Yes there is a difference in most jurisdictions

I guess its depends on how serious

I remember the Mango (a shitcoin defi exchange/protocol) exploiter was sued, even if basically he also announced the possible exploit in detail on the 🐦 app before doing it.

The difference is in who you piss off and how well connected they are. That’s why Elisabeth Holmes got 11 years for fraud whilst Sam Bankman-Fried is playing vidya in his parents basement.

one affects more people than the other (in general)

There is a difference. If the server is locked down and not meant to be public, then it's the digital equivalent of breaking and entering. If you're talking about exploiting public open source software like an ETH smart contract, that's more like the digital equivalent of picking up a wallet off the...

In a court, I imagine they would be tried differently because they paint a different picture of intent. And also the resulting damage may be different. https://nostr.build/i/4186274e402f01081648e174de0b7267d06918e0bc1e670aa90239a39d2b7f20.jpg

Lubin and Buterin should be sued for ethereum exploits for marketing it as a viable platform

Nostr is super neat but this is a question for a lawyer. Not a nym.

Lightning is meant to have all legal disputes settled on chain so if the bug doesn’t subject the attacker to a penalty disincentive then the attacker has done the network a favor by showing the weakness. Lightning will never have “juries prudence” anywhere other than the Bitcoin blockchain. ...

None

Yes, when you “hack” someone else’s server you are performing “unauthorized access”. Not so with a contract or protocol weakness that can be exploited by, say, submitting (malformed?) transactions to your own node, so you never did any unauthorized access. That’s the difference

Depending on your jurisdiction even clicking a wrong link can put you in jail. Don’t look for justice in computer law.

Both cases are theft regardless of what the particular laws of the jurisdiction say.