HARD FORK TO RECOVER STOLEN DAO TOKENS--
Eth is part of the Ethereum project, and valuable because it is more than just a coin. Someone hacked and hijacked DAO tokens, millions of dollars worth, also a part of the Ethereum project. These cannot be cashed out for ETH until July 27. The Hard Fork is specifically aimed at recapturing the DAO tokens, making them non-redeemable by the hackers. For a better and more thorough explanation, read blog articles on the web.
Pools , exchanges, and miners will need to update their wallets, but the hashing will continue with the same algorithm. If you do not update your personal ETH wallet, it may not process the correct fork of the blockchain. Pools need to update in order to stay on the correct fork. --scryptr
Here you repeat that lie that mass media tell you that you believe.
Hack means illegal code change to get some advantage. But TheDAO was just one (but biggest) of many projects based on Ethereum. It used smart contracts written in a language that run them on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) - that is, on all miners. The contract agreement tells you that "The contract code is law, and if there are different human interpretations, the code runs as it runs, and that is the final decision".
The guy or group called hacker is in reality a smart guy who studied the open source code of contract and took advantage of some "features" to get some ETH tokens from TheDAO account. From ethical point of view he was wrong. From law and technical point of view he did not hack or hijacked it. It was the LAME CONTRACT CODE written by TheDAO that allowed him to do so. And their own agreement tells that it was done in full accordance to the agreement - the code on EVM run exactly as written, and the code is law.
Please notice that
TheDAO knew about this code vulnerability and in the beginning of June they wrote that "nothing bad can happen" and did nothing. It happened 10 days later. EVM run as programmed, the flaw was in TheDAO contract only.
Also notice that main
TheDAO token holders are the same people as Ethereum Foundation creators or affiliated. So takes place the conflict of interests.
Finally,
TheDAO was just one of investing projects, and every such project has risks. Sometimes they simply fail, and any investor should check and accept risks.
Now those people suggest to do a hard fork that means to take ETH from the DarkDAO account (where ETH was transferred to) and return them to original investors. From ethical point of view it seems to be ok. BUT from technical point of view such fork to FIX JUST ONE BIG PROJECT OF hundred other projects IN FAVOUR OF 3RD PARTY means BREAKING THE MAIN IDEA of Ethereum as a machine that runs code that cannot be arbitrary controlled by a 3rd party - people, groups, governments, etc.
If that was another smaller project - no one will break rules that blockchain is irreversible. But TheDAO is too big to fail, and Ethereum Foundation affiliated with TheDAO token holders. So they break own rules and actually KILL THE ETHEREUM by reverting the blockchain history. Saving one big project, they kill the Ethereum ecosystem.
Now they should make you believe that it is not an arbitrary change, but a network consensus. But please take a look how it was achieved. Take for example, the vote results of DwarfPool. They asked people do they support the fork or not. Then they will install or not the modified Ethereum code. But heh, here are the results:
http://dwarfpool.com/eth/voting They tell you that network decided to fork because 71.80% pro-fork, and 28.20% contra and install forked code. So it was a network decision. What they do not tell you that only 6% of people or 4.37% of hashrate voted at all. The rest basically ignored the voting and that should be treated like they do not want to change anything. Or, if you like it more, they do not know about voting. That is the trick to make you believe that forkers do the "right thing", while actually they do not. The good voting should be like on coinotron: they have two different ports, and no one of them should be the default port. So to mine there people MUST make a change and choose one of options, not be silent. In that case it will represent the network consensus.
TheDAO is just one of many projects based on Ethereum. The EVM worked exactly as it should. The Ethereum code has no flaws and worked as it should. TheDAO contract (badly written) worked exactly as it was written. So TheDAO requres fix, not Ethereum blockchain. And it is wrong to make Ethereum as NoTrustCoin just because one big project failed. The right thing is to accept losses, fix TheDAO and go ahead. And do not break Ethereum platform. But big money talk. And (my speculation) it is easy to pay something to maybe 10 pool operators covering 95% of market to make them install the fork.
Think: how big should be loss in another project to make fork for them? 1M? 10M? 1K? Or? Who should be project owners? What if some government will be interested to block some addresses? How long should be the black list of "undesirable" accounts? What if some "secret service" will be interested to fork it and/or block someone? Many questions. But definitely known that the Ethereum slogan on the 1st page of its site:
Build unstoppable applications
Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.
after any fork to "fix the damage" will be wrong. The code of TheDAO contract run as programmed, but innocent Ethereum code and blockchain will be changed by 3rd party interference. And Ethereum will be NoTrustCoin.
Last note: assuming that TheDAO was most hyped project based on Ethereum, the ETH price maybe raised due to it. And is possible that after fork the same people getting ETH back to the failed investment project and breaking own contract agreement (code is law) will keep the price high. Maybe. But it will not be that Ethereum running unstoppable code. And I can predict a lot of similar projects that tell you explicitly that they will not censorship own blockchains in any way. And they win. Even now some ETH forks are more profitable - the fork is planned on 20th regardless of my or your opinion, and the future of Ethereum depends on the results.
PS. Sorry for offtopic, but it was a reply to question. I hate when some mass media "prepare" people for the move that some 3rd party players are interested in, but trying to make you believe that it is a network consensus when just 10 pools and few exchanges take decisions, in fact, any other miners accept what their favorite pools prepare for them (that's why no change in Claymore's miner). No one of Bitcoin specialist told anything good about the fork. And that's why Bitcoin is a trusted currency. Sad I can't say that about ETH after fork if it happens.