This is why I think user education is important.  For a forum dealing with what is now colloquially called “crypto”, only an astonishly small proportion of users are crypto-savvy.

One of my first thoughts on seeing anything Bitcoin-related is, “Why isn’t public-key crypto used for all authentication?”  Of all places, the Bitcoin Forum should lead with that!  If you use Bitcoin, you should also use PGP, at the bare minimum; and the attention brought by Bitcoin makes for an opportunity to introduce more people to what old cypherpunks call “crypto”, resulting in more security all-around.


Password crackers would beg to differ.  Most passwords are laughably weak.  The way you said that, I am guessing that that includes your password, too.


In this context, that’s the wrong attitude; it encourages people to give up and keep their security weak.  Yes, everything out there is broken.  The state of the industry is horrific.  Most people have bad security because they don’t care about security, don’t put any effort into it—and won’t pay for it, which is why the state of the industry is horrific.

I think the NSA could probably hack me.  I’m sure that forum account thieves can’t.  So much for “anyone is vulnerable”.