Hacks and thefts are mostly a good sign

[niko]

I understand that victims feel bitter about it, and they should - but let's try to cool off for a moment and take a disinterested and objective view at what thefts mean for Bitcoin.  Here are my observations:

- Hacking an exchange, preparing a long con job, running a Ponzi scheme - these are not trivial tasks. They require time, hard work, and sometime single-use tricks, which could all have been spent on other things and targets, unrelated to Bitcoin.

- Thefts indicate that bitcoins are already valuable, and can be easily and efficiently moved around the world and exchanged for goods, services, and other currencies.  These facts may be something members of this forum all too easily take for granted, but general public may still need to be convinced.

- Thefts indicate that at this moment Bitcoin offers significant level of anonymity.

- Absolutely all hacks/thefts/scams to date were based on social engineering, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and other mainstream technologies. Absolutely none of the hacks involved Bitcoin protocol itself in any way.

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[JeffK]

I like this kind of positive outlook on life. I've been in a similar situation - you see, last year I was recklesly playing with a chainsaw and hacked off my leg.

The upside? That's one less part of my body I can injure in the future!

[shockD]

Yup,

Bitcoin itself is just dandy and you bring up some good points. If it wasn't worth stealing, well, nobody would steal it All of the hacks so far have involved severe retardation on the part of the hackees. Survival of the fittest and all...

[illpoet]

i agree (although i'm still pissed about probably losing 3.5 btc but whatever).  Although it really does suck that we seem to be plagued with thieves it does show that overall the currency is valuable and has a future.  Its the same as when the trolls started showing up on sealswithclubs.eu lobby.  They annoyed the crap out of everyone but my point was they are a sign of growth.   Of course a thief is much worse than a troll and what happened on btc-e today is awful and my heart goes out to ppl who were burned for more serious amounts of money.  Same way with the bitcoinica fiasco, it really sucks that ppl have the capacity to stoop so low.  But big picture is that btc gets stronger.

[shockD]

i agree (although i'm still pissed about probably losing 3.5 btc but whatever).  Although it really does suck that we seem to be plagued with thieves it does show that overall the currency is valuable and has a future.  Its the same as when the trolls started showing up on sealswithclubs.eu lobby.  They annoyed the crap out of everyone but my point was they are a sign of growth.   Of course a thief is much worse than a troll and what happened on btc-e today is awful and my heart goes out to ppl who were burned for more serious amounts of money.  Same way with the bitcoinica fiasco, it really sucks that ppl have the capacity to stoop so low.  But big picture is that btc gets stronger.

Both bitcoinica and btc-e are (were) financial sites and on the surface looked sketchy as hell.  Go figure, there were holes in both. Anyone who is severely distressed by losses from either wasn't cautious and placed funds they couldn't lose in something that looked fucking crummy with a cursory examination. Survival of the fittest refers to those who put significant sums they couldn't afford to lose in either of these as well.

Get in/get out with your funds as quickly as you can and don't ever place more than you can afford to lose in some cheeseball btc exchange. That goes for *all* of them, there isn't a single one that's not cheesy as fuck yet.

Use your brains people. At this point, the people losing funds deserve it. 

[illpoet]

Yup,

Bitcoin itself is just dandy and you bring up some good points. If it wasn't worth stealing, well, nobody would steal it All of the hacks so far have involved severe retardation on the part of the hackees. Survival of the fittest and all...

i don't know about severe retardation of the hackees but it seems like the lesson is being taught over and over to keep your btc in your wallet.  I deserve to lose the 3.5 btc bc i should have known better.  That was the first thing i thought when i saw the exchange go crazy, if i deposit coins i will lose them.  But of course there's this platinum coin i've been coveting lately and if could sell 3 btc @ 55 each then i have it.  This is called being a mark.  All grifters rely on the weakness of greed.  

[shockD]

Yup,

Bitcoin itself is just dandy and you bring up some good points. If it wasn't worth stealing, well, nobody would steal it All of the hacks so far have involved severe retardation on the part of the hackees. Survival of the fittest and all...

i don't know about severe retardation of the hackees but it seems like the lesson is being taught over and over to keep your btc in your wallet.  I deserve to lose the 3.5 btc bc i should have known better.  That was the first thing i thought when i saw the exchange go crazy, if i deposit coins i will lose them.  But of course there's this platinum coin i've been coveting lately and if could sell 3 btc @ 55 each then i have it.  This is called being a mark.  All grifters rely on the weakness of greed.  

Well, to be fair, losing 3.5 btc probably didn't break you and was an easily calculated risk. That's kind of a "why the hell not" amount. That's not really what I'm talking about here. You sound like you knew the risk and didn't risk anything big. I don't see any need for chastising there

[btcprophet]

I like this kind of positive outlook on life. I've been in a similar situation - you see, last year I was recklesly playing with a chainsaw and hacked off my leg.

The upside? That's one less part of my body I can injure in the future!

JeffK, I like the cut of your jib. However a more apt metaphor to OPs point would be: last year I watched my neighbor recklessly play with a chainsaw and hack his leg off. The upside? I know not to play with a chainsaw recklessly (and I'm now sleeping with my neighbor's wife)!

[shockD]

I like this kind of positive outlook on life. I've been in a similar situation - you see, last year I was recklesly playing with a chainsaw and hacked off my leg.

The upside? That's one less part of my body I can injure in the future!

JeffK, I like the cut of your jib. However a more apt metaphor to OPs point would be: last year I watched my neighbor recklessly play with a chainsaw and hack his leg off. The upside? I know not to play with a chainsaw recklessly (and I'm now sleeping with my neighbor's wife)!

Speaking of jibs, yours isn't so shabby.

[DarkEmi]

i agree (although i'm still pissed about probably losing 3.5 btc but whatever).  Although it really does suck that we seem to be plagued with thieves it does show that overall the currency is valuable and has a future.  Its the same as when the trolls started showing up on sealswithclubs.eu lobby.  They annoyed the crap out of everyone but my point was they are a sign of growth.   Of course a thief is much worse than a troll and what happened on btc-e today is awful and my heart goes out to ppl who were burned for more serious amounts of money.  Same way with the bitcoinica fiasco, it really sucks that ppl have the capacity to stoop so low.  But big picture is that btc gets stronger.

Both bitcoinica and btc-e are (were) financial sites and on the surface looked sketchy as hell.  Go figure, there were holes in both. Anyone who is severely distressed by losses from either wasn't cautious and placed funds they couldn't lose in something that looked fucking crummy with a cursory examination. Survival of the fittest refers to those who put significant sums they couldn't afford to lose in either of these as well.

Bitcoinica seemed all but crummy. Sorry, it was manager by a team of "security expert", had a fund supporting it, and a well know community member (zhou) behind it.

The business model was sound as well, and I spent hours doing my researchs.

Basically if someone should be crazy to put money in such a venture then there is 0 safe bitcoin company.
If all bitcoin is used for is under the matress home stash and you need 1000 hours code review before putting money anywhere then I am not sure about how usefull it is.

Of course one of problem is "trusted" member of the community marketing themselves as security experts when obviously they are not and as such they should be exposed so they dont run this joke again

[szuetam]

agree

[unclescrooge]

+1

[Stardust]

It's like knocking over an anthill. Every new generation gets stronger, the anthill gets redesigned, made better.

[cypherdoc]

Great thread. 

[commonancestor]

- Thefts indicate that bitcoins are already valuable...

Thefts also indicate that people will not bring bitcoin matters to police and courts, and if they do they will be shrugged off maybe.

[Lethos]

I like that you are thinking positive, but it's only a good sign if those who run exchanges (where most of the big loses occur), actually learn from either their mistakes, or the mistakes of others and improve security.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of learning going on in improving security, some are however getting better at accepting they messed up and covering the losses themselves. Sometimes it's just too big to cover and that is why improving security is the only way forward.

The thefts themselves might not directly have a evidence to show a weakness in the bitcoin protocol, but do you really think the masses that still don't know what bitcoin yet will understand or believe that. It's bad publicity for bitcoin regardless and it hurts our image even if it was caused by individual business's whom didn't do the security on their site to the highest standard.

Their is already a growing percentage of this community whom don't know what exchanges they can even trust and that effects us all.

[ElectricMucus]

No they are not a good sign. All you can say it doesn't matter that much but good? Certainly not.

It is even a very bad sign if you are into bitcoin for anything other than just plain investment. The general public is deterred by these kind of things.
Bitcoin needs the general public to build a stable economy behind it. So in the long run it will even hurt people "just investing".

[Mike Jones]

I like this kind of positive outlook on life. I've been in a similar situation - you see, last year I was recklesly playing with a chainsaw and hacked off my leg.

The upside? That's one less part of my body I can injure in the future!

Do you believe in evolution, son?

[unclemantis]

At times I wish I was clever and bold enough to pull of a heist. But then my mother's voice keeps going off in my head. "You are better than that!"

[Vod]

At times I wish I was clever and bold enough to pull of a heist. But then my mother's voice keeps going off in my head. "You are better than that!"

I dunno... $200,000USD (the current amount still taken by ZT) can buy a LOT of therapy.