Ballad of a noble crypto

Anonymous hacker made the largest theft in history, and then returned all $ 611 million back

The reader has probably already heard that in Barmalena Africa - a dangerous world of cryptocurrency lawlessness - the other day abducted $ 611 million. Show the journalists the perseverance and the voyage of the Annals, it was even possible to strengthen the texture, saying that the stolen amount is more than half as much as the most outstanding banking theft in the history of mankind (in 2007, 282 million dollars were taken from the Iraqi private bank - they are looking for, or rather, they are not looking for, to this day).

Fasting the inhabitants of RBC: “Hackers stole $ 611 million as a result of hacking the Poly Network project. The criminals brought about $ 273 million in the Ethereum blockchain, $ 253 million in Binance Smart Chain coins and $ 85 million in Polygon tokens. ”

Of course, the reader, of course, does not enter the Abrakadabra about the algances-ethrauies, but the stunning order of the numbers, supported by the trigger word “criminals”, successfully creates the target connotation: “Pinocchio! Do not try to poke your nose in the crypto -ass! You won’t even have time to crawl to the field of miracles - they’ll put it like sticking out on the way! ”

I hasten to reassure the reader - I’m not going to prove the opposite at all: cryptoeconomics is indeed Adesche, because it is anonymous, decentralized and is not controlled by anyone. As a result, the whole rotten nature of Homo sapiens crawls out in all its unsightly glory. If the layman is taken to the GOP-stop in the St. Petersburg (Rostov, Odessa, New York) gateway in broad daylight directly under the eye of the video surveillance chambers, then what about the world of cryptocurrencies. The world in which Guy Fox mask is the most popular outfit, and anonymous developers of Defi projects control tens of billions of dollars in their smart contracts.

I will not dissuade the reader in the fact that he will be licked as a sticky if he does not thoroughly understand his every body move in cryptomira, every signed transaction, each interaction with a smart contract.

Instead, I will tell the reader a completely different story, which, in my opinion, is even more stunning than the fact of the theft of $ 611 million.

The plot is like that. After the hacker hacked the smart contracts of the Poly Network platform, while maintaining complete anonymity, and therefore, having secured complete impunity, he withstood the theater pause, and then ... he returned all the money!

You just think: the anonymum abducted $ 611 million and in a situation of complete personal security, without any coercion I voluntarily returned the money,

Having scolding developers for unforgivable negligence. I want to ask professional historians: whether something similar is recorded in 5 thousand years of written speech? Was there a precedent?

So, the hacker returned the money, and the discouraged inhabitants of the Rallaif painfully squatting the motivation. Of course, from the bell tower of their own life values. The consensus, which I managed to isolate from many publications (from Forbes and CNBC to TACC and the “secret of the company”): “The attacker” was scared! ” He, they say, was closed, calculated the IP address, e-mail, transactions connecting his accounts in Defi networks with accounts on centralized crypto-rhizas, where everyone is undergoing the Kyc (Know Your Customer, “Know your client”), which means that the criminal is the issue of time. Therefore, the villain decided not to bring to Suma-Toolmarma and took a preventive step-to return funds voluntarily.

I must admit that the journalists did not come up with this naive nonsense themselves, but rely on the bravado of commercial structures specializing in blockchain analytics and network investigations.

In particular, the office called Slowmist said that she has information about “Email, IP and the digital printing of the device that used the cracker, and is now“ ready to share all this with Poly Network, if necessary ”. Of course, Poly Network all this nonsense was not needed, because Poly Network did not worry Slowmist PR brivad, designed for the uninitiated layman, but the fate of $ 611 million belonging to their users and stolen through the fault of developers.

The leaders of centralized crypto-streaks (HOO and BINANCE), as well as the over-the-extinguished rods from Poly Network, joined in the conversations that the hacker is about to give up and it was time to give up. Immediately after the loss of colossal funds, Poly Network published on his twitter an appeal to a hacker, which made an extensively miserable impression on understanding people:

"Dear hacker,

We are the Poly Network team.

We want to install a communication channel with you and persuade you to return the stolen assets.

The amount of money you stolen in the history of decentralized finance. The forces of law and order in all countries will evaluate your actions as a major economic crime and will haunt you. On your part, it would be imprudent to make further transactions. You stole money that belong to tens of thousands of members of the crypto community, ordinary people. You must talk to us to find a way out of the situation. ”

Such a sad mixture of flattery, threats, helplessness and tongue -tied words. But imagine that the hacker immediately responded and made contact. Just not because he was frightened or succumbed to persuasion, as the journalists of the Rallaif decided, and for completely different considerations.

The cryptomor is an amazing place already because it combines the highest degree of anonymity with the same higher degree of openness. All transactions, all money transfers, all so -called “Wallets” (the unique addresses of the cryptos users are so conditionally called) are reflected in the blockchain - that is, in the public registry, so information about them is available to anyone.

For example, the “wallet” of the hacker, in which you can observe an accuracy of a second and cent, where, to whom and how much he translated cryptoactives:

The second line is noteworthy: the hacker returns almost 97 million dollars (in the DAI stabelcoin, tied to the exchange rate of the American currency) with one transaction.

