> Maybe we should understand the existing system before advocating complete disruption.
This is a great point. One name for it is 'Chesterton's Fence' [0]
This is a great point. One name for it is 'Chesterton's Fence' [0]
I deposited 100 BTC to test it out.
First thing I did was to try to withdraw negative 100 BTC.
It sent me 100 BTC, but instead of a zero balance in the exchange, it said I now had 200 BTC.
So then I withdrew a negative 200 BTC, and it sent me 200 BTC and increased my exchange balance to 400 BTC.
I contacted the owner and returned the funds and he sent me a 100 BTC bug bounty.
Was entering a negative number in a web form "hacking"? Should that be illegal?
Many hacking laws were drafted in the 80s and are exceptionally broad. What you did was almost certainly illegal hacking, as the laws define it.
Of course, whether the victims would care to complain; and whether they could get the police to take them seriously; and whether they can find you; and whether you and they are in the same jurisdiction; are other matters. I certainly wouldn't recommend you rely on the CFAA to protect you from ransomware gangs.
of course, this is not quite the same as misunderstanding some subtleties in an explicit contract. for example, the mere fact that I did not understand an auto-renewal clause in a lease does not get me off the hook for payment. although I might have some recourse if the lease stipulates something absurd (eg, notice to vacate must be hand-delivered to office in antarctica).
crypto does not necessarily mean you get to do a complete end run around the laws of sovereign nations. what it might mean, if designed well, is that you don't have to depend on those nations enforcing things.
They need to go back and wrap all this stuff in actual legal boiler plate to have a meeting of the minds limiting what any individual digital contract can mean, if anything, rather than pretending this is orthogonal when it clearly is not.
To your original question, entering a negative amount in a web form should not be illegal. That's silly. But you're responsible for the effects and what you do after noticing the odd behavior. If an ATM machine vends me an extra $20 because the bills were stuck together, I should return the extra $20.