Assuming you're in the U.S. with me, though I'm sure other various national and international law will state the same thing:

ToS, EULA and other such docs are intended to EXTEND the protections already afforded under law. Since your scanning and infecting of a system would likely violate any number of already existing laws (Computer Fraud & Abuse Act anyone?) the ToS, EULA etc. need not explicitly state that such things are unacceptable.

Yeah I thought I saw 10101.01 = LOLOLOL, 9000.11 = OVER NINE THOUSAND and the oh so obvious 1337=l33t in those, but then again I'm so steeped in memes at this point that I'm beginning to see them in places where in fact they are not...

Also, without any kind of logs from the IRC chat, others in the room may have actually been requesting those amounts in which case it wouldn't be "Tom" at fault for the juvenile memes, but rather random members of the bitcoin community - thus making a statement about our community which I would absolutely believe 

I often compare IT security measures to bulletproof body armor. There are many options and which you use is situational.

The average police officer, for example, is dealing with dumbass gang-bangers who can't even figure out that the gun works better when held vertically. To this end, most choose to wear a lightweight vest. Such a vest is useless against large caliber weapons or attackers capable of pulling off a headshot, but since that's not a good description of what the average officer faces, a lightweight vest offers adequate protection with minimal intrusion or discomfort.

S.W.A.T. teams, on the other hand, only get called in when such circumstances present themselves. To this end they wear heavier body armor, covering a larger portion of the body and protecting against larger munitions.

There are of course variants on this up to and including the tank (body armor so heavy it needs an engine) but it's not feasible for the average cop to drive around in a tank any more than it's feasible for the average cop to wear full body armor, riot gear, etc. all day every day.

Similarly, most of us don't need NSA/CIA/FBI/Other TLA organization level security since we're unlikely to face the same kind of threats they are. We don't each need to be as secure as a bank (or rather as secure as a bank SHOULD be) any more than we need a steel vault door in our living rooms, but we DO need protection. The internet is a hostile computing environment and so depending on your level of exposure to that hostile environment you need some level of protection.

On a meaningfully large scale, security is a non-trivial problem and requires non-trivial effort to solve, but for most folks the equivalent to a light bulletproof vest (virus, spyware, malware scanner and perhaps a firewall) will suffice.

Of course! Only the great leader of Best Korea is super-genius enough to create bitcoin! 

Infinitely recursing web of trust webring?

No, but as I recently learned when my fiancee's debit card was one of thousands skimmed at the Michael's craft store chain, ATM withdrawals are also reversible (that's how the scammers took the cash). The reversible nature of the transactions is the big stumbling point. The only way I can think to inject that kind of liquidity on the buy side is to simply take the risk of reversals, which isn't really acceptable.

Really tired of saying this people. Bitcoin itself has not been hacked. Bitcoin itself is still secure. If you obtained your coins, put them in a wallet.dat file and have some reasonable security/backups around that file, your coins are safe. What HAS been hacked is the infrastructure surrounding bitcoin. These statements are ridiculous and I'm tired of them - it's like saying the power company is at fault if you get a poorly manufactured light bulb.

Services that USE bitcoin have been hacked, which is their own fault for having such lax standards. Bitcoin itself is fine.

Edit: As for "deleting your file accidentally" that's like saying the dollar is insecure because you could inadvertently set it on fire. If you're stupid enough to take a lighter to a $100 bill, don't complain when it burns.

Heh, check out the top contributors list:

If you don't mind waiting on generated transactions, I'd mine Eligius. They're big enough to be pretty stable and I love the fact that they don't try to invade my privacy or over-think the concept. If a pool asks you for anything more than an address to receive your bitcoins, they've asked too much.

Back in my early tech support days I had a caller I'll never forget call me to ask how to "connectificate my thinkbook to da weefee"

It took several minutes just to figure out if she was in fact using a thinkpad or a macbook, and another several to figure out that "weefee" meant WiFi... As it turns out it was a macbook, so perhaps we should extend the cliche to "people who use whatever came with the computer" instead of specific products. I 100% guarantee you that woman bought the computer because it was shinier than the one next to it.

P.S. This isn't me spewing mac-hate, I've built my share of hackintoshes, this is me spewing stupid-noob-hate and that my friends is cross-platform

DNA testing also came about in the 80s, blossomed to full capability in the 90s and is used extensively today. Should we expect the average person to not understand that either? The world changes, sometimes fast sometimes slow, it's important for people of all ages to keep up with at least the most dramatic and important of those changes, or at least put in the effort. The correct answer for the computer illiterate is not "I don't know and I'm OK with that" - the correct answer is "I don't know, so maybe I should learn."

