Quote from: garethnelsonuk on June 29, 2011, 02:49:31 PM

Quote from: Horkabork on June 29, 2011, 02:18:40 PM

I'm getting sick of new threads about Mt. Gox, especially when there is no new conversation to be had. There should just be a subforum for each exchange.

Also, it's one thing to not trust Mt. Gox fully (which nobody should do, as good practice), it's another thing to make the terrible assumption that other exchanges are any safer, just because they haven't been hacked yet. That's like the ever-pervasive claim that Macs are really secure computers, when much of the security they have only comes from them being lesser targets.

OS X is based on a BSD kernel these days, which is provably more secure than the windows NT family of kernels and has been targeted with various attacks for literally decades.

I'm sorry. When I wrote that, I purposely chose my words carefully because I didn't want to make a windows or linux comparison. My poorly-established analogy was not about the OS wars, but that people shouldn't put their trust in the innate security of Macs and let their guards down. They shouldn't trust any OS without doing their own due diligence and keeping up their part of the equation in providing their own maximum security for the OS.

That said, I'm a three OS user so I'm not trying to piss on macs (thereby pissing on myself), just say that the prevalent thought among the ditzier users seems to be, "Oh I don't need to do anything for security. It's a mac! Tee hee!" I want you to imagine that the person saying that was frolicking through a field of tulips with a bunch of kittens trailing behind them. Relatedly, there's hasn't been much of an evolutionary arms race between mac malware and security products.

Windows, on the other hand, is like living in a ghetto neighborhood. Your house has been attemptedly robbed a few times and once someone mugged you on the way home from the 7-11, but you're doing your best to help yourself by putting bars on your windows, getting a dog, packing a gun, garaging your car, and starting a neighborhood watch. There's a crack den across the street, but rather than fix it up, the frustrated landlord just decided to burn it down and reinstall another house (Which seems to be becoming another crack den). Also, you've become a racist purely out of fear and mistrust, and you get all your packages delivered to your Dad's house so that they won't get stolen.

Macs are like living in close-gated communities with security guards, but where users tend to leave their doors unlocked, their windows open, and put notes on the door that they're on vacation and that UPS packages should be left on the back porch. They have alarm systems, but never seem to use them because they're "too complicated." Also, they wear sweater vests and the only dogs they might have are yippy little things with pink bows in their hair, acting more as decorative accessories than agents of security.

Linux, Unix and BSD operating systems are, I don't know, like living on a barge in the middle of the ocean, but where the user always wears camouflage, has built a custom sniper tower and extensive camera and alarm network, put up a high-voltage fence around the perimeter, and has trained sharks to patrol the nearby waters. This is not just one species of shark, but a variety because each has their own specialty. One, for example, is good at throwing knives. Also, the owner has a rottweiler that has been trained to bark commands to the sharks in the event that you might be indisposed during an attack. Otherwise, the house on the barge is identical to the suburban mac one.

Also, fuck it because it's my analogy, there's a harpoon gun because you never know when the whales are going to turn on us. They've been plotting for a while now, but it has been taking some time (Whales are very slow conversationalists). There is also a close-knit community of other barge-livers who share details of their paranoia, such as how you are a complete utter moron if you don't have a 7 year food supply, no less than 3 reverse osmosis water filters, and not just several crates of ammo stored with dessicants, but your own ammo press and materials. There's a subforum specifically for maintaining weapons in a saltwater environment. People have written extensive tutorials on how to train and feed their perimeter sharks. If you tell the community "Pfft. My barge isn't very safe. Barges suck. I can't seem to figure out how to grow a lawn, and this never was a problem in my windows house!" Then you'll get 15 different replies that insult you and your old ghetto windows house, but also giving detailed instructions on how to grow a barge lawn. One guy even posts pictures of an extensive hydroponic vegetable-growing operation and then everyone oohs and ahhs about how cool it is for the rest of the thread.

Okay. Where was I?

People aren't doing their own due diligence in checking out the security of these other exchanges. I don't mean by probing them, necessarily, but by asking the right questions. They are black holes. At least Camp BX did a security audit and seems to be open to community assistance. Mt. Gox, prior to the attack, had spent something like 2000 BTC in security bounties. But they've done a lousy job at communicating this and what else they might have done.

I don't know how anyone can make an assumption about the security of their money at any exchange without more information.