It doesn't matter who can make the best argument in court. A good enough lawyer can convince a stupid enough jury of pretty much anything.
(a) Is this a theft from the person who placed the vending machine? Why or why not?
(b) How is this different from a smart contract on a blockchain?
For example, if DRNK costs $1 per unit, but I find out that by putting in $1.25 I get 2 units, have I actually exploited the machine? Is it not reasonable to assume that discount was intended?
Now, of course, if I'm prying open the machine with a prybar then we could argue that's just theft. But, putting money in the machine and getting units out is the intended interaction.
Similar to how if a gas station accidentally puts the price of gas at $0.20 per gallon, even though everyone knows that's probably a mistake, it isn't on them for taking advantage of the artificially low price.
So, that's what I'd say the difference is. A smart contract defines all the interactions that are valid. Thus, it is impossible to interact with a smart contract in a way that is "invalid" or "stealing". That'd be different if the user could modify the contract (apply a prybar) however, that's sort of the point, that you can't modify the contract to fix it.
If the contract said "all your deposited crypto goes to cogman10" would we call that a theft when someone put their crypto into that contract? Perhaps if I misrepresented the contract, but then the whole point of these contracts is they are visible to anyone that wants to read/use them.
In the case of the smart contract, you don't own the vending machine. It doesn't have an owner, it just "is". If it did have an owner, that person is probably violating all sorts of securities laws in countless jurisdictions. That's at least part of the point of all this smart contract stuff.
To make the analogy a little more apt, let's say the smart autonomous vending machine 1) lets people buy DRNKs by inserting money, 2) incentivizes people to refill it with DRNK by spitting out money, 3) once a month spits out money to the amused landlord, and 4) was deposited by aliens who disappeared without trace.
Presumably the smart vending machine would continue on its merry way like this until it either broke down or someone figured out a way to jimmy the lock. Looks like the later happened. Though everyone is upset, it's not clear who has the right to prosecute.
I think a better example is a claw gambling machine. You pay Fiat for a chance to grab fiat out of a pool.
If you come up with a strategy whereby you can grab more or all of the Fiat in a way that the game/machine designer and other players did not anticipate, is that theft?
Alternatively, people are playing a modified version of Poker with rules they don't understand, and someone understands the rules better and gets their money, is that a crime?
Ianal and don't know how a court would see it, but the way smart contracts are advertised would probably give you a fighting chance to make this argument where in normal finance you would have no chance.
Or might the hacker and his clever lawyers have an equally strong case that whatever the code allowed was the "true" intent, that the code is the ultimate arbiter of intent, regardless what Index might have said otherwise?
I kind of hope it does go to court, will be interesting to see what the opposing legal teams come up with.