To make sure I'm 100% clear: I don't expect everyone to be a computer whiz, I'm questioning the societal attitude that allows them to simply not try.

Still, we have lost 3 TH/s since yesterday. No small amount of power...

This is a big societal issue that I honestly cannot believe we tolerate. Today computer literacy is every bit as important as... well... literacy!

People who can't read are ashamed of it, they hide the fact, they try to learn or fix the problem, make it better. There are programs with volunteers and donations to help people who can't read learn and parents recognize the importance of their children being able to read lest they be forced to choose between ditch-digging and the circus. Why do we tolerate computer illiteracy?

More than tolerate, some seem to think there is legitimately nothing wrong with it! I've heard countless folks from the generations before me say things like "oh I don't know anything about this computer stuff, I'll just leave that to you young folks"... NO! You need these skills to survive today! How do you function in any modern office environment without email, word processing, spreadsheets, databases etc. It should not be acceptable for your mother, father, friends, aunts, uncles, employees or employers to be computer illiterate, any more than you'd consider it acceptable for them to be unable to read, dress themselves, tie their own shoes, bathe and groom themselves... These are basic skills now, they're part of the toolkit for everyday life and I refuse to accept it as normal or reasonable for anyone to lack them.

Uncle Joe needs to go take a class at the community college, or better yet someone could start a massive non-profit and try to get computer literacy the sort of attention that reading literacy currently appreciates.

I understand that bitcoin is NOT simple mainstream stuff and I expect to have to explain it to the "Uncle Joes" of the world, but I shouldn't have to first explain how to use their browser, mouse, etc.

Full disclosure: I've spent far too many hours of my life working tech support, so this might just be bitter techie syndrome...

You can pay me with credit cards - I have a card swipe and a smartphone... Then again I'm doubting I'm a good representative for "average"

Whether you agree or disagree with the morals/ethics of pedophilia, there is one thing we can probably all agree upon: Child pornography is a lot rarer than the media/government/etc. want you to think it is. Imagine the fairly small percentage of folks that would be sexually attracted to a small child. Now imagine the subset of that group that would actually act upon those urges regardless of the potential for punishment. Now imagine the subset of THAT group that would tape or take pictures of the act. NOW imagine the subset of THAT group that would be brave/stupid enough to post it online.

If you visit the "wrong" parts of the internet (as I'm sure many bitcoiners do) it's not hard to see that there is certainly a market for this stuff, but there aren't exactly a lot of producers. Unfortunately these same "wrong" parts of the internet are bringing freedom to those who would not otherwise have it - folks in oppressive countries, folks circumventing media controls, etc. all rely on FreeNet, I2P, TOR and other networks largely misused by child pornographers.

Regardless of the moral or ethical stance you take on child abuse or pornography itself, it's not worth destroying or demonizing these bastions of free speech or violating the constitutional rights of an entire nation just to catch a tiny fraction of 1% of the populous. Child pornography is one of our government's favorite scare tactics. Few words conjure emotions as strong as "child pornography" or "terrorism" - and if they've got you thinking emotionally, you're no longer thinking rationally and are therefore easier to manipulate.

Yeah, great timing bitcoincharts. Thankfully there are alternatives but srsly. Maybe they should stick to doing their updates on weekends, when it's dead anyway.

Most likely inspired by: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog

Origin unknown although it is associated with both Aesop and the Panchatantra.

Quite true, redacted. Of course it could be that the service(s) are no longer running since the whole mess is offline right now anyway.

Edit: Ignore me, I'm just cranky because I'm on call tonight and I'm now up far later than I wanted to be helping people that I don't really want to help through things far too complicated for them to be doing, even with my guidance... Just another day in paradise

Very true, all the more reason to try to recover the wallet.dat quickly. If there IS still any balance, it should be transferred to a fresh wallet immediately. Balances and such can be worked out after the fact, we can deal with that craziness later, but if there is still money in that wallet it needs to be transferred ASAP.

It honestly worries me more that Mr. Williams apparently just sat there in shock for days instead of responding to the problem directly... If we're even talking to Mr. Williams at all...

I'm going to respectfully say that we all make mistakes but it's waaaaay too soon. You had a major breach not very long ago and maybe next year some time we can talk about growing from experience blah blah blah, but it's too fresh right now to criticize the security of others just yet.

As for "being made fun of" just be the bigger man. All you do by kicking MyBitcoin when they're down is prove you're no better than they are.