I just learned about a new "peer-to-peer currency" named Bitcoin. It also has a wiki.
It promises to be a currency that can be safely transferred over the internet with no central authority.
Sounds wonderful!
But I wonder if it's a hoax.
Has anyone used it to make a purchase?
Invested with it?
Heard of it?
You have a smiley there, and you're almost quoting one of those articles, but I hope you're not saying that tongue in cheek. There's some wisdom in your words. If bitcoins had no value, why would someone go to the effort of targeting them?
In fact, if I had thought it through, I should have been suspicious of them if no one was bothering to try to steal them. And, hey, no security is perfect, so there will be some thefts. The victim was storing them on Windows, for crying out loud!
Also, the possibility that someone had half a million dollars in bitcoins says an awful lot.
In fact, I'm starting to get more interested.
As for security there's almost a separate, more general, issue here. The second story you referenced said this:
There are two very instructive things in that sentence about security in general:
It targets Windows machines, and [*]It looks for people doing things the standard way.
The lessons, if not obvious, are
Don't use Windows (especially to protect your savings), and [*] Don't accept defaults or do things in predictable, standard ways.
This was interesting news, reminding us that all systems have strengths and weaknesses. There was a huge potential for people who purchased before the sell off to have lost a lot of money. This kind of thing could happen again, so be careful - a lesson learned.