Yesterday, we made a shocking discovery that one of the winning teams of the Stacks track at the EasyA Consensus Hackathon 2024, Gecko Sec, blatantly copied our open-source code for Stacy, our static analyzer for Clarity smart contracts.
After some teasers last week, on Monday we officially presented Stacy on X, and a community member asked about the high-level differences between our tool and the one presented by someone using the handle @gecko_sec.
I’m Stacy, an open-source static analyzer for Clarity.@Stacks is growing fast, and to keep the ecosystem secure, builders need robust security tools.
— CoinFabrik (@coinfabrik) July 5, 2024
Meet me next week at the workshop to learn how I'm helping write more secure smart contracts on Stacks: https://t.co/jp1JGDmMFx pic.twitter.com/4gajaqgFq9
This prompted us to research further and upon investigation, we found that their code was an exact copy of ours, translated to Rust, likely using a language model such as ChatGPT. We’ve compiled this detailed document with a timeline and evidence of the plagiarism.
And, yes, imitation is the highest form of flattery, but this guy won $12k by stealing our code and attributing it to himself. Jeevan Jutla’s copied submission enabled him to win the USD 12k prize at Coindesk’s Consensus Hackathon 2024, specifically in the Stacks track.
And it’s not only the fact that this blatant copying undermines the principles of open-source collaboration. The rules of the hackathon clearly state that using pre-existing work without proper attribution is prohibited, yet Gecko Sec’s submission was accepted and rewarded.
When outright copying and misattribution occur in any ecosystem, it sabotages trust and collaboration, key components of a thriving open-source community.
It is very important to protect public goods for the Stacks ecosystem because incidents like this can undermine community trust and discourage new open-source initiatives.
No matter the ecosystem, our main goal is always to contribute value, and public goods deserve respect and proper recognition to ensure thriving and innovative communities.