Topic: Are arrogant wannabe script kiddies still a problem for Bitcoin? (Read 291 times)

But lack of competence and maliciousness are 2 different thing. OP thread is about programmer's competence.


Weak security and getting hacked are still their fault though whether due to lack of competence or intentionally add security flaw.

Because you can not trust in any expert, any third party products including Bitcoin wallet softwares, you must protect yourself.

You don't need to be expert and test everything by yourself to use Bitcoin wallets and bitcoin safely. Choosing open source and non custodial wallets with long and good history to use will reduce your risk.

Don't feel cool to try new Bitcoin wallet software because when you touch something new, not tested yet, you will have more risk.

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There are few things that are not adding up for me, even smart coders and programmers can be evil people, there are some hackers that are still on the wanted list of the CIA till today, and we also have good hackers that only shows interest in proving companies wrong that their security is whack.

You can hire people to pay them money, even if the money is very attractive, but you can't buy their heart and mind, everyone thinks for themselves and not all these crypto projects are bad, some hacks and backdoors happened as an inside job.

I don't want to side the Luna guy, do kwon or whatever his name is, but normally Luna isn't a good project because of the APY returns that stakers are making, if it's too high the project will fail sooner than others will lower payouts, I am not surprised that Luna turned out that way, sometimes in crypto space, flaws are I intentionally made available in projects so that they can rugpull and blame it on weak security and hackers.

I don't think it's about script kiddies. Altcoin projects don't fail because of poor coding, they fail regardless of coding. That's because the developers of any expertise rarely have a goal of actually creating something and not just dumping their premine on the market. But in rare instances when they actually try, the project will almost surely fail because the premise is unrealistic. So-called blockchain technology isn't actually a panacea that makes everything better, in fact it's extremely niche and Bitcoin is probably the only working example. There were so many attempts of making blockchain-based filesharing, digital identity, medical records and lots of other stuff - and none of that succeeded.

I wonder, do these problems actually occur because of a lack of coding experience in developers or because there isn't enough intellect that can be used to think and create flawless systems such as Bitcoin? Satoshi Nakamoto was a genius, the system he created has been proven to be flawless when it comes to security unlike all other blockchains and cryptocurrencies and the securities created by other developers after that, they obviously lack experience, but I think that experience isn't necessarily about their coding skills.

The reason why most hacks and exploits happen is because of mistakes made by the developers or the project teams that eventually cause investors and users to lose their funds, we can take the example of Vitalik Buterin, whose X (formerly Twitter) account got hacked and the hacker stole a lot of money from people misusing that account, but are we supposed to blame X, the platform, for this or the owner of the account? The owner, obviously. That's why, it's actually not always the developers who fail to create good systems, it's the people who ask them to create systems that will basically have flaws later on.

Most of the time when you see this kind of stuff happening, you can't help but notice that those projects were not created by a single "wannabe script kiddie", but by a team of developers - sometimes even salaried. So the hacks which happen to the software, particularly if it has a server-side, not only blunts the company's/team's/product's image, but it tarnishes a little bit of Bitcoin's as well.

I don't have much problems with a junior and not very much experienced developer handling a project or collecting a contract, talking from an experienced point of view. According to @apogio, its all about following best practices to execute a project. This most times comes from the project owners who doesn't want to  pay standard fee for a project execution, they might insist they just want something simple, even after explaining the importance of doing proper test driven development which considerably means a higher fee and more development time.  Senior and experienced developed were once junior and inexperienced developers, they just skilled up and got more experienced with time. The major discipline inexperienced devs should observe is that they dare not launch a project that have not been vetted by a senior developer for security, best practices and optimization.

Even in organizations, there are junior programmers, senior programmers and even  software development chief whom all projects must pass through for scrutiny before launch. A junior developer may get a contract and involve his seniors in it for quality sake, it provides an avenue for the inexperienced one to get more experienced gradually and become a professional in the field.  That is why software development is not a one man show, but a team activity, where collaboration and consistent improvement is paramount to aid efficiency and upskilling . Although I'm aware that sometimes greed takes over the junior developer and they carry on with the project alone to avoid  splitting funds. And it causes more trouble for the greedy developer.

