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Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

I don't think he did much wrong here. It doesn't appear that he actually broke in to your computers, he just submitted lots of bets.

If you're going to run a casino (whose entire business model is based on exploiting weaknesses of others for profit), don't be surprised if people try to exploit your weaknesses for profit.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with running a casino, I think it is fine. I just think that what he did is fine too.

EDIT: Except the part where you apparently didn't pay out all of his winnings. I'm not fine with that part. Also doxing one of your customers just because he made a profit out of you.

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> If you're going to run a casino (whose entire business model is based on exploiting weaknesses of others for profit),

There are plenty of casios, and many of them comply with the law. People who choose to gamble there might be exploited by some definition, but it is consentual. But Primedice is a casino that uses bitcoin to allow users to circumvent local gambling laws, and thus exploits weakness in criminal laws.

(I will not discuss the morality of current anti-gambling laws in the US, as any rational person can see the hypocrisy in the current system of state-sponsored lotteries and state-granted casino monopolies)

> don't be surprised if people try to exploit your weaknesses for profit.

Primedice reusing a nonce/seed is like a casino dealing blackjack from a marked deck. It is so incredibly stupid that you are guaranteed to have someone notice, and clean you out while still playing by yor rules.

Note that they are offering a reward for the "return of the [bit]coins". I assume that means they are offering that if someone hacks a bitcoin wallet and gives them the proceeds, they will share a fraction of the stolen assets. I would happily make the same offer; paying random people who give me bitcoins from hacked wallets some of the stolen bitcoin, except that I'm not an exploitive, criminal-minded narcissist rationalizing theft to support the operation of a gambling site based on a cyber-currency designed to facilitate extra-legal activity.

>There are plenty of casios, and many of them comply with the law.

There are plenty of Nazis, and many of them comply with the law.

And most countries with a sense of free-speech try to(pretend to, would ideally, take your pick depending on your view of how successful free-speech is) respect the law biding citizen's freedom to hold whatever views they want even if they are ridiculous.

I feel like unless you are trying to troll, it is best to avoid all analogies that compare current events to what would be deemed by many as 'historical evil doers'.

I meant only to attack the unsoundness of the argument being presented.

Just because entities comply with "laws", which may have been created (and are modifiable) by the very same entities, does not provide any type of moral, or otherwise, justification that the entities' actions are reasonable, acceptable, exemplary, or other.

In fact, some Nazi's actually tried to argue something exactly analogous to what the sentence argued: that complying with the law can be used as axiomatic justification for any behavior.

I only state that such logic is fallacious.

I can see that line of thought being a fine one to voice, however I am curious how you expected others to infer all of it simply from your comparison of casinos to nazis. As when I read it my initial reaction was simply that you were calling casinos nazis, and if I were to ignore this reply I would still see it as the most logical way to interpret the post.

There are multiple symmetries (or near symmetries) in the construction of the post and the argument itself.

>There are plenty of casios, and many of them comply with the law.

>There are plenty of Nazis , and many of them comply with the law.

Basically, if you believe the first sentence is legitimate, I have shown you a second sentence that is of equally legitimate construction. It is grammatically correct and has real semantic meaning. In fact, it is a true statement, just as the first statement (probably) is.

The fact that the second statement is true and is as legitimate as the first might strike a reader and cause them to think more about it.

Nazis rose to power by crafting law and used it to drive people to do things they wouldn't have otherwise. When some of those people were caught and tried for their actions, some of them argued that they did nothing wrong because they were merely complying with the law.

The sentences in comparison make the (implicit) argument that 'complying with the law' is somehow relevant to the exculpation of the actions of the entity in question. Many consider this to be absurd.

All you did was swap out one word for another from the sentence, which to me when reading it says 'these two words are equivalent.' The sentence is so vague on its own so as to be true for basically any noun which represents an individual, group, or organization that you substitute in for casinos. Hell it is even true for animals 'There are plenty of cows, and many of them comply with the law'.

How you expected anyone to jump to the conclusion you were talking about the manner in which Nazis rose to power and their eventual punishment or lack there of as being the analogous part is beyond me. Especially since you kept your sentence in the present tense leading me to believe it was about modern day people who hold the beliefs of the Nazi party.

>The sentence is so vague on its own so as to be true for basically any noun which represents an individual, group, or organization that you substitute in for casinos.

Exactly. The statement is irrelevant. Its use as the foundational axiom in the defense of casino's behavior is absurd.

Everything else (striking similarity to Nazi arguments) is bonus.

Their point is still valid regardless of which group of people engaging in something that is now deemed immoral and illegal but which was legally tolerated back then. The 'it isn't illegal' defense isn't worth much to anyone who uses a moral system not dependent upon the law.

> I assume that means they are offering that if someone hacks a bitcoin wallet and gives them the proceeds, they will share a fraction of the stolen assets.

I'd assume that what they're saying is: if you provide information that lets them identify Hufflepuff, and they successfully sue him for the money, then they'll reward you.

My interpretation doesn't require you to have control of the bitcoins at any point, and also explains why they provided their information about the guy.

The indicated that they emailed the exploiter and basically told them to stop playing. They have the right to refuse service, it was circumvented by making new accounts. I don't see any reason they would need to pay after refusing services.

Basically would be the key word in your description of their actions. As they do not mention actually telling the user to stop playing. They only mention "demanding" their bitcoins back. Demanding something you are at that point probably not entitled to from a user of your service, and informing them that you have decided to refuse future service to them may appear basically the same, but they are in fact not.

"We reached out to Hufflepuff via his bitcointalk forum account and demanded the return of the coins, however this backfired unbelievably hard. "

> EDIT: Except the part where you apparently didn't pay out all of his winnings. I'm not fine with that part. Also doxing one of your customers just because he made a profit out of you.

They asked him to stop playing at that point and he created a new account to evade that. I'm not sure why you feel people don't have the right to refuse service.

It's not that person's fault that these guys suck at enforcing their own policies

If you are explicitly contacted and refused service, its actually illegal to do what the user did.

They don't actually say they asked him to stop playing, they say they demanded their coins back.

How do they know that it was the same person?

Definitely agree with this, minus the 2nd duplicate account. That is not OK and they absolutely have the right to refuse payment on the 2nd attempt.

Going after the person on a bitcoin forum and attempting to demand repayment is a joke, however. How did Primedice think that was going to work out for them?

Just because you actually do have a moral problem with casinos doesn't mean a malicious user is a "customer".

Just because you have a moral problem with the customer doesn't mean they are a malicious user. Even if a user's actions are outright illegal, illegal is neither sufficient nor necessary for saying something is wrong in the moral views of anyone who uses a moral system divorced from the legal system. In short, deeply held moral views can differ so greatly that a common language to describe the situation can be impossible unless one sticks purely to the facts which include accepting the legal system does exist and make judgment calls but putting no authority in those calls.

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