The absolute openness of the blockchain, however, is sufficiently illusory, since we see translations from one “wallet” to another, while the “wallets” themselves are just a meaningless set of numbers and letters, behind which anonymous users are hidden. And to find out who these users are in real life, contrary to bravado cryptodetic agencies, subject to elementary safety rules, it is observed.

This impossibility did not fail to indicate a hacker who was happy to contact the Poly Network team. He made it clear that the IP address, e-mail, digital prints of its devices, allegedly discovered by SlowMist, have nothing to do with its genuine identity. Is it really naive to believe that a brilliant programmer who has discovered not having precedents in history vulnerability in the Poly Network smart contracts is unfamiliar with the rules of elementary digital hygiene?

All means for hacking were not received from the hacker’s accounts on centralized exchanges (most likely, he didn’t have such at all, and even more so he would never have passed KYC in his life), and as a result of the exchange of Monero tokens, anonymous cryptocurrency, which does not lend itself to identification at all. (It's funny that another Ciphertrace has been hanging noodles for its corporate clients for several years that she supposedly managed to develop an algorithm that monitors the movement of anonymous tools on the Monero network.)

The hacker turned to the Poly Network team through the same blockchain, placing all his remarks in a special field for additional information (Input Data), which is present in each transaction. There were many transactions, so the correspondence has grown into an epic poem, which anyone can also familiarize themselves with.

I will give only a few statements of the “attacker”, shed light on his motivation:

• “I am not interested in money, I think that I will return some tokens or just leave it to lie on this account”

• “To get this condition is already a legend. An eternal legend will be the salvation of the world. I made a decision "

• “Appeal to the“ victims ”: I don’t want to say that the Poly Network team is not trustworthy, but none of you has the opportunity to challenge their code, but this should be law. Do not worry, you are not sacrifices. I saved you! "

• “Appeal to newcomers in Crypt: In the World of Defi, the Law is a code. And who is the referee here? We hackers are armed. If you have a weapon and you guard billions from the crowd, remaining anonymous who you want to become - a terrorist or a Batman? ”

• “Appeal to beginners in security matters: there are no perfect systems. No need to blame the Poly Network team or their auditors. My experience says that this is a non -trivial task - to understand the entire logic of the Poly Network system alone, this is much more difficult than catching a small bug. It is important for me that you learn the main thing: you can’t bet your whole life on something that you will never break into. ”

I caught my eye with comments of serious cryptoanalysts and experts in which they pointed out the emotional imbalance of the hacker, his hysteria, narcissism and mania of greatness. According to my sensations, these psychological cliches in this situation are absolutely inappropriate. It is impossible to sublimate in such high-paraditive conversations our own fear from misunderstanding the only thing in this story of the important and main thing: how can you get a complete disposal of such an unthinkable amount of money and then indifferently return everything back? And it doesn’t matter under what sauce this is returned - for the sake of self -loving, for the sake of the lesson, the negligent developers of Poly Network or for the sake of preventing Defi users who do not realize about risks and do not understand where and why they invest their money. The fact of a refund is exclusively important!

So why did the hacker refuse to prey? Personally, I have no doubt: because the money in the system of values ​​of this hacker is not the highest value.

It is significant that after the return of all funds, the Poly Network team offered Mr. the White Hat (so they dubbed the hacker, emphasizing his “bright” nature, unlike “black hats” - hackers concerned with exclusively personal enrichment) a bonus of 500 thousand dollars on more than legal grounds: for voluntary refund, and for detecting the most dangerous, and detecting the most dangerous one vulnerability. Do you know how Mr. White hat reacted to the offer? He refused this money too!

I don’t even know how to explain to the reader what I am describing now. Whom I describe. Maybe this will help: “Relief of the old ethics is easily extrapolated to rejection by the generation of Z and the material values ​​of the outgoing civilization. We are talking about the current cult of money that has prevailed in our world, which has long been looking anachronism in the context of the achieved level of technological development ”(“ Boomer died ”).

I am convinced that we have in history with a hacking Poly Network not with a crazy, brilliant and unique individual, but with projecting the mentality of a new generation on a monetary relationship. Moreover, the return of money stolen by the hacker in Defi is if not the norm, then a very often repeated pattern. In August 2020, at the very dawn of the Defi revolution, the creator of the anonymous project Suchiswap, nicknamed the chief, first stole all the funds from the treasury treasury, and returned them a few days later. With such a repentant note:

“I want to apologize to everyone for everything that I did.

I succumbed to emotions, I gave free rein, I was scared. I made bad and conflicting decisions under pressure. And he delivered to everyone pain. I did not live up to your expectations, and I am very sorry about it. I return back to the treasury all $ 14 million in the ETH token. ”

You can, of course, give full will of their own viciousness and renew, which, they say, was ashamed, my conscience tortured. Or even better - they caught the hand, and other excuses from the arsenal of the Rallail could not get out. In the end, to measure the world around the world with their own viciousness is very Humanum Est.

It’s more pleasant for me to believe that in the described stories we are not dealing with “white ravens” and “white hackers”, namely with a new type of mentality, which is massively adapting a new generation that does not want to transfer to its natural habitat - the digital world - the ugly scale of the valuables of the outgoing, thank God, into the past of the civilization of the Riallaif.