that the distributed consensus can override the immutable nature of a blockchain and are freaking out about it potentially hapenning in this case with Ethereum & seem offended by the possibility of it.