Very important point.
And coming back to the core message of our topic: checking a team behind a cryptocurrency is very important, especially coders and Blockchain developers. (Some people will object now: "ohh, in Shitcoin business, marketing is most important, by far" - And probably they are right - but only because it's a shitcoin, where marketing is trying to hide technical flaws  )
Of course, for serious coins we should remember: No experienced team = 100% trash coin. A knowledgeable team is key

And (not) surprisingly, Bitcoin has by far the most experienced development team. 

Due diligence is the name of the game when it comes to cryptocurrencies. The well-known saying "Not your keys, not your coins" immediately comes to mind, which is so simple but also relevant. This shows that everyone has their security in their own hands and should not trust in inexperienced crypto kiddies. It is precisely these aspects that make it so important for new people in the crypto sector to exercise caution from the outset.

Good idea to move it to Beginners and Help, where your advice will be very helpful. It's one important point, what's setting Bitcoin apart from most Shitcoins. Security is very weak and not a priority for most shitcoins and we already know tons of stories, where it lead to baghlders being damaged a lot doe to financial loss.

Of course, still many people don't know about it and making aware of it is definitely very beneficial to prevent such accidents.
It's always about due diligence.

Hello, Sir.
Yes, you are right, my headline is better for "crypto" because it's not valid for Bitcoin but still a big issue for Altcoins.

I've moved my topic to Beginner and Help to make more people aware because it is very helpful advice.
Hopefully, more people will be aware of inexperienced coders to prevent getting a victim from exploits and hacks.

Few Bitcoiner still use known buggy wallet (such as Jaxx) or wallet which was compromised once but details was never revealed (such as Atomic Wallet), so i'd say problem you mentioned still a problem for Bitcoin ecosystem.


But it's not easy to know whether someone else actually have experience or skill to write good software though. High cost doesn't always mean higher quality.

Bitcoin started with a unique advantage that it came about at a time when making a cryptocurrency didn't have a clear prospect of making you any money, this meant that none of the earlier contributors participated because they expected it to make them some extraordinary amount of money, which eliminated the incentive for the kinds of people you're referring to (or at least left it similar to other open source projects).

Compared to many popular altcoins Bitcoin was also not premined, so to the extent that you did have the idea that it could make you money you just needed to mine some or buy some and you'd be in no worse position than anyone else-- an equal playing field. Mr. skiddy isn't any better off pretending he can code than he would be just launching a miner or buying bitcoin.

[Speaking personally, participating in development left me pretty unambiguously less wealthy than if I hadn't-- mostly because when I switched to working on Bitcoin stuff as a job I took a pay cut and also sold a bit of Bitcoin to de-risk the transition. Though to be clear, that isn't something I have any negative feelings about, nor do I regret anything on that basis.  I do, however, regret that my past work on Bitcoin has left me vulnerable to being mired in frivolous lawsuits by a conman] 

Another key distinction that applies to Bitcoin is that the people who have supported it since a brief window at the start aren't it's creator and have preserved compatibility-- the only reason Satoshi era bitcoin code doesn't sync today is that it blows up when blocks get bigger than about 750kb. This changes the nature between people working on it and everyone else:  In altcoins where the people working on it created it there is a hierarchy of a producer and a consumer,  while in Bitcoin *everyone* a Bitcoin user first and the maintance is by users collaborating.  You can say that in Bitcoin the *developer* left long ago right at the start and what exists today is maintainers.   This is almost unique-- even some other examples with "received code" like monero have made radical changes (including changing their POW function multiple times) which I think moves the system more towards the direction of having been authored by the people who maintain it.

Although Bitcoin is very valuable today the difference of initial conditions has resulted in a different culture which still persists, although as more of the earliest contributors are driven out perhaps the culture will change along with the changing incentive structure.  But even if so, the nature of Bitcoin's launch, lack of premine, etc. mean that the prospect of a windfall from working on it just doesn't exist, and so the bad incentives that come with that and attract idiots also don't exist.

It's not all good:  Without those incentives the case for competent people is also diminished.  Working on bitcoin can get you harassed, hacked, sued, etc. This is also true for creating some altcoin,  but if you do some altcoin pump and dump you at least could make a big profit and short of stuff like onecoin or bitconnect even most of the scammiest altcoins seldom seem to get prosecuted.

