It seems rather odd that the person who was hacked hasn't come forth and identified himself. 

My question is how the hacker KNEW the BitCoins were there? Was some other part of the system penetrated to identify users?

And again, my concern is less the BitCoins than the BitCoin mining operation. The BitCoin mining software uses a LOT of computer power for what we are told is a simple peer-to-peer cash system. Peer-to-peer file sharing does not require that kind of raw compute power. Neither does the level of digital signing the peer-to-peer cash system claims to use. There is a huge amount of computer power being expended on other unknown tasks. Some articles on just how BitCoins are awarded speak of "solving blocks", and therein lies my concern. As a part of the mining for BitCoins, a huge amount of computer power is being spent on cryptographic processing of these blocks, and nobody really knows for certain what is inside those blocks.

I am concerned that the BitCoin miner, along with passing BitCoins hither and yon, is actually a vast distributed code key-breaker. With enough raw computer power chained together in a few million BitCoin users, brute-force breaking of the keys of asymmetric encryption becomes achievable, even convenient. Great if the perps are reading Iran's government communications or congressional "Sexting" messages, but not so great if the target is banks, SSH transactions, https, utilities, your corporate server, and secured emails.

And just as BitCoin mining becomes widespread, all of a sudden, we are seeing hacking attacks against Sony, IMF, and other previously untouchable secure systems.

I do not think this is just coincidence.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/node/120392

I have written him giving him the URL for the UFASOFT miner link, which also provides the souce code for linux.  His site is well-traveled, and has significant traffic.  So the publicity is there, but of the negative sort.  

I spent the past month generating bitcoins (via pool) on an old system of mine with an ATI HD 4550.  While not up 24/7 that entire period of time, I was lucky to generate a full bitcoin in a little more than 30 days.  And considering today's prices, that's about $9.50. 

My hardware is certainly below the curve right now.  The power supply is only 430 watts, and the best I can expect out of that 4550 is about 7 MH/sec.

So I am proposing to issue stock at http://glbse.com/ to fund the acquisition of a new power supply and a better (best?) video card.  The rest of the system (os, hard drive, case, RAM, cpu) already exists, and is fairly modern -- E8200 cpu @2.66 GHz, 4 Gig RAM, Windows 7 Ultimate.  I'd generate bitcoins with this system to pay all investors.  Which pool(s) I point the system to will be decided by investors.

Should I aim big and try to fund a 6990 (758ish MH/sec around $700), or just a 6870 (275ish MH/sec around $190)?  How many video cards could be supported on a 1000 watt power supply? 

Any comments and/or suggestions appreciated.