EOS chain stability should be the primary objective of governance

in #eosio5 years ago (edited)

A call for ECAF to suspend issuing orders which require modifying accounts

Governance should preserve chain stability

All parties on EOS should be concerned to preserve the stability of the chain. Stability occurs when parties behave in a manner consistent with the expectations they have set - when outcomes are predictable.

ECAF began with the stated aim of trying to solve a number of diverse problems. These ranged from contractual disputes, to DAO-type hacks, to theft of tokens.

ECAF issued its first order to change the keys of an account in early November. It was the first order of its kind to move property from one account to another; previous orders had been to ‘blacklist’ or freeze an account.

However, it has become clear that several elements of this body are not fit for purpose. In particular, there is lack of clarity over the scope and intended purpose of ‘arbitration’ - and even what arbitration is.

ECAF’s scope and effectiveness is unclear

ECAF appears to be willing to look at and issue ‘orders’ to block producers about situations that fall outside the normal definition of arbitration.

Arbitration is a process entered into by parties who have a dispute with each other, with the intended aim of resolving the dispute.

Let’s look at the areas ECAF appears to be willing to issue orders regarding:

  1. Situations in which parties have a dispute over a contract
  2. Situations in which tokens have allegedly been stolen
  3. When a user has lost their keys
  4. Hacks resulting from code vulnerabilities

Taking these in turn:

(1) Is a legitimate area for arbitration and can be handled by arbitration services
(2) Is a criminal matter (more on this topic below)
(3) No dispute is present here, and there are serious questions of scalability and affordability of a service that offers to assist users with lost keys
(4) This is a crucial area; the action taken to address these is by developers and block producers (more on this topic below)

‘Arbitrating’ criminal matters?

It is a principle of statute (the laws of countries) that they take precedence over contract. This means that the laws of countries currently supercede individuals’ contractual agreements with each other.

Perhaps the EOS community would like to lobby governments to make an exception to their property laws to carve out cryptocurrency, so that theft of EOS could be resolved by an alternate forum. Those who believe traditional legal frameworks are not functioning well, are violent or coercive may be especially motivated to pursue this.

But such an exception has not yet been achieved in law, so currently when ECAF issues ‘orders’ for block producers to move private property from one account to another, both ECAF and block producers are doing so outside of any legal framework. Normally a court order is required before property can be lawfully ‘restored’.

Let’s also bear in mind that if ECAF really were trying to erect a parallel criminal justice system, there would be a slew of considerations such as rules and procedure to handle evidence, witnesses, appeal and so on. It might be a worthwhile effort to create a parallel criminal justice system, but it’s a big task.

Given this, it seems only a matter of time before an ‘order’ is given that is wrong. When this happens the consequences and magnitude are unknown.

It is a manifestly under-developed proposition for ECAF to deliver ‘orders’ to block producers to make restitution for crimes at this time. Unless ECAF can show that it has the jurisdiction to instruct block producers to move private property between users, to continue to do so introduces uncertainty and instability into the chain.

Dealing with code vulnerabilities - DAO-events

When a hack occurs exploiting a vulnerability in code, there are two aspects to the response:

(1) To amend the code of the affected contract to stop the active draining of tokens
(2) To attempt to get the stolen tokens back

With respect to (1), there is already a functioning system in place to edit code. At application level, the developer holding a valid key can amend the contract. At the level of the chain, block producers implement code changes (either ⅔+1 or all 21 BPs depending on the change required).

This system has been used a number of times since chain launch successfully, with BPs coordinating, sometimes with Block.one, to deploy updated code. ECAF has not been involved in this process.

With respect to (2), within minutes stolen tokens are traded into other currencies or fiat. If they remain on exchanges, there may be the opportunity to restore some funds, but outside this, once funds are stolen and traded out of EOS, they leave the purview of block producers to restore (the only exception is when tokens are staked).

It is unrealistic to create the expectation that ‘arbitration’ is a process for restoring stolen funds.

Being responsible about the expectations we set

The concepts of governance and arbitration on EOS are generating expectations for users that we can not deliver on.

Users are being told a general story of safety and stopgaps, when the reality of the mechanisms for restitution are far different.

This is not responsible. We should limit our scope to what we can reliably achieve, especially when private property and a multi-billion dollar chain are at stake.

Equally, by being more authentic about the realistic limits of ‘governance’, we cede the space for developers to offer effective services to protect users from theft, such as time-delayed and multisig transactions as common practice, walled-environments with extra safety mechanisms, recovery services on owner and active keys, education and so on.

Our position

We call on ECAF to refrain from issuing any orders which require modifying accounts. We ask ECAF to exercise appropriate scope restraint by entertaining cases of arbitration of contractual disputes only (ie those which might otherwise be heard by the civil justice system) rather than criminal matters.

It is also imperative that we, as a community, institute the required referendum as soon as possible and allow EOS mainnet token holders to decide on the governance they want for the chain.

-Michael, Rob, Luke, Saro

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I am happy to say that I finally got my EOS into a great wallet an exercised my votes for BP (yours included)! I am happy to see these updates from your team as it demonstrates the effort at transparency on key issues on the platform. Look forward to continue reading your updates!

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Damn, guys, this was really painful to read. You are either completely misunderstanding how EOS works, or you are willfully trying to deceive people. Both options are really bad from a BP which has been with EOS since the beginning.

You can't just call on somebody to stop obeying the constitution. If there is something that you disagree with, you need to ask the community to amend the constitution. You really can't try to pressure parties of the ecosystem to disobey constitution if you don't like certain rules.

How the hell you can expect that the stability of the chain will be preserved if people should act against he constitution? If one part of the constitution is completely ignored, then all the other parts can be also ignored. This will lead to the situation where everyone can try to do whatever they want, as long as they think won't cause them too much problems.

ECAF began with the stated aim of trying to solve a number of diverse problems. These ranged from contractual disputes, to DAO-type hacks, to theft of tokens.

It was the constitution which does all this. ECAF is just there to make the decision over disputes arising from the constitution.

However, it has become clear that several elements of this body are not fit for purpose. In particular, there is lack of clarity over the scope and intended purpose of ‘arbitration’ - and even what arbitration is.

The constitution is a multiparty contract and everything that's in the constitution defines the scope of arbitration. The community has its own ruleset and it uses arbitration to get a judgement if a rule has been broken. There really shouldn't be any lack of clarity about it at this point.

ECAF appears to be willing to look at and issue ‘orders’ to block producers about situations that fall outside the normal definition of arbitration.

ECAF will look at all cases that the community asks it to look at. Just because multiparty contract similar to EOS's constitution is not common, it doesn't mean it's somehow invalid. If you want to move certain kind of disputes out of ECAF's jurisdiction, then you need to ask the community to amend the constitution. ECAF doesn't have any power over the ruleset, it just does what the community asks it to do. It was created to serve the community.

But such an exception has not yet been achieved in law, so currently when ECAF issues ‘orders’ for block producers to move private property from one account to another, both ECAF and block producers are doing so outside of any legal framework. Normally a court order is required before property can be lawfully ‘restored’.

Yeah, but how well the normal procedures have been working with blockchains? Really badly, I'd say. That's why I like how EOS has taken the initiative to create something better. If the existing justice systems are really inefficient at protecting private property on the blockchain, then it makes sense for the community to protect themselves. This is achieved by including disputes about property rights under the jurisdiction of EOS base-layer arbitration.

Even though this is something new, I don't think that existing judicial systems will look at it as something illegal. On the contrary, my guess is that they will more likely say something like "wow, that's a great innovation!" and support it.

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