Hacker News Reader

Going off the last example, what difference does it make if there is a trojan or not? Bender might very well have chosen to buy at $10.10 and sell at $10.15 without any evil foreknowledge to narrow the spread and it would have caused the some effect on Prof. Farnsworth.

Yes, it does mean that whoever had a sell order at $10.10 gets their order filled faster. But is that trade off worth it?

View on HN

...what difference does it make if there is a trojan or not?

Absent the Trojan, Bender has no idea if Farnsworth will show up or not. If Farnsworth doesn't show up, this might happen:

BUY(bender, $10.10, 100, 12:00:00.000)

SELL(bender, $10.15, 100, 12.00:00.100)

...crickets chirping...

SELL(hermes, $10.05, 100, 12.00.10.000)

SELL(zapp, $10.00, 100, 12.00.15.000)

BUY(amy, $10.00, 100, 12.00.16.000) (Amy trades with Zapp)

...MomCorp continues it's downward slide.

I.e., without the trojan Bender is just a guy who thinks MomCorp is going up.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com