An Open Letter To the DAO and the Ethereum community
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To the DAO and the Ethereum community,
I have carefully examined the code of The DAO and decided to participate after finding the feature where splitting is rewarded with additional ether. I have made use of this feature and have rightfully claimed 3,641,694 ether, and would like to thank the DAO for this reward. It is my understanding that the DAO code contains this feature to promote decentralization and encourage the creation of "child DAOs".
I am disappointed by those who are characterizing the use of this intentional feature as "theft". I am making use of this explicitly coded feature as per the smart contract terms and my law firm has advised me that my action is fully compliant with United States criminal and tort law. For reference please review the terms of the DAO:
"The terms of The DAO Creation are set forth in the smart contract code existing on the Ethereum blockchain at 0xbb9bc244d798123fde783fcc1c72d3bb8c189413. Nothing in this explanation of terms or in any other document or communication may modify or add any additional obligations or guarantees beyond those set forth in The DAO’s code. Any and all explanatory terms or descriptions are merely offered for educational purposes and do not supercede or modify the express terms of The DAO’s code set forth on the blockchain; to the extent you believe there to be any conflict or discrepancy between the descriptions offered here and the functionality of The DAO’s code at 0xbb9bc244d798123fde783fcc1c72d3bb8c189413, The DAO’s code controls and sets forth all terms of The DAO Creation."
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.
I reserve all rights to take any and all legal action against any accomplices of illegitimate theft, freezing, or seizure of my legitimate ether, and am actively working with my law firm. Those accomplices will be receiving Cease and Desist notices in the mail shortly.
I hope this event becomes an valuable learning experience for the Ethereum community and wish you all the best of luck.
Yours truly,
"The Attacker"
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Message Hash (Keccak): 0xaf9e302a664122389d17ee0fa4394d0c24c33236143c1f26faed97ebbd017d0e
Signature: 0x5f91152a2382b4acfdbfe8ad3c6c8cde45f73f6147d39b072c81637fe81006061603908f692dc15a1b6ead217785cf5e07fb496708d129645f3370a28922136a32
Just picked that up from the TheDAO slack : http://pastebin.com/CcGUBgDG
Your thoughts?
Too much is being made of that clause. If the ethereum team retrieve the funds and the so-called attacker seeks remedy in a human court. The human court will look for the human intent/ interpretation of the DAO contract.
It is fanciful to believe that any courts will favour this attacker over hundreds of other people that stand to lose significant funds because of an exploit in computer code.
People can argue the toss over it in cyberspace but take the matter to pretty much any jurisdiction in the world and see how far quoting this clause as justification for the misappropriation of other people's money will get the attacker. Not very far.
A thief is threathening to sue the rightful owner for blocking his attempt to steal. This is a crazy world of the crypto-land.
Thief or not a thief, winning the court trial or loosing it, it doesn't matter, the result is one and only one, ethereum looks like a joke in the eyes of a lot of people, nothing can change that. Mission accomplished for the "hacker" "thief" "whatever" and imo he is the least responsible to blame for this mess.
Looks like an ethdev member says that signature is faked: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4oo1io/an_open_letter_from_the_hacker/d4e62fj
The Dao is Ethereum's Mt. Gox. Let it die. Let the hacker keep his Ether .
I didn't understand DAO at the beginning and I don't understand it now; my feeling is a lot of people who think they understand it, don't.
Never invest in anything you don't understand, or shit like this could happen, if this is real, then it looks like this person is now very, very, rich.
CG
Ethereum either survives with someone holding 3 millions ETH, or it dies contradicting its own principles
If this signature were real, it would be an admission to committing fraud. You can't enter into a contract secretly knowing that a clause in that contract gives you the ability to deprive the other parties to the contract of the entire benefit that they expected from the contract.
You can't say on the one hand that the code that lives on the blockchain is the absolute source of truth and then claim when someone uses that code contained in that contract to get rewarded for doing due-diligence that it was wrong. The DAOs hubris is what got the investors into this mess. I was for the forks until I read it. Game Over for the DAO.
In fact, the attacker has already won as he could also attack the other fallacy still standing - that decentralization somehow leads to a less corrupt system. Don't believe me? The attacker should simply be less greedy and offer 9 million dollars USD to each of the 4 largest mining pools to NOT observe the fork. He still walks with about 4 million.
This would give him the majority and incentivize the miners to not go along with the will of the DAO creators. And consensus still wins. Bought and paid for with money gained from investors who didn't understand or do due diligence before dumping money into a new untested type of organization. Maybe proof of stake will fix this mess. The attacker has already won by showing the hubris and lack of research on the part of investors and DAO creators. The DAO creators can't have it both ways.
Drama intensifies!!! :) https://steemit.com/ethereum/@ash/drama-intensifies-attacker-sending-btc-to-convince-people-against-the-hardfork
Hahaha, the plot thickens.
More likely than not, it's an attempt at market manipulation though.
Screenshot of the daoattacker account on DAO slack for posterity and analysis:
![daoattacker](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://i.imgsafe.org/524603cb81.png)
The local time puts him on the east coast of Australia, Brisbane or Sydney most likely. Except he's talking about US law. I'm calling bullshit so hard.
Anyone know where Craig Wright is, at this moment? ;-)
I think he's busy coding BitEther.
Most likely using a VPN.
Very interesting.
Noticed in that mailbox someone has done a password reset on the daodao slack account so most likely someone is on that account causing some trouble now.
will be interesting to see how this all plays out :)
What do you mean exactly? what password reset? :)