The reduced incentive probably hits idiots more than more competent people: really competent people have lots of ways they can earn reasonable amounts of money, they don't need to become part of some sketchy make money fast scheme... but it still diminishes the incentive for competent people to participate too.

That's somewhat true because from what I've seen when it comes to altcoins it is not about being experienced or not in coding because creating the large number of altcoins and specially the tokens is not about creating a solid project. Instead it is all about making money.
In other words I believe that even if the most experienced expert programmer were to create a token or even an altcoin, they'll create the same weak and flawed garbage as long as their purpose is the same (ie. make money fast).

Yes.  



Script Kiddies are a still a big problem but luckily not for Bitcoin. Bitcoin's developers are very experienced and no Shitcoin comes close to it. Bitcoin attracts a different kind of developers compared to most Altcoins. For example, Bitcoin developers know why PoW is superior and Shitcoin developers do crazy experience with dPoS, nPoS, lPoS, where bagholder's money is at risk during such a Shitcoin experiment.

Just take Justing Sun and his overhyped Shitcoin "Tron" or all these useless DeFi Shitcoins (many got hacked or exploited, many are abandoned).
Or, you named it, Do Kwon.

So, yes, stay away from Shitcoins, where wannabe script kiddies are a key issue.


+1

As a programmer, I disagree. Experience has nothing to do with the will to learn best practices. I can find multiple experienced devs that can be too harmful for any software ecosystem (not only bitcoin). If a programmer is willing to learn and educate themselves with the best practices both coding-wise but also software-wise, they can be beneficial to any ecosystem. Nevertheless, why trust a small group of people instead of trying to add more people to the pool?

Btw, Bitcoin is not threatened by anyone. Don't worry!

The problem with Luna wasn't the developer's experience.

The problem was their market model , token economics and greedy

And still, all altcoins together have no relationship to bitcoin. They do not hurt bitcoin  in the long term

You don't even have to be a coder at all to create a crypto project, you can simply pay $500 or 1000 then someone with an experienced will serve a complete project on hot plate for you.

So what really matters is that the new project really proves that it is better than in Bitcoin by means completely decentralized and all others, so far every project created try to replicate what Satoshi did, nothing new this is why Bitcoin is still standing as number 1 when it comes to trust level and decentralization.

Cryptocurrencies are about security and we need to rely on educated expert programmers and good computer scientists to provide safe software products. It is very important for us to be able to store our cryptocurrencies securely and to have our cryptocurrencies not getting hacked. We need good coders to ensure it, who create good and secure code.

We keep hearing about hacks and certainly lack of security is a big favor for hackers. A good solution to avoid hacks is to have a studied team of developers who have good experience to avoid security vulnerabilities. Experienced developers will have enough knowledge to avoid such security vulnerabilities.

In opposite to experienced developers, wannabe script kiddies are a very big problem. Such inexperienced wannabe coders are a big problem because of a lack of necessary knowledge, unlike experienced coders.
Many Altcoins, Memecoins and NFT projects are created by wannabe script kiddies. Do Kwon can be cited as an example of a wannabe script kiddie who does not have sufficient necessary knowledge to create good code, unlike experienced coders. He acted so prolly while his code was flawed. Still, he flexed publicly about his project, even after it got into trouble.
Like Terra Luna, we will end up having a hack.
Unfortunately, quite a lot of script kiddies try to launch new crypto currencies, because it’s an easy way to make money. Such inexperienced coders have no clue about secure code and are just proud and want to flex to launch a (very insecure) crypto project. As a result, such projects are based of flawed code.

Anyone who handles code or applies it, should be well studied in it. If people, who are not professionaly, are involved in handling code, it is a big, big risk of damage, like hacks, bugs or damaged hardware, for example when hackers can exploit such security vulnerabilities
Hal Finney in particular was a very experienced computer scientist to whom we owe a lot.
However, altcoins in particular tend to attract inexperienced and arrogant wannabe devs who have no clue but are always very boastful about their lack of skills.

Such bad practices is always leading to hacks and loss of funds.

We, as a community, should call out inexperienced coders because it’s dangerous for everyone to have such uneducated people causing hacks and damage for everyone else.