Ethereum hack
June 18, 2016 6:32 AM Subscribe
Cryptocurrency system Ethereum
was hacked Friday and drained of some $40 million worth of tokens (known as
"ether"). The vulnerability was in the "Decentralized Autonomous
Organization (DAO), which resulted from the largest crowdfunding project in
history. .The vulnerability
was known a long time ago but was not
easy to fix. In response, there is now an
effort to dismantle DAO, and Ethereum will be hardforked.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Probably better to put this in the open Ethereum thread from two days ago. -- LobsterMitten
As hard as physical security is, people seem to be a damn sight better at it than they do at computer security. In light of that (and an ever growing number of incidents like this one), cryptocurrencies just strike me as a bad fucking idea.
posted by Dysk at 6:41 AM on June 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 6:41 AM on June 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
Part of me always wants to make big bank heists an 'inside job'
posted by GhostRider at 6:42 AM on June 18, 2016
posted by GhostRider at 6:42 AM on June 18, 2016
Well, you know what this is great news for.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:46 AM on June 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:46 AM on June 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Wasn't there just a giant thread about how amazing "Ethereum" was?
Rich people: if you want to just have less money... rather than put your money in pretend internet fedoracoins or donating it to idiot Republicans who lose elections to weird leprechauns, just pay more taxes! It's basically the same thing and then we can build a park or feed some people!
posted by selfnoise at 6:53 AM on June 18, 2016 [8 favorites]
Rich people: if you want to just have less money... rather than put your money in pretend internet fedoracoins or donating it to idiot Republicans who lose elections to weird leprechauns, just pay more taxes! It's basically the same thing and then we can build a park or feed some people!
posted by selfnoise at 6:53 AM on June 18, 2016 [8 favorites]
Ethereum previously (like, 2 days ago) and previouslier.
Greed is blind, and stupid.
posted by dis_integration at 6:59 AM on June 18, 2016
Greed is blind, and stupid.
posted by dis_integration at 6:59 AM on June 18, 2016
The first I heard of Ethereum was the thread a few days ago. This is presumably the last I'll hear of it. Is this what old age will all feel like?
posted by an animate objects at 7:00 AM on June 18, 2016
posted by an animate objects at 7:00 AM on June 18, 2016
Maybe they'll build a nice park in North Korea?
posted by Artw at 7:01 AM on June 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 7:01 AM on June 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
This is how the DAO website describes DAO- "it is a new breed of human organization never before attempted. The DAO is borne from immutable, unstoppable, and irrefutable computer code"
It is born from ideological nonsense that has no connection with the real world.
posted by bhnyc at 7:03 AM on June 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
It is born from ideological nonsense that has no connection with the real world.
posted by bhnyc at 7:03 AM on June 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
Rich people: if you want to just have less money... rather than put your money in pretend internet fedoracoins or donating it to idiot Republicans who lose elections to weird leprechauns, just pay more taxes! It's basically the same thing and then we can build a park or feed some people!
The entire point of cryptocurrency is tax avoidance. Bitcoin was explicitly built as an "untraceable" end run around "fiat currency" i.e., traceable and taxable by governments. The Libertarian GaltBros behind these projects aren't doing it to just to prove how much better techno-money is than paper, they're trying to opt out of the basic social agreement underlying the regular financial system, pay taxes and receive services in return.
It's kind of funny that in the process they've recreated problems which were essentially solved 75-100 years ago by regular finance, like bank runs and actual large scale bank heists being a legitimate threat, but let's not pretend that there's any pure motives here. They don't want to pay taxes. That's the whole point.
Oh, and they don't really mind that the side effects also include creation of large scale dark markets for drugs.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:04 AM on June 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
The entire point of cryptocurrency is tax avoidance. Bitcoin was explicitly built as an "untraceable" end run around "fiat currency" i.e., traceable and taxable by governments. The Libertarian GaltBros behind these projects aren't doing it to just to prove how much better techno-money is than paper, they're trying to opt out of the basic social agreement underlying the regular financial system, pay taxes and receive services in return.
It's kind of funny that in the process they've recreated problems which were essentially solved 75-100 years ago by regular finance, like bank runs and actual large scale bank heists being a legitimate threat, but let's not pretend that there's any pure motives here. They don't want to pay taxes. That's the whole point.
Oh, and they don't really mind that the side effects also include creation of large scale dark markets for drugs.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:04 AM on June 18, 2016 [3 favorites]
« Older Can we save the open web? | What It's Like to Meet Annabelle Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by fairmettle at 6:37 AM on June 18, 2016