EOS Constitution Subject to “Wet Code” In Response To Phishing Scam

EOS, the Altcoin blockchain developed under Block.one, has sparked some controversy over its recent handling of 7 accounts involved in a phishing scam.

The massive $4 Billion fundraising round held by EOS provided an opportunity for hackers to take advantage, sending fake emails, using fake EOS website domains, and promising free token giveaways that lured users to phishing sites and requested that they enter their private keys.

In response to this, EOS froze 7 accounts that they believe were connected to the phishing scam. According to EOS blog, the issue was apparently discussed by a group of Block producers over a conference call, before a final decision was made to freeze the accounts in order to prevent appropriation of funds in under 24 hours.

Critics have pointed out that the freezing of 7 accounts (and overall handling of the situation is such a closed off manner) is evidence of centralization and Block producers overstepping their role in the constitution and BP agreement, (“which is to be the executor only of arbitration decisions, not to also be judge and jury”).

EOS uses a delegated proof of stake consensus protocol, where the network nominates multiple “witness nodes” as representatives who help to make certain high-level decisions more quickly without polling the entire network.

Nick Szabo, blockchain and Smart Contracts pioneer, recently tweeted his criticism of the incident.

In EOS a few complete strangers can freeze what users thought was their money. Under the EOS protocol you must trust a “constitutional” organization comprised of people you will likely never get to know. The EOS “constitution” is socially unscalable and a security hole. http://t.co/WusEqBMGBp

— Nick Szabo⚡ (@NickSzabo4) June 19, 2018

Other critics pointed to EOS’s response as an example of “bureaucracy and wet code”.

According to Nick Szabo, wet code is human language that can be interpreted differently based on particular agendas (where as dry code is computer language that is based on strict mathematical rules and therefore rarely open to different interpretations). In the legal sense, the different ways in which a prosecutor or defendant may interpret the law is wet code, whereas smart contracts are dry code.

Likewise, critics have pointed out the use of wet code in the EOS account-freezing situation, as the laws that govern the EOS constitution were interpreted differently for the sake of taking overreaching action.

The crypto community is torn on this issue and what it means for delegate proof of stake Blockchains and how they handle future hacking incidents.