> But even if they don’t, what happened to “code is law”. Wasn’t the “hacker” just executing the contract as it allowed?
This has been bothering me for some time as well. How are these hacks prosecuted as wrongdoings?
This has been bothering me for some time as well. How are these hacks prosecuted as wrongdoings?
Within programming, you have contracts, i.e. function definitions. This is taken by the non-tech people, blew up and got the attention of all people have 1) no idea how code works, 2) have no idea how the law works.
While great for spreading the word, it also spread the WRONG word. This is one of the reasons why "nobody understands blockchain". It's because the communication is plain wrong.
But these things happen over and over again. It's super annoying when there's a conceptional mismatch.
Naming and definitions matter. In fact, wasn't naming one of the three hardest things about programming? :-D
So, code is law came from programmers that thought code is law. It's not a misunderstanding.
The ETH fork was caused about the difference wrt code is law.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/united-states-files-civ... (PDF link showing that exact title towards the bottom)