{"id":6248,"date":"2021-07-01T12:01:38","date_gmt":"2021-07-01T12:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1358974"},"modified":"2021-07-01T12:01:38","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T12:01:38","slug":"nft-of-webs-original-source-code-sells-for-5-4m-but-contains-errors-lol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=6248","title":{"rendered":"NFT of web\u2019s original source code sells for $5.4M \u2014 but contains errors (lol)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/hardfork?filter_last=1&amp;fit=1280%2C640&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2021%2F07%2FUntitled-design-7.jpg&amp;signature=5d9d9435e82d2143d4530dcbe274e493\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>Sir Tim Berners-Lee has sold an NFT of the original source code for the world wide web for an eye-watering $5.4 million, but the winning bidder could be in for an unpleasant surprise: a security researcher has spotted errors in the code.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Up front: <\/strong>The NFT market <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/what-are-nfts-and-why-they-cost-millions-syndication\">exploded in 2021<\/a>, bagging artists and celebrities whopping sums for digital tokens that authenticate ownership of collectibles.<\/p>\n<p>Berners-Lee hopped on the bandwagon <a href=\"https:\/\/protos.com\/nft-market-bubble-popped-crypto-collectibles-are-over\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">amid signs<\/a> that the bubble was about to burst. He auctioned off an NFT representing this bundle of items:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The original archive of dated and time-stamped files containing the source code<\/li>\n<li>A Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) representation of the full code<\/li>\n<li>A letter he wrote reflecting upon the code and his process of creating it<\/li>\n<li>An animated visualization of the code being written<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The winning bidder, however, may not be getting exactly what they expected: security researcher&nbsp;Mikko Hypponen spotted some errors in the code.<\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cHold on\u2026the www source that Sotheby is auctioning? The angle brackets are wrong!\u201d he <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mikko\/status\/1410191059481673730\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">tweeted<\/a>. \u201cThey\u2019ve been \u2014 yes \u2014 HTML encoded from \u2018&lt; &gt;\u2019 to \u2018&amp;lt; &amp;gt;\u2019. Lol.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"7.3617021276596\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Hold on\u2026the www source that Sotheby is auctioning? The angle brackets are wrong! They&#8217;ve been \u2013 yes \u2013 HTML encoded from &#8220;&lt; &gt;&#8221; to &#8220;&amp;lt; &amp;gt;&#8221;. Lol. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vb7clOETfU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/vb7clOETfU<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kb1ugoPyok\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/kb1ugoPyok<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 @mikko (@mikko) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mikko\/status\/1410191059481673730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">June 30, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Quick take:<\/strong> The error found by Hypponen appears to be in the animated visualization of the code. A developer <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RazoesSergio\/status\/1410193132004818953\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">noticed<\/a> that the source is correct in the image of the code. They suggested that the mistake was the result of using a web service to pretend to type the text seen in the video.<\/p>\n<p>The enormous winning bid shows there\u2019s still life left in the market. But it also further exposes what a weird market it is. Still, the NFT\u2019s owner could find the error adds its own strange sense of value, as cyber reporter Joe Tidy noted:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"7.6538461538462\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">But double hold on\u2026<\/p>\n<p>These NFT things are all about &#8216;owning a piece of internet history&#8217; so could this &#8216;artefact&#8217; actually be worth EVEN MORE now because of the cock up? \ud83d\ude43 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/V59qj4O2kw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/V59qj4O2kw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Joe Tidy (@joetidy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joetidy\/status\/1410518133648117767?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">July 1, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The NFT certainly isn\u2019t worth&nbsp;$5.4 million to me, with or without errors in the code. The owner will obviously prove me wrong if they resell it for a higher fee, but that\u2019s hard for me to imagine \u2014 which might be why I\u2019m writing about NFTs rather than investing fortunes in them. Regardless, I hope they enjoy their ludicrously expensive new certificate.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/tim-berners-lee-sells-www-source-code-nft-contains-errors\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sir Tim Berners-Lee has sold an NFT of the original source code for the world wide web for an eye-watering $5.4 million, but the winning bidder could be in for an unpleasant&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}