That seems to be a reasonable position. I'm kind-of comfortable with the position of bitcoin as being large enough to attract significant attacks, but not so dominant that a catestrophic failure of the system would have significant global impact.
I have nothing against bitcoin being the money of the future, but if it is to become that, this is the sort of trial by fire that it should endure.
You will probably end up in court. But you might not get convicted.
Shakeeb Ahmed was convicted of wire fraud for exploiting a smart contract bug.
Avi Eisenberg was also convicted for exploiting a smart contract bug, but he had his conviction overturned on appeal.
The Peraire-Bueno brothers were in court for exploiting a bug in the MEV mechanism but it ended in a mis-trial so we're going to have to wait to find out.
IANAL, but from my understanding, the primary law used to prosecute hacking is the CFAA's broad "without authorization" and "exceeding authorized access" clauses.
That said, authorization implies an entity with ownership rights granting some kind of limited license to others to interact with the owner's property.
For a permissionless decentralized network with no owner, where the attack is against the consensus of which chain is valid, I'd have a hard time arguing that "authorization" as a concept is even applicable or relevant.
As wmf suggested, market manipulation laws may still apply, but I'm not sure traditional CFAA "without authorization" / "exceeding authorized access" hacking charges could apply, though I'd be willing to bet a prosecutor could make a case for wire fraud - a scheme to defraud using interstate communications.
qgin|2 months ago
Lerc|2 months ago
I have nothing against bitcoin being the money of the future, but if it is to become that, this is the sort of trial by fire that it should endure.
dboreham|2 months ago
fancyfredbot|2 months ago
Shakeeb Ahmed was convicted of wire fraud for exploiting a smart contract bug.
Avi Eisenberg was also convicted for exploiting a smart contract bug, but he had his conviction overturned on appeal.
The Peraire-Bueno brothers were in court for exploiting a bug in the MEV mechanism but it ended in a mis-trial so we're going to have to wait to find out.
Not legal advice ;-)
anonym29|2 months ago
That said, authorization implies an entity with ownership rights granting some kind of limited license to others to interact with the owner's property.
For a permissionless decentralized network with no owner, where the attack is against the consensus of which chain is valid, I'd have a hard time arguing that "authorization" as a concept is even applicable or relevant.
As wmf suggested, market manipulation laws may still apply, but I'm not sure traditional CFAA "without authorization" / "exceeding authorized access" hacking charges could apply, though I'd be willing to bet a prosecutor could make a case for wire fraud - a scheme to defraud using interstate communications.
wmf|2 months ago
OJFord|2 months ago
Etheryte|2 months ago
unknown|2 months ago
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