Why “the code is law hence no fork” position with regard to the Ethereum DAO is inconsistent

in #crypto-news8 years ago (edited)

The code is law, working as written, not as intended, investors must accept that!” Well, let’s take it to its logical conclusion then! Ethereum , Bitcoin, all major cryptocurrencies allow the majority of miners to do basically whatever they want for whatever reason whatsoever via soft or hard forking. Trustless, immutable self-enforcing contracts are so only in a limited sense. They replace the lower level courts, but the Supreme Court are the miners. So human choice can override smart contracts, cancel transactions, return or block funds. It is not my opinion: it is what the code says i.e. the platform allows. If you loathe humans having that kind of power, if you want truly 100% not overridable contracts or transactions, you need to make a very different technology. This technology explicitly allows and empowers miners to act as a Supreme Court. Accept it or make a very different code. And this looks like a pretty good case for them to consider exercising their code-granted powers and intervent via forking, but the choice is theirs.

However, anti-forking “code lawyers” have a good point, too. If miners have the supreme overriding power – and they do, the code says so – it should be explicit, formal, and open for all to petition, to present a case for their consideration. We need a platform where everyone can formally petition the Supreme Court Of Ethereum Miners to consider raising the forkhammer to overturn a malicious transaction or contract. Everyone, not just the EF. This is how crypto grows up. Take away power from humans if you can, but if you cannot, and with the current code you cannot, then make that human power explicit, formal, and open for all to petition equitably: like a proper court of law.

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https://m.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4oo3ud/an_open_letter_to_the_attacker/

"Hi attacker,

I've reviewed your contract and do not consider it valid. Therefore I am making the decision not to enforce it.

Your refer to the code of your contact as authoritative. This is a fallacy.

According to the code that is responsible for administering your contract - namely, the code that mines the Ethereum network, each miner has complete discretion to decide for himself which transactions to include in a block. As miners we have the ability to decide not to recognize your transactions as valid. You knew this when you made the decision to manipulate the contract, so that was a risk you took, which appears to have backfired.

You are welcome to pursue your case in court. Good luck with that!

Sincerely,

A miner

Edit: excellent and thought provoking conversation all around! Thanks!

This has nothing to do with the morality of supposed theft or the original intent of the contract vs the code as written with bugs. That's not the issue here. The reason I consider the contract invalid is because I believe it is unenforceable: if the attack is an existential threat to ethereum then honoring it requires me to take a "suicide pill". Any code which can be weaponized against the network is invalid in my opinion. Others may disagree.

The attacker is welcome to pursue legal action with me, one guy, in another country, who signed no contract with anyone and who is running open source code that allows me to modify it at will. I will simply point out to the court that by the attackers own logic ("the code defines the rules") then he must also abide by the higher order code that mines - or invalidates - his contract."

https://dividuals.wordpress.com/2016/06/18/why-the-code-is-law-hence-no-fork-position-with-regard-to-the-ethereum-dao-is-inconsistent/

Trustless, immutable self-enforcing contracts are so only in a limited sense. They replace the lower level courts, but the Supreme Court are the miners. So human choice can override smart contracts, cancel transactions, return or block funds.

I get your point. How is this different from PayPal then? PayPal has a set of reasonable rules written in code but the ultimate decision about who gets the payment and who doesn't lies with PayPal owners. Pretty similar to what you propose.

I didn't write the article this is just a repost. I think the point is that one would have to have human guidance in case of bugs in the code. They can then stop unlawful transactions. There are many problems with this, but smart contracts is an extremely complex thing and I think ethereums implementation of smart contracts will not work. Either way this whole DAO debacle will weaken ethereum considerably.

If the forking goes through then ethereum will very much resemble an organisation like paypal, the decentralization dream will have to be undertaken by some other crypto, maybe lisk or nxt?

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