Which is also why I find it unlikely that the compromise was on my side. For example:


I don't see how a login sent using GET should ever be considered secure - someone looking over your shoulder, being saved in browser history, to name a few.
There is no two factor authentication of any kind either.

Now I'm not directly accusing Mt. Gox of being "at fault" here, don't get me wrong, but I think it is reasonable to consider the issue being on Mt. Gox' side as well.

This actually sounds like a really good idea.
I am not sure however if it's possible to just "read out the balance" from all wallet.dats in a folder, and an additional issue would be that if the computer of said other person was somehow infected, it could just steal all your wallet.dat files. It would probably be a good idea to have these external wallets be encrypted by default so that even if someone steals all the wallets, they can't do anything with it.

Another good addition would be to automatically make a local (encrypted) copy of every external wallet you create on an external device (such as a USB drive) so that even if you lose your USB drive, or said other person wipes the files from it, you don't lose the bitcoins.

As for the second idea, I am not sure how feasible it is.

I'm aware of how malware works, thank you. My bitcoins in my wallet have already been moved to a different machine, and seeing as this is not the machine I usually work on (I usually use my Windows machine for websites testing purposes only) the system being compromised is really not that big of an issue.

Regarding "hiding until there are enough coins" - you do realize the theft was from a Mt. Gox account and not from a wallet file? Did you even completely read my post?

KeePass (and other password safes) are actually one of the few proper methods to manage randomly generated passwords. You can't just "grab someones passwords".

Yes, I was thinking about this too - maybe a confirmation e-mail for every account withdrawal, whether in BTC or USD?

I've had the exact same happen to me.

A few days ago I exchanged 10BTC for USD, and when I wanted to withdraw it to my bank account I couldn't reach Mt. Gox anymore (either through Mt. Gox being DDoSed or my own IP getting attacked, not sure). When I was able to reach it again yesterday, I logged on and found that a few hours before that (I'm not sure of Mt. Gox' timezone) someone had converted the USD in my account back into BTC, and transfered it away.

Screenshot below:


My password was a KeePass-generated password of 20 randomly generated alphanumerical characters (mixed case). Needless to say the password has been changed.

I've done a full antivirus scan of my system which found nothing. I've also used various tools such as TCPView, Wireshark, and Security Task Manager (as well as the Windows Task Manager) to see if any suspicious services or processes were running, and it seems my system is clean. I'm not sure what happened here, but it seems unlikely that the issue was on my end.

I've submitted a ticket to Mt. Gox but haven't had a response yet.

Make your logo smaller

The reason this forum is so slow is because it is getting DDoSed.

If your Forumotion forum is going to get a similar amount of DDoS, Forumotion is just going to kick you off their service.

A button / logo to show that you accept Bitcoin donations. Using only HTML and CSS, no javascript (obviously) or images are used.
Displays as intended in Chrome and Firefox. Surprise surprise, doesn't work properly in IE9, but doesn't look too bad, although I have no clue why the border is not showing correctly.
Not tested in other browsers, all feedback is welcome
(I know the code is a bit messy, but it should work alright)

If you like it, of course donations are always welcome at 13m9CAKrYsdLKhqsNm4UkHHJqDM19F4oKv

EDIT: Obviously when placing the code on your site, you should edit the Bitcoin address to have your address

EDIT2: Forgot to set a background color for the white part of the "button", that is now fixed. If you have a non-white page background, please update your code

Screenshot of how it looks in various browsers:


Code:

I may work on some other buttons soon as well

I quickly scanned the text and while I think it's a reasonable proposition (as a voluntary system, obviously), condescendent wording like "Bitcoin for grown-ups" and "cut its hair and get a job" is... not very appropriate in my opinion, and actually rather offensive.

I am pretty sure that at least part of the text on TradeHill itself was also copied from elsewhere. The FAQ for example.

Now I don't know if someone mentioned it before.... but Tradehill looks an awful lot like Mt. Gox in terms of layout. As in, it looks as if the CSS was straight out copied and modified.

I can't answer everything completely, but I'll have a go:

About backing:
I believe fiat currencies do not have any actual backing either - and from what I know the only thing that ensures your money has any value is a government promise. Personally I'd rather rely on a currency that can not be influenced by one central entity, and whose integrity is guaranteed by an algorhithm.

How big the economy is:
Even if there is already a significant amount of bitcoins in circulation, the amount of other currencies/goods that has been "invested" in this collection of bitcoins is relatively small. If the value of a bitcoin would rise even more because more people want them (and thus more other commodities/currencies are "spent" on the entire bitcoin economy in total), the market would become bigger, even if the amount of bitcoins would stay the same. I'm not an economic so I won't be able to use the exact terminology for this, but I'm sure someone else will be able to correct me on that.

Who will buy bitcoins: http://www.bitcoincharts.com/ has a nice list of exchange rates for a lot of exchanges, you should be able to find a few exchanges there. You can always use things like OTC or even Google to find individuals that are willing to trade Bitcoins for other currencies/giftcards.

Volatile prices:
I believe that, the more "accepted" bitcoin is, the less volatile the price will be. Right now the market is small, and the fact that large groups of people can suddenly "discover" bitcoin at once, makes strong price fluctuations possible. When bitcoin gets bigger and the spikes in supply and/or demand will be smaller, the price will be less volatile. A useful method to determine pricing right now is for example using the Mt. Gox API to calculate bitcoin prices based off the current exchange rate (and actually defining your prices in dollars), and if you do not want to keep your income inside the bitcoin economy (for example, when you need USD to pay _your_ service provider when you are a hosting company) you could even sell it off on Mt. Gox directly against the current exchange rate.

Project falling apart:
I don't believe Bitcoin will ever completely fall apart. The only way for Bitcoin to die completely would be because of lack of interest, or because a better alternative is presented. Bitcoin does not rely on a single point of failure; Bitcoin is basically what people make of it. You don't need a central entity to arrange things for you, so if a large entity (say, Mt. Gox) disappears, someone or something else could simply take its place. If a better system is designed and people flock to that system instead, then it would be possible for the Bitcoin economy to fall apart - however, would that be any more likely than the dollar economy falling apart?

TL;DR Yes, it's (relatively) new, and it's experimental... but it is technically sound, and I do not believe it to be any more risky than using fiat currencies. In fact, I think the Bitcoin economy would be less risky, as there is not a single point of failure.

EDIT: Legality.
I believe that unless Bitcoin would be acknowledged by an organization like the IMF as being a "real" currency, trading Bitcoins would be considered barter in most jurisdictions. Barter tax may apply; you'll have to check local laws for that. However, to my knowledge there is nothing prohibiting Bitcoin, at least not in the "western world".

You didn't include my "coinbit"

A coinbit

Contacted www.jamendo.com

Yes, but that would partly be solved by accepting Ukash/PSC/Wallie/Creditcard, and giving out gift cards for various different stores plus potentially VCCs.

Have you considered accepting Ukash/PaySafeCard/Wallie/other prepaid vouchers in exchange for bitcoins? These are anonymous already (in general) and at least in Europe you can easily buy them in physical stores, although I am not sure about the US.

Maybe you could try a payment processor like Plimus or 2Checkout as a "middleman" between you and Paypal?

I'm going to contact Heihachi (that Russian hosting company) and ask them if they would accept BTC... currently they only do PSC, Ukash, WebMoney, and LR... so Bitcoin would probably be a good addition. I'll let you guys know.

I am currently working on setting up a Bitcoin payment gateway - a bit like PayPal works, with callbacks after a payment is completed - that should allow you to accept Bitcoin without really having to set up anything. There will be no transfer fees, and it should be done in a few days.
I believe someone else is also working on a payment gateway for Bitcoin, so you could just pick which you want to use. As far as I know, that gateway will also be available soon.

You could also set up your own system, but it would require you to run bitcoind on your server and use the API, as far as I know. I'm not sure if there are any guides on it (maybe someone else here will know).

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