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from the you've-never-seen-1000-tonnes-of-gold-instantly-evaporate dept.
User mistakenly takes control of hundreds of wallets containing cryptocurrency Ether, destroying them in a panic while trying to give them back
Unlike most cryptocurrency hacks, however, the money wasn't deliberately taken: it was effectively destroyed by accident. The lost money was in the form of Ether, the tradable currency that fuels the Ethereum distributed app platform, and was kept in digital multi-signature wallets built by a developer called Parity. These wallets require more than one user to enter their key before funds can be transferred.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/cryptocurrency-300m-dollars-stolen-bug-ether
This is less than 1% of the entirety of the total value of Ethereum (as perceived by speculators). One must remember that the national debts of issuers of some fiat currencies could effectively destroy 100% of those currencies, so is it appropriate for dollar users (which indirectly is all of us) to sneer at cryptocurrency users for this apparent weakness which will, presumably, be fixed and never happen again?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Thursday November 09 2017, @03:45PM (7 children)
The problem with software-based money (including the stuff in your bank) is that many decades into the digital revolution, software reliability is still an unsolved problem.
The crypto may be mathematically rock-solid but everyone is thoughtlessly installing software when they have no idea how it works, whether it's any good, or how to determine either of those things.
Until that changes (and it won't) software can't be trusted for anything more than entertainment. Surely not money. Or controlling deadly machines (self driving cars for example).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @03:50PM (5 children)
Humans are hardware. They run unreliable software on their brains. They can't be trusted not to sell drugs or shoot up the pastor's daughter.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Thursday November 09 2017, @04:31PM (4 children)
So because humans aren't perfect we should trust machines?
That makes about as much sense as "because $YOUR_POLITICIAN is bad you should vote for $MY_POLITICIAN".
The difference is: a crazy human can hurt 100 people. A crazy web site can hurt 140 million people (Equifux). You can incentivize most human behavior with rewards or threats of punishment, except for those so insane as to be suicidal. How do you threaten or punish a machine? Or those who made it? So far it looks like Equifux will be apologizing all the way to the bank, and the executive stockholders will be crying into the sea under their yachts.
That's what you get for trusting machines with important stuff, like money or lives. But carry on, nothing to see here...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @05:59PM
That depends. How many people did Stalin hurt?
Again, it depends. For example, no matter how crazy it might get in the future, SoylentNews will likely not harm very many people very much.
And I'm pretty sure that Equifux did a lot less harm than Stalin.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 09 2017, @11:14PM (2 children)
Machines are becoming more like humans. If they are not showing real intelligence, they are at least being made to imitate patterns of human behavior and thought. Soon there will be no reason to trust either group more than the other.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2017, @10:51AM (1 child)
Hmm. Maybe this statement was made by a machine or was made by someone that lacks any aspect of things like compassion which is present in any number of lower animals like dogs, pigs and even chickens but clearly lacking in here. Compassion (ie. empathy) is the cornerstone of our civilization, without which we are truly unable to have a society. Why? Because "fuck you, got mine" is not how most people function. And people that function like that tend to be over-represented in jail or wall street, depending how disciplined or lucky they are.
Yes, intelligence is important, but it gets us fuck all on the relationship level.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 16 2017, @11:10AM
Mmmh, the compassionate scent of an easy mark. Machine-human criminal cooperatives gonna screw you over.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Lester on Thursday November 09 2017, @06:03PM
Yes, software reliability is still an unsolved problem. Nevertheless, there is high integrity software methodologies for avionics, nuclear plants, NASA, ESA etc.
https://www.nist.gov/publications/high-integrity-software-standards-and-guidelines [nist.gov]
Nothing guarantees 100% safety (Pathfinder, Ariadna 5...). But they have a ratio of errors very very low. Unfortunately high integrity software methodologies are cost a lot in time, many tests, many documentation, ultra tested compilers and platforms, tools for verification etc. Without reaching such level, banks, VISA etc, have a lot of security audits and exhaustive software verification.
Obviously, that is not what Ethereum and other "Let's change the world" guys are doing.