I wonder why everybody assumes the hacker is outside Linode.
Isn't the most likely person to know of such security issues someone within the company? I didn't even know Bitcoinica was hosted there. Also, it reeks of sloppy admin password policy:
compromised credentials used by this intruder (quote directly from Linode!)
IMO, Linode is responsible, either by using the typical ridiculous internal security, or directly (admin, higher-up person, etc.). Anyone serious about their reputation would pay back what they likely took.
Also, their press release is a joke. "Only eight accounts were compromised," no mention that it happened to be exactly the accounts the thief needed.
It's the first thing i tought that morning when i read about all these hackings.
Someone noticed UNENCRYPTED wallet.dat, happily copy-pasted the privaye key and ta-dah, moved the BTC
And yup, it's probably one employer and not the whole company, of course the company is getting hurt by this, once more customers lose trust over cloud/VPS/thing-you-have-to-trust things
Funny thing, i tought about that months ago when i backuped my wallet.dat on varios email/skydrive etc services, and that's why i encrypted the file before uploading it.
And since BTC leave no traces, since there is no way to know who moved the btc... well, good luck for everything.
Of course Linode should repay the losses, after all they confirmed that something weird happened