any newbie reading this please keep your bitcoins seperated in many individual places in case one of your locations is compromised
...and make sure no one else has access to the places you stored your files in.
Obviously this is the dawn of a new age of cypto currency but if they ever expect bitcoin to become mainstream and not just somebody's hobby shouldn't all these issues be addressed by the software programmers of bitcoin. I mean do you really want to solve this problem? Well its easy. Let me outline the steps:
1. The bitcoin software needs to encrypt the wallet file. It read/writes to a wallet that always remains encrypted
2. If you really want bitcoin to go mainstream then it seems to me like incorporating a trading mechanism like mtgox directly into the software itself would seem wise. That way you don't need to rely on an ewallet system which can be compromised every time you need to convert currency.
Till these two problems are solved how can anyone rely upon bitcoin as a reliable and secure means of currency?
~J
The first problem confuses me a little, mostly because these attacks had absolutely nothing to do with anyones wallet file.
The second is just a terrible suggestion and goes against the very basic principles of bitcoin and what it's supposed to be.
Safer banking solutions would be great and they will no doubt come when bitcoin grows bigger but for now just calm down a little and look at what actually happened. These attacks happened due to a site (mt. gox) having security flaws and the attacks only affected accounts at that site. They had nothing to do with how bitcoin works as a currency.