There is a mistake in the Berners-Lee code that was sold at auction for $ 5.4 million

In the code video the angle brackets are wrong. This could be an animation software problem. And there are already those who are wondering if NFT is worth more now

(photo: Unsplash) Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist inventor of the World wide web, had sold a copy of the NFT (non-fungible token) of the source code written by him in 1989 for the considerable sum of 5.4 million dollars thanks to a Sotheby's auction. Not even two days later a small hitch has arisen. The code has errors that would not allow it to work.

This was discovered by Mikko Hypponen, a security researcher at IT security firm F-Secure. Hypponen was the first to notice on Twitter that the code that was displayed on the screen during the Sotheby's auction, and sold in the form of an animation, had the wrong angle brackets.

Hold on… the www source that Sotheby is auctioning? The angle brackets are wrong! They’ve been - yes - HTML encoded from "<>" to "<>". Lol. https://t.co/vb7clOETfU pic.twitter.com/kb1ugoPyok

- @mikko (@mikko) June 30, 2021



Hypponen noted in a 'interview that it is impossible that this error was present in the original browser code, otherwise it would not have worked. "The NFT is made up of multiple components and the code seems to fit everywhere, but the video seems to have all the special characters encoded," said the researcher. “Such code would not work and could not be compiled.”

Other developers have also suggested that the problem stems from the software that was used by Berners-Lee in collaboration with Sotheby's to pretend to type the code during the video 30 minutes.

Berners-Lee was criticized for entering the digital token market with internet source code when the auction was announced. The inventor of the World wide web defended himself in an interview with the Guardian, reiterating his support for an open network and explaining that the proceeds from the sale would go to support charitable causes.

“The web is just as free and open as it always has been, ”he said. “The web's core codes and protocols are royalty-free, just as they always have been. I don't sell the web, you won't have to start paying money to follow the links, "he clarified, if ever there was a need.

The sale of these copies of an open source code for 5.4 million of dollars, however, made many turn up their noses. The presence of errors in the source code could make someone shout scam. Not the BBC reporter who has already wondered if this peculiarity wouldn't even make NFT more valuable.


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Internet Nft globalData.fldTopic = "Internet, Nft